TUESDAY, APRIL 4
TH
I pretended I was going to school this morning. I’ve never done this before, but I was feeling too shaky and weird to go in. I left without speaking to Mum. I waited on the other side of the road from our house, not knowing what I was doing. It was warm, and little yellow flowers are poking through the scratches of earth by the straggly trees on our road. I could smell blossoms and hear birds singing. I was dizzy with panic, and I wasn’t really sure what I planned to do with the day. Luckily Mum came out after a while.
I wondered where she was going, but when I got inside, there was a note in case she got back later than me saying she planned to go food shopping and clothes shopping and then over to Highgate church.
Indoors, I shut out the liveliness of spring. I thought it would be really quiet, but houses without people in them aren’t quiet; they’re more creaking and breathy, like they have personalities of their own. I wondered what sort of personality our house has—sort of melancholy and lost, I’d think. The wooden floor varnished by Mum creaked as I brushed past the dresser with the old phone on it (so old it has a dial). The mirror reflected me walking past, and I was shocked at my pale, wrecked appearance. I fingered the big dark circles under my eyes. The hanging plants over the door to the living room needed watering, but I didn’t get the watering can. Instead I stood looking at all the books in there, the paintings on the wall that Mum did years ago. I tried to recall when it was that she gave up painting. I remembered then that she used to play the saxophone when I was little; she used to play and Emily and I would mock her and beg her to stop. And she did stop at some point. I couldn’t remember when I’d last heard her play. If I’d known it was the last time, I’d have begged her to play on.
I climbed the stairs. I stopped at Emily’s door, pushed it open, looked at her things laid out like they always had been. I fell to my knees, this sound coming out of me:
the howl of a wounded animal. I clutched my stomach and doubled over. The pain did not go away. I could not stop crying.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5
TH
Ms. Bloxam, all sweaty with her hair falling around her chubby face, lumbered up to me at break today and said OUT OF THE BLUE, “How are you dealing with the whole thing?”
She said “the whole thing” like it was a
thing
under the bed. Weird word
thing
. All words are weird if you keep using them too much.
Weird
is a weird word.
Considering Ms. Bloxam usually looks like she’s about to have a heart attack and has a bulgy, googly-eyed thing going on, she actually looked SO sympathetic, I couldn’t believe it. I felt like crying and then I felt like running out of the room or throwing up, but I just stood there and nodded.
She said, “Are you
okay
?” She has really long red nails that she must spend ages on every few days, maybe even paying for manicures, despite the fact the rest of her looks swollen and awful. Her expensive perfume wafted over me. I looked at her fingernails and then back up at her face, thinking I was going to tell her that I wasn’t okay, not really.
She was glancing at the clock. She was obviously too
busy to hear how I really felt. I said, “I’m fine.”
She nodded and said, “You’re doing well.” Then she went out of the room, and I stood there, shaking. I went into the bathroom and tried to calm down. I thought I was going to throw up but I didn’t in the end.
I could imagine Ms. Bloxam in the staff room having a cup of tea and a doughnut, thinking she’d been good to me and feeling all pleased with herself. But she didn’t do anything, not really. Then I felt bad for having such mean thoughts; she’d only been trying.
THURSDAY, APRIL 6
TH
Oh my God. Lucy Haywood’s dad, Mark, had a heart attack. He was playing squash, and he just keeled over. Mum and I are going to the hospital now to see if he’s okay. He’s not dead but it sounds pretty bad. If I was sure there was a God, I’d have this to say to Him right now: “STOP MESSING EVERYTHING UP FOR EVERYONE!”
Mum let me miss school—she didn’t know it was the second time this week—and spend the day at the hospital. Normally she wouldn’t, but—and she said this—considering everything that’s happened to us and how supportive the Haywoods have been, we might want to be there for them. This morning the doctors really thought Mark wouldn’t make it, and then there was a long operation. We spent all
day bringing them tea. Mum held Katherine’s hand.
Mum was so supportive and nice. Like a mum. And we didn’t mention the most recent fight we’d had or anything. I brought her two cups of coffee, and she smiled and said, “Thank you,” and she looked like herself. Then FINALLY the doctor came out and said Katherine and Lucy and the twins could go and see Mark. Mum stepped back and—no one saw except me—she had this look on her face like someone had put something sharp against her throat: she winced. I wasn’t sure if she was happy or sad. The worst thing is that I knew exactly how she felt.
