Sixteen
It’s a bad dream
That you’re not with me
The nightshade envy
Leaves its marks
‘Nightmare’ from Dreamers
Later that day, Ollie’s response left me confused.
Sorry, I completely forgot! I was going to Scott’s birthday bash – he wanted to get a McDonald’s breakfast to start his 18th lol. Shame about the tickets, better luck next time!
There’s a few things my overthinking brain reads into.
One: Ollie’s friends now have names. Scott. Ollie’s mentioned friends before in passing, but it’s now moved from ‘a friend’ to an actual name, as if Scott is part of my life too.
Two: It’s an 18th birthday. I can’t have a go at him for not trying for tickets instead of going to an 18th birthday. He’ll tell me how hard it is to make friends in upper sixth, at a new school. Although it would have been good if he had remembered yesterday.
Three: Shame about the tickets. It doesn’t even come close to the magnitude of devastation I am feeling about not going to see Rose Conrad. Which he knows I must be feeling.
But I don’t want to upset him by bringing this up. I don’t want to push him away. So instead I decide not to reply and get through my emotions by going for a run.
I don’t run frequently, but when I do, it feels like the most freeing thing in the world.
I’m turning all my anger and sadness into a pure physical feat, while Rose Conrad blasts out of my headphones.
By the end I’m pelting home at full force.
I’m so caught up in my head I run straight into Ty as he heads out of his house.
Literally. I faceplant his chest and we both go stepping backwards onto his front lawn, and then down . . . down . . . down.
And now I’m lying on top of him on the cool autumn grass.
I freeze, staring right into his eyes. My mind goes completely blank.
‘Mind getting up?’ he says, with a small smile.
I snap back to reality, and jump off him.
‘You know, I thought we were starting to get along better. But I didn’t realise you literally wanted to knock me off my feet,’ he drawls, standing up after me.
‘This is an accident,’ I hiss.
‘Well, an apology would be nice then,’ he says, smirking at me.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ I say, my voice increasing in volume. ‘I am having a terrible day as it is.’
‘You didn’t get Rose Conrad tickets,’ he states. ‘Even with your army of people trying?’
I nod.
‘That sucks,’ he says, and he looks like he means it.
I sigh, shaking loose the tension I feel inside of me.
‘How about you?’ I say.
He shakes his head. No.
I’m glad it’s not only me who didn’t get the tickets.
‘Is that all you’re sad about?’ he says.
I inhale sharply. ‘How do you know? That I’m not just sad at the tickets?’
‘Because you look hella mad, rather than devastated. Really pulling out your Olympic sprinter for those last few hundred metres, I saw you fly down here.’
I smile and shake my head. ‘I am devastated, and kind of mad too. My best friend let me down today. He was meant to try for tickets for me . . . and didn’t.’
‘He,’ he says, crinkling his forehead. ‘So not the Black girl in the dungarees or the blonde, hippy one.’
‘What a way to describe them,’ I say, letting myself smile at him. ‘You got all of that from looking out of the window?’
‘They always look like they have your back, for sure,’ he says.
He looks down at the ground. ‘I still haven’t made many friends here.
Being homeschooled, moving to a new city, a new country, there’s not much opportunity.
’ He gives a small laugh. ‘You feel like my closest friend, Writer, and half the time we’re hating each other’s guts. ’
I feel a wave of sympathy towards him. ‘That’s only half the time.
’ We both laugh. I hesitate, then say, ‘It’s the opposite with Ollie, he’s made all these new friends and is forgetting about me.
I feel . . . I feel like I’m being left behind.
’ Now I’m not looking at him, this choking feeling rising in my chest. ‘But it’s fine.
’ I say, forcing myself to believe it, like I always do.
Ty catches my eye. ‘Is it?’ he says. He steps forwards. ‘You know it’s okay not to be okay? I was devastated when my parents told me we were going to move here. And I made it known.’
‘I’m not like that,’ I say, wringing my hands. ‘I don’t want to be a pain to anyone. I don’t like the confrontation.’
‘So you won’t tell your friend he let you down? Because you don’t want to be a pain?’
‘I . . . I feel there’s a lot of pressure on me to be good, you know? A good daughter, a good friend, a good person. And being good sometimes means putting others in front of yourself.’
‘Sounds tiring,’ he says.
‘Don’t you care? About what others think?’
Ty shrugs. ‘To an extent, but not at a cost to myself.’ He hesitates. ‘And maybe I care too much about what Paul thinks.’
‘Who’s Paul?’
‘My dad,’ he says with a small smile. ‘Not that I call him Paul to his face.’
‘Why do you care what your dad thinks?’
He scrapes the toe of his shoe on the ground. ‘I don’t know. Because it’s so hard to impress him? Because he says he’s given us so much, we should make the most of it. I don’t know, but whatever his standard is, I don’t feel like I’m meeting it.’ His voice breaks at the end.
‘Has something happened?’ I say.
‘We’re arguing about college, whether I stay here or go back to the US.’
‘What do you want to do?’ I say.
‘I don’t want to leave Mom or Daze,’ he says.
‘So I want to stay here. And it’s not like I had a load of friends back home.
I want to try from scratch here. And for all the complaining I did about Croydon’ I laugh at that ‘after my trip around this last week, I realised it’s not so bad. There’s more to it than I thought.’
‘I liked your photos,’ I say. ‘Thanks for sending them to me.’
‘Well, you’re the person who inspired me to go explore. I loved your “Hometown Glory” article, by the way. Why was your name not on it? I knew it was you because you used the same envelope I sent my photos in.’
‘I’m anonymous . . . It lets me be more myself.’
‘Anonymity is cool, you can start out like this and have a grand reveal later. And your article was really good.’
‘It’s nothing on your photos. They were really something! I actually have no idea how you managed to make some crappy graffiti look interesting.’
‘Hey, they don’t call it street art for nothing!’
I smile at him. ‘Or maybe you’re the artist.’
He looks away, with a small smile. ‘And London itself – well, I still haven’t explored there yet.
I want to try taking photos in central London.
I bet it’s beautiful. When I was walking around Croydon, I was thinking there’s so much of the world I haven’t seen yet.
Why would I want to go all the way back to California, to be miles away from my family?
But Paul thinks it’s better if I go back home for college.
It’s why I think I lashed out so much about the place.
Because, y’know . . . what Paul says, normally goes. ’
‘Sounds tough,’ I say. Ty’s angry persona, his walls, it’s starting to make sense a bit more now. If you feel like you’re constantly on guard at home, anyone would be like that.
‘Anyway, we were talking about your friend problem, not mine.’
‘It’s all right, there’s not much to talk about anyway.’ I shrug.
‘You know, Writer, you aren’t that bad when you’re being real.’
‘And you’re not so bad when you’re not being an arse.’