Forty-Two
Hey it’s me, calling up
To say I’m sorry
I’ve tried to get through
A hundred times
‘A Hundred and One’ from Dreamers
It’s been nearly a week since the day my life blew up. Or I turned eighteen. However you want to see it. Normally on a Thursday I would be excited to see the reaction to my article. But today there won’t be one.
Kira is still not talking to me, despite me reaching out and trying to apologise to her. The Neapolitan group chat is a ghost town. I’ve told her I don’t even mind that she outed me out as the Secret Sender. But I’ve got no reply.
I focus on showing Mum I’m sorry. She can’t give me the silent treatment like Kira, but she’s noticeably frosty. I don’t remember her ever being this angry with me before.
‘I’ll forgive you eventually,’ says Mum, as I scrub the hob. ‘Seeing as you’re my flesh and blood, which does mean more than material possessions.’
‘Can we cut to forgiving me now?’ I say, turning to face her, and I see a glimmer of a smile pass across her face.
‘Patience is a virtue,’ says Mum. ‘Much like truthfulness.’
‘And what does cleaning the hob come under?’
‘Penance for your sins.’
‘When did you get all religious?’
‘When did you get all deceiving?’
‘Point taken,’ I say, returning to my scrubbing. Mum doesn’t believe in enforced punishment, so I asked her what she would like me to do to make it up to her.
She came back with a very long list.
At least this way, she can see I’m sorry. I wish I could do the same to show Kira.
***
The next day, Faye hands me a note at school.
It’s my last day at school before I start work experience on Monday.
I’m in the library, doing some revision.
I didn’t want to go to the common room and have people whisper around me like they’ve been doing all week.
Faye perches at the end of the desk after she hands it over to me.
The note is written on some lined paper, folded over in half.
‘This is quite old school,’ I say. ‘Couldn’t she have texted me?’
‘She said looking at your old chat history made her upset.’
‘Forget politics, maybe Kira should be the one writing stories,’ I say.
But I’m glad to hear from her. I open the note.
I have not forgiven you.
‘Good start,’ I say, after reading out loud the first line to Faye.
I am still feeling very hurt, but I heard about how you stood up to Tori in English.
Good for you, girl. It’s a shame this is how we had to get here.
I know you’re sorry, and you didn’t mean what you said, but I’m not ready to forgive what you said.
You cut me deep, Selena. I valued our friendship more than anything. I don’t think you did.
I’m sorry I blew your Secret Sender cover like that, but I’m glad you realise it had to be done. No good comes from secrets. Say what you think, say it with pride. I need a friend who is willing to stand up for me, the way I would stand up for them.
Kira
I look up at Faye. ‘This sucks,’ I say.
‘It does,’ she agrees.
‘Not because Kira’s mad at me, which does suck. But it mostly sucks because she’s right.’
Faye nods. ‘I think she’ll come around, but you know that though.’
I slump down onto the desk. ‘In my heart, I didn’t think this would ever catch up to me, which is why I kept pushing my articles further and further. In the moment I did believe in what I was writing, but now I’ve seen everyone’s reaction, maybe I should have kept my thoughts to myself.’
Faye touches my shoulder. ‘No, Selena, you should say what you think, you need to own what you’re saying. That’s why Kira was impressed when she heard how you stood up to Tori. You said what you thought and you stood by it.’
Say what you think and stand by it.
Maybe Kira isn’t ready to hear from me yet, but there’s one person I’ve not tried that out with yet.
***
I knock on the front door and Daze opens it.
‘Selena?’ he says, confused.
‘I need to talk to Ty,’ I say.
Daze sighs. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to you. What went down between the two of you anyway?’
‘Can I come in at least?’ I say. ‘It’s freezing out here.’
‘Yeah, yeah, this country is wild, man. How do you cope with this cold? I’m always wearing about five layers.’
‘Doesn’t it get cold in San Francisco?’
‘No,’ says Daze. ‘It’s always kind of the same weather. Cool, breezy, and a bit foggy all year round.’
‘That’s a bit bleak, isn’t it,’ I say. ‘Don’t you want seasons?’
‘I like it,’ says Ty, appearing at the top of the stairs. ‘It’s nice to know what you’re going to get. The UK is . . . unpredictable.’
I look up at him, he has a cool look on his face. I fight the urge to flee. It’s time to stand up for what I think.
