I pack a rucksack with a hoodie, a change of underwear and some make-up. I’ve given up styling my hair and reverted to my original barely contained frizzy blob. I’m done trying to be someone else. The plan is to spend the day at the beach, head to a club on the seafront in the evening, then back to the hostel. Isaac picks me up and we drive down to Brighton, me singing along to all the power ballads on Magic radio and him rolling his eyes. The car clunks and shudders a few times on the way and at times I think we won’t make it. But we do.
“She’s on her last legs. My beautiful car. Had her since I passed.”
“So, one whole year.”
“What can I say? Couldn’t afford a Bugatti, had to make do.”
“What’s a Bugatti?”
“Oh, my dear Carla, you have so much to learn.”
“Maybe you could teach me?”
“About cars?”
“No. To drive. When you’re back from uni in the summer. Then maybe I could come and visit you. Remember, I used to live in Nottingham. Could show you around.”
Isaac has aced his exams and got into his first-choice uni. I’m glad for him, but kind of sad he’ll be leaving soon.
We go to the beach first, before the hostel, because I want to see and smell the sea. The sun’s high and people are milling about, swimming, lazing, content. But although the day is golden and I’m out of the shackles of school and home, I can’t let myself be happy.
I picked up my results envelope from school this morning. All around me people cried and laughed and hugged and felt proud. I don’t dare open my letter. It’s in my back pocket, crumpled, hopefully vaporizing out of existence.
“Do you want me to open it?” Isaac asks.
“No.”
“Well, then, are you going to open it?”
“Nope.”
“You’ll have to face them sometime.”
“I won’t. I’ll just drop out, run away to South Africa, work at a butterfly sanctuary.” I let my mind wander, let it fill with beautiful butterflies. I think about that perfect moment by the river on my birthday. The sodium rock that looked like coke. “Hey, Isaac, you’re not doing any drugs tonight, are you?”
“No, I’m done with that.”
“I wouldn’t want to stop you having a good time.”
“Honestly, I don’t need to, want to. I think” – Isaac kicks a pebble – “they’re overrated. Besides, who needs drugs on a day like this: sun shining, waves lapping, ice-creams, er … ice-creaming?”
Will I ever do drugs again? My mind runs through all the times I’ve done them before. Reliving the highs. Feeling loud, confident, pretty. Like a queen. My fifteen minutes of fame, on a coke high. On a pedestal. On top of the world. Pilled up and free. But the feeling never lasts. Sure, I could do it. I could use drugs to dissociate from reality and not face my results. The flaw in that plan is that tomorrow will always rear its ugly head and the results will still be there, unchanged. Like Isaac says, the drugs are just a hiding place. Pretty soon you have to come out into the light and face the day, whatever it may bring.
I think back over the weekends with Finn, lost to drugs.
Sometimes I wouldn’t see a weekend at all. The blinds were always down.
I think about how I camped in my bedroom, under a duvet, worshipping artificial sunlight from my Sunday God: the television. All hail the romcoms. Bow to the chick-flicks. Raise your spliffs in praise of the Eighties robot-themed action movie. Comedown films must be like comedown food: easy to digest.
Adrenalin overload, zero sleep.
I’d get paranoid.
Feel sick.
Look like a ghost.
Why would I want to go through that agony again?
I watch the sea sloshing against the wooden legs of the pier, an enormous neon centipede standing in the water. The smell of popcorn fills the air as we edge closer to the sound of clinking coins and arcade games. I beat Isaac on the dance machine; he trounces me at Street Racer. He says he hasn’t played in ages, but evidently, fingers never forget. Like it’s a fair contest! I can’t even drive.
We play a couple of rounds of air hockey, at which, by the way, I’m awesome. Well, usually I am, but Isaac seems to have some special puck-flicking technique apparently learned from a Jedi master, so I may have let a few goals in.
Isaac’s phone buzzes.
“The others have arrived. They’re on the beach.”
“Oh.”
“We don’t have to go.”
“We do. I need to make peace at least. We have a whole other year to spend together in the same classes.”
The waves rush at the shore like a herd of wild horses, galloping and intent. In the distance I see Finn, Slinky, Greg and Georgia paddling in the shallows. Greg picks up Georgia to throw her in the water but stops at the last second. She laughs, pushes him back and he splashes into the waves. Violet sits on the beach in a very teeny bikini, shades on, reading a magazine. She reminds me of an iguana basking in the sun, trying to get some sort of warmth into her stone-hearted, cold-blooded being.
Georgia sees Isaac and me and runs over to meet us.
“I hear congrats are in order,” she says to Isaac. “You’re off to Nottingham.”
“Just barely.”
“Modest much?” Georgia pokes Isaac playfully on the shoulder. “All As says otherwise. Greg told me.”
Isaac shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s not all about results. It doesn’t matter what you get, really.” We all know that’s not true but I appreciate him trying to make me feel better, and I don’t say anything when he puts his arm around my waist to comfort me, even though I know for certain it will raise eyebrows.