Katherine and everyone went into Mark’s room. Mum and I sat in the corridor in
total
silence. Horrible. Then Lucy came out a while later and said her dad was talking, and she was all excited. She went straight back in. It was pretty obvious we didn’t need to be there anymore. I thought about them all in the room together as a family, and I felt like Mum and I were the loneliest people on the planet.
If something bad had happened to them, like if Mark had become worse, then we might not have felt so lonely at the hospital. But then Mark would be dead, which would be awful. God, I don’t even know what I’m trying to write.
I was thinking in the car on the way home about a family holiday we all took. It must have been ten years ago, because I was really young. I think it was the year we went to France. But anyway, we were by a lake, and it was really
hot. Mark and Katherine are there in the memory with Lucy and the baby twins, obviously. Mark is throwing a ball up and catching it. I can see the ball, a red ball, against the blue sky, just hanging there for that extra beat before it starts to fall to Mark’s waiting hands.
I do want him to get better. I want him to get out of the hospital.
FRIDAY, APRIL 7
TH
School. Horrible. When I walked through the main doors, my heart was beating so fast it scared me. I spent all of morning break feeling panicky. Rosa-Leigh was away sick. Megan and Abigail were doing some project together, so they weren’t around. I ended up having to talk to Zara, and neither of us could think of anything to say, so I told her all about Mark’s heart attack. She tried really hard to look interested.
Then, during lunch break, ABIGAIL came over to me.
I could tell she was standing next to me even without looking up. She coughed and said, “Hey, how are you?”
“Why do you care?”
“Because we’re friends.”
I looked straight at her, completely confused. After the fight we had, I didn’t think we’d ever make up. I’m not sure I even want to be friends with her anyway. She wasn’t looking straight back at me, more off to one side, and she shifted foot to foot.
She said, “I heard about Mark Haywood from Zara. It’s really sad. How’s he doing?” She knows the Haywoods because she’s met them at our house before.
I suddenly realized she was only coming to make up because she felt bad for me. A sympathy apology, not a real one. I’ve never felt so distant from her—even when we were screaming at each other it wasn’t this bad.
I said, “He’s fine. You don’t have to worry.” I couldn’t help remembering all the horrible things she’d said when we fought, and how she read out my apology letter, and how she flung herself at Dan.
“Good. I’m glad,” she said.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.”
She leaned over suddenly and gave me a hug like everything was okay. She felt really bony, a bit like a bird. She asked me to come and sit with everyone, which I did, then she started to go on about her and Dan. I got all shaky because I hated her so much again, even though she doesn’t
know I like him. I made my excuses, which Abigail hardly noticed, she was so wrapped up in
Dan this
,
Dan that
, and left the table to wander outside on my own. I know I haven’t heard from Dan in ages and he’s seeing Abigail and I should just get over him, but there is just something there I can’t stop thinking about. I’m an idiot.
Because it was sunny all day, I thought the winter might have finally melted away, but as I was leaving school, it got really cold and I half froze to death waiting for the bus. When I got home, I wrote a prose poem about the word
death
. I guess that was the mood I was in.
Death
—inky blue, she gives in to you, she takes you home and away from home and in the dark tunnel there she waits, lonely hot, like fire, like waste, like the sticky smell of rubbish in the heat and there’s no end to her waiting, her patience, her simple, easy smile, and she takes your hand and leads you away from me and I can’t stop her, not this death, not this woman waiting in the darkness like a dancer with veils, revealing nothing, she takes you slowly and then faster, and the ache of death is nothing compared to the smell of rubbish in the heat.
SUNDAY, APRIL 9
TH
The weekend slid by like mud.
MONDAY, APRIL 10
TH
The Haywoods called early this morning to tell us that Mark is doing much better. He might even get to go home soon. I felt lots calmer when I heard. At lunch at school everyone was in the cafeteria because it was raining. Abigail was being okay, although things are still weird between us. Zara was making everyone laugh. Even Megan wasn’t being too bad. Kalila was sitting with us, and we were all talking and it was really cool for once.
Megan suggested we play a game. She said we should each take a sheet of paper and write our name along the top. Our name would be passed around and everyone else could write whatever she wanted about that person. Secretly.