Ty walks downstairs.
‘Sooooo . . . ’ says Daze, drawing out the word. ‘What’s going on here? It feels like we’ve gone back in time.’
‘I think Selena has made her feelings clear,’ says Ty.
‘Can we talk alone?’ I say. ‘Please.’
Ty looks at Daze, raises his eyebrows.
‘I’m going to go and chill somewhere else,’ says Daze. He looks between us. ‘But you guys need to sort this out. I don’t like picking sides, especially when I have a brotherly duty to pick Ty’s side.’
Ty rolls his eyes and pushes him.
‘Come on,’ he says, nodding his head upstairs.
All this time, I’ve only been into the hallway of the Browns’ house. And it feels bizarre, as I knew it for so long as the Pointer house. Different but the same. The family photographs have morphed into tasteful art. New plants have sprung up. Daze has stuck a sign to his bedroom door.
We get to Ty’s room, and it feels like I’m going into Mr Pointer’s study, a room which for so long had been forbidden.
‘What?’ says Ty, seeing me hesitate.
‘This room used to be off limits,’ I say, turning the handle. ‘But I guess things are different now.’
Ty’s room is more artistic than I would have given him credit for.
Huge black and white photographs hang on the wall, a record player and vinyl collection is stacked in the corner, where Mr Pointer’s desk used to be.
It’s spotlessly clean. Unlike Ollie’s room, which always had some mess lurking in it.
‘So,’ says Ty, sitting down on his desk chair. ‘Why are you here? I’ve not heard from you all week.’
‘I’ve been struggling to know what to say to you,’ I confess, sitting down on the edge of his bed.
‘For once I’ve run out of words. And there’s been so much crap that’s been happening, and all I wanted was to tell you about it, but that would require addressing what’s been going on with me. What’s been going on with us.’
He crosses his arms. ‘And what has been going on with us?’
‘You’re important to me,’ I say, trying to look him in the eye. Say what you think and stand by it.
I take a deep breath, try to ground myself in what is real and true, and decide to tell him the truth, instead of running from it.
‘I liked Ollie,’ I say, and it hurts me to see how his face falls.
‘But I think I liked the Ollie I thought I knew, not the Ollie who actually exists. And it would have been a perfect ending, if we got together, and I got too wrapped up in the story. I wasn’t looking at what was right in front of me,’ I say.
I meet his eyes and they burn into me. I have to say it. I have to say what I think.
‘I like you, Ty.’
Ty shakes his head. ‘Then what about you and Ollie at your party?’
I rub my face. ‘It’s really not what you thought.
At that moment, I had a revelation about how Ollie isn’t the person I thought he was.
And I’m not the person he thinks I am too.
You’re the person I told about Secret Sender, not him.
You’re the one I’ve been talking to about my university applications, not him.
He thinks I’m some wallflower, and you .
. . you’ve never made me feel like that. ’
‘Because you’re not.’
‘And there’s so much stuff that’s happened this week that I’ve wanted to talk to you about. Kira’s not speaking to me because I said some awful things at my party. Everyone knows I’m the Secret Sender. I had a face-off with Tori—’
‘Woah, woah, woah,’ says Ty. ‘What? All that’s happened in a week?’
‘Turning eighteen has been fairly eventful,’ I say.
Ty sits down next to me. ‘It’s really sucked not speaking to you this week too,’ he says. ‘I was so mad at you. And I didn’t feel I had any right to be, but it made me not want to talk to you. But you’re my only real friend here, and it was so . . . lonely.’
‘So where do we go from here?’ I say, turning to him. I feel that invisible string tugging me towards him. It feels impossible to fight it now.
‘Let’s go back to where we were,’ he says, and my heart soars. ‘As friends.’
My heart crashes down like a kid’s kite in a park.
‘Friends,’ I repeat. Not sure if I’m saying a question or a statement.
Ty runs his hands through his hair. ‘I think it’s less messy this way. I don’t want to fall out again. Plus at the end of the summer we’ll go our separate ways, and . . . well, my dad still wants me to go back to the US.’
I feel hurt. I thought we had something and he felt the same way. But maybe after everything he doesn’t like me like that any more. And I don’t want to ruin things between us any further.
So, even if deep down I don’t want to, I say, ‘Okay.’