“You’re coming tonight, right?” Georgia asks.
“Not really in the mood.”
“You have to come.”
Finn starts to walk over, then stops, Violet tugging at his T-shirt, arms snaking around his chest and whispering in his ear. But something has changed in me and strangely, I don’t feel jealous. I’ve taken off the rose-tinted specs. Finn abandons the plan to confront us and instead nods in our direction and steers clear.
I pick up a stone and throw it into the rolling waves. “I think I’m going to talk to him. Clear the air,” I tell Isaac.
“You want me to come?”
“I’ll be all right. Just … don’t go far.”
“There’s an ice-cream truck up on the promenade. I’ll get us some cones.”
Finn sees me coming and gets to his feet. He looks as cute as ever in board shorts and flip-flops, hair wild and windswept.
Violet shoots me a stare loaded with all kinds of evil. She aims a similar glance at Finn but he takes no notice.
“Can we walk?” I ask Finn.
“Sure.”
We leave the scowler flipping through the pages of Glamour.
“Where are you going?” she asks Finn. He waves her off.
“She’s kind of dramatic,” I say.
“She’s not so bad, just has a mean streak.”
“A crazy streak, if you ask me.”
“What do you care who I see anyway?”
“You’re seeing her?”
“No, nothing’s changed. I get her stuff, that’s all.” Finn runs a hand through his hair. “What do you want, Carla?”
“I guess I just wanted to call a truce. We’ll have to see each other next year so let’s agree to get on.”
“Fine. But, Carla, I never stopped getting along with you. I still love you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I thought it wasn’t possible for Finn’s eyes to darken any more, but just now they do. He grips me by the shoulder. “What are you doing with Isaac?”
Oh, so that’s it. He’s trying to manipulate me into not seeing his brother. If he can’t have me, no one else can.
“We’re friends, that’s all.”
A lump rises in my throat.
Finn grabs my wrist. “Doesn’t look that way.”
“Let go of me.”
He releases my arm. “You’d better go. Your friend is waiting for you,” he says.
I walk along the beach towards Isaac, not looking back. But I hear Finn calling after me, “He’s the liar, Carla. He only wanted to take you from me. He doesn’t care about you like I do. I know you. I know what you are. You’re just like me.”
I’m done with Finn Masterson.
* * *
As I walk back across the beach Violet sticks her foot out to trip me.
“Grow up.”
“Well, which one is it, Carla? You can’t have both. Isn’t one enough for you?”
I try to ignore her.
“You’re certainly working your way through the group. Slut.”
She’s really pushing my buttons.
“He doesn’t want you any more. So just leave us alone. He only went out with you to make me jealous. Like that could work.”
“Then why aren’t you two back together? Go on.” I point to where Finn is standing, looking out to sea. “There he is. Go get him.”
Violet shrugs.
“You’re full of shit,” I say. “You and Finn may have had a thing once but now he’s just your dealer. It’s pretty sad when you think about it.”
“Finn loves me, always has, always will,” Violet says.
“Well, good luck with that. Look, there’s no reason why I should try and help you, but I’ll give you one nugget of advice: Finn doesn’t love you any more than he loved me; forget about him and move on.”
“Right, so you can swoop in and get him back? Never going to happen. Anyway he would never go for you now. You’re just a little girl who couldn’t handle playing with the big kids. You wish you were me. I can see it in your eyes. I saw it the day you started at Thorncroft.”
Violet takes a baggie out of her bikini top and uses a key to scoop up a little mound of coke or godknowswhat.
“You couldn’t be further from the truth right now. Yeah, go powder your nose with poison, darling. That’ll make it all better.”
“Why are you even here? Finn’s moved on and you’re still chasing after him. It’s so sad.”
“Er, hello. Look in a mirror, Violet. You’ve been groping him all year.”
Violet shrugs and goes back to her magazine. “Go home, ho-bag. No one wants you here.”
But when she says that, it has the opposite effect to what she intends. I know I deserve to be here as much as she does. I was invited. And I’ll go out tonight and show her that.
I jog back to Isaac and he drops an arm around my shoulder. It feels natural and not at all weighted with expectation.
He hands me a Mr Whippy. “With hot fudge sauce. Just the way you like it.”
“Thanks.”
We walk down the beach towards the water, away from the group. I carry my flip-flops so I can feel the sand between my toes. Isaac does the same. The beach is mostly pebbles but there’s sand nearer the water.
“Saw you talking to Vi. You OK?” Isaac asks.
“Yeah. Wicked Witch of the West was just spitting her usual caustic diatribe,” I say, dipping a toe in the cool seawater. “I’m fine though. She’s delusional. I kind of feel sorry for her.”
I tell him it didn’t go so well with Finn either. “He said he still loves me, but he’s full of it.”
Isaac looks concerned and I try to reassure him.
“Don’t worry, I’m over it,” I say, and mean it.