No one really wanted to do it, but we were curious, too—you could tell because everyone sat a little straighter, leaning forward. Abigail wrote down her name, then handed her sheet to Megan and said, “Let’s do it. There’s nothing else to do.”
I wrote my name, so did Kalila, Yasmin, and Zara. Rosa-Leigh jumped up and went to sit with some other girls. I wish now that I’d done the same thing.
Abigail said, “Get writing,” to everyone. I wrote on Abigail’s that she could be the most amazing person but she’s very unpredictable and could be mean when she didn’t even realize it. And bossy.
Here’s what everyone wrote about me, and before the
statement, who I think wrote it. The list makes me feel HORRIBLE.
Yasmin:
I like Sophie, but sometimes she’s a bit emotional, which is under standable but hard to deal with.
Zara:
She is clever and sweet but quite clingy.
Kalila:
She is funny and lively and good at English. She is perhaps too easily led by everyone else’s opinions. She gets sad sometimes. I’d like to know her better.
Abigail (and this is the WORST):
Sophie thinks she’s better than everyone. She thinks she’s the most intelligent person in the world and also that she knows more about real life than everyone else. She’s judgmental. She is self-obsessed, and she cries too much. She’s much more uptight than she used to be, which I know isn’t her fault. When she isn’t in a bad mood, she’s good fun to be with.
Megan:
I think she’s a bit boring but all right. She never wants to do fun stuff and gets all worried when the rest of us do. She’s hard to get along with and VERY moody. Emotional roller-coaster!
The bell rang. I sat with the words from that sheet of paper burning a hole in my head all afternoon. Rosa-Leigh wasn’t very sympathetic when I told her on the bus that I was really hurt by some of the things that people wrote. She said, “Don’t ever ask someone else what they think of you.
You’ll never hear what you want to hear.”
I said, “How would you know?”
“It’s just how it is.” She told me to tear up the sheet of paper and forget about it.
The whole thing makes me wonder how it is that I can see myself one way and everyone else can see something else. I NEVER thought I was judgmental. And I don’t really think of myself as too emotional, or at least I didn’t. I think I’ve had a lot of bad stuff happen recently. When Emily was around, I was different, I’m sure. Happier. I wish I hadn’t played the stupid game.
TUESDAY, APRIL 11
TH
I can’t face going to school. I have to go: we have a big talk today about our future. I always tune out of those sorts of talks. As if I care about the future. As if any of that matters. It’s the last day of term before the Easter holiday, but I just can’t face it.
I told Mum I was too sick to go in. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t even question me. She shrugged and said she’d make me scrambled eggs on toast, which she brought to me with tomatoes cut up, how I like them. I was amazed she remembered. She pottered around downstairs and didn’t seem to mind that I watched TV nearly all day. A couple of times she looked like she might come and
sit next to me, but I glared at her, so she stayed away. I thought about writing a poem, but there were no words in my head.
Rosa-Leigh just called to see if I was okay. I told her I had the flu. We chatted for a bit, and I found myself complaining about Mum wanting me to meet her guy friend, even though, since our fight and Mark’s heart attack, there’s been no mention again of him coming around. I guess it’s been on my mind. Rosa-Leigh went very quiet.
“What? I can’t handle Mum doing this to me,” I said.
“Well, what if your mom needs a friend right now?” Rosa-Leigh said softly, like she didn’t want to upset me but she couldn’t stop herself asking.
“What about me?” I said, hearing that I was being selfish.
“Maybe she needs someone to help her through.”
“I don’t think you should defend her.”
There was an awkward pause. “Okay,” said Rosa-Leigh. Then she changed the subject. She said, “Abigail asked me to her place for that party on Friday.”
“Another party?”
She said, “Want to come with me?”
“I can’t,” I lied. “My mum’s calling; I have to go.” I got off the phone feeling weird. I could totally go to the party. I haven’t got anything to do on Friday. But Abigail hasn’t asked me, even though we’re supposed to be friends again.
Sometimes I wish I were a thousand miles away.
Somewhere different. With a different life and a different mum and a family like the Haywoods or Rosa-Leigh’s family. I’m going to have a shower and NOT THINK ABOUT ANY OF THIS EVER AGAIN.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12
TH
I sat on the roof tonight, listening to the radio. It was warm enough that I needed only a thin jumper. Spring has eroded winter, and soon it will be summer. Sitting up there, I found it wasn’t long before I thought about summer last year. I thought about the night Emily eventually got home for the summer.
I remembered Mum and I had been waiting for hours. We sat watching day turn into darkness, pretending to be interested in the TV. At one point Mum said, “Sophie, stop drumming your fingers on the table.” A bit later she said, “Surely you should have something better to do,” but she was being grumpy only because Emily was late.
I watched out the window. After a while I went to get a book. Mum asked me what I was reading, and she seemed like she genuinely wanted to know, but I ignored her. When Emily did arrive, we flung ourselves into her arms, and we were so busy hugging her and helping her with her bags and putting dinner back on the table, that the long wait was almost forgotten.
Afterward I wished I could have every minute of that long evening all over again. Waiting for Emily was so much
better, it turned out, than not waiting for her.
Emily kicked off her red slip-on shoes. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, showing off moonstone earrings. Her dress, funky and short, had red and silver swirls all over. I looked down at my own jeans. I could never wear a dress like that. Emily stroked Fluffy, who purred with delight, then swept into the kitchen to her plate of food.
We sat with her while she talked about her courses and this job she’d been doing since her classes finished: helping people in the community paint and draw their painful experiences. She always had jobs where she did good things for others: working at an old people’s home when she was younger, spending some of her weekends volunteering at a center for learning-disabled kids. I’d seen Emily stop in the street to give a homeless person a sandwich she’d bought for herself.
I watched her talking, her mouth moving quickly, her hands leaping. She told us that she had a new boyfriend, and I wondered if I’d met him. I’d gone to Leeds twice to stay in her house there: a huge place full of people who had colorful bedrooms and who always seemed to be coming in or going out. One of them wanted to be a pilot; another wanted to work in TV. I wondered if her new boyfriend was the guy who’d had the downstairs bedroom—a well-built, classically good-looking guy who’d stared at Emily every time she spoke.
As soon as Emily had finished—she ate only half the pasta and none of the salad because she was talking so much,
twirling her fork and then pushing the plate to one side—she went to get something to show us. She came back to the kitchen with a large rucksack and opened it ceremoniously on the cork floor. She pulled a couple of ordinary tree branches—well, more like large twigs—from inside and set them on the table. I picked up her plate, scraped the remains into the bin, and put the plate in the dishwasher. Mum made us all a cup of tea. Emily told us that the branches were going to be a family tree—a project she was making. From each branch she would hang the faces of our family printed onto leaves.
Mum told us she had an old album with a family tree inscribed on the front page. She went to get it. While she was gone, Emily winked at me and put her hand on my forearm. She asked me how I was.
“Fine. Happy it’s summer,” I said. I wanted to say so many things, but I was suddenly shy of her because we hadn’t spoken that much while she was at Leeds. I looked away and then back, willing myself to talk.
She leaned forward to say something, but then her mobile rang, and she stopped whatever she was saying to answer it. She spoke softly. I listened, trying to work out who it was. Her voice sounded lighter when she talked to her friends than when she talked to us. She sounded like a stranger. She got off the phone and sat back down. I thought now would be the chance to chat with her alone, but Mum came in and the moment was lost.
Mum was showing Emily the names of long dead family members. I looked out the window and wished there were stars to count. The light pollution in London meant I could rarely see stars. Light pollution and clouds. I felt suddenly lonely and tuned back into the conversation. Emily wondered if withered leaves could represent the dead, like Dad. It seemed morbid to me.
Mum switched off the lamps and lit the candles. I watched the little flames dance. It was nice having Emily home. I had missed all the noise and excitement and drama she brought, the quiet winks she sent in my direction when Mum gave me a hard time, the way she knew me better than anyone in the world did.
Emily and Mum talked on. I watched the candles burning low, the shapes made by the shadows. As the last flame began to flicker, Mum told us it was time for bed.
Emily agreed with her. She was tired; she’d been out late the night before with friends. I was jealous of those people who got to spend time with her instead of me. And disappointed. I wanted to carry on talking to my big sister alone. Mum offered us hot chocolate. She normally never had time to make me hot chocolate, and now I almost said no out of spite but I didn’t. Mum made us a cup each, and I took mine to bed. I heard Emily answer her mobile in the room next to me and chatter away to someone deep into the night. I fell asleep to the sound of her voice.
I wish I could hear it again.