I’m sorry, Sia, but you’re out of here. Sure, I’m an independent woman and all that and my discs are my discs, but a girl’s gotta be up for some compromise, and if that compromise comes with one of those heart-searing kisses then who am I to say no?
Because Harry was on to something with that song, like when I’m on my island, when I’m all alone and literally fighting for my life, do I really want something that reinforces Daniel and Jacob’s power, or do I want something that’s going to make me whoop? So fight-talking Katy Perry’s in. Seriously, her track has me nailed.
Almost.
Actually, it has the hope for me nailed. Like, I’m not quite there yet, but make this my anthem and I might well be. From sitting to standing. From quiet to thunder. From biting my tongue to magnificent, fire-dancing ‘Roar’.
Just listening to it gets me morphing. It’s totally different from listening to Sia, when that’s all we did – listen, I mean. Cos it’s like Harry said: ‘Broken Biscuit’ is nice, kind of beautiful, but it’s also kind of sedentary. When we play ‘Roar’, it’s a whole other story. The music, the words, they do exactly what desert island music needs to do: they time-travel you. And yeah, I’d always thought they should time-travel you back to a place you’ve already been, to a memory you’ve already made, but this is the opposite. It propels me forward.
When it starts, what is it, piano? Whatever, it immediately sounds kind of happy because the past is already the past and Katy Perry’s already become what she wanted to be: a fighter, a champion, a butterfly, a bee. And, yeah, it might all be cliché, but cliché is cliché because it’s true, right? Because it works. Like the muscle memory that made me stick to Daniel’s rules, this is the lyric memory that might just help me break them.
Harry sings too. Like, top-of-his-voice sings. And, like me, he’s awful, but sod it, cos we might be awful but we’re also great. Road-tripping monumental kind of great, roaring our hearts out as the song attaches itself to these few hours in the car, already making it a place for me to draw power from when I need to remind myself of my fire.
‘Do you think we’ll be back in time to go out on the river?’
‘Today?’ Harry says.
And I know what he’s thinking – my mum will be waiting – but this charge I have from singing, it’s too much of a force to just go sit in a refuge for the rest of the day.
‘Half an hour, that’s all. I’ll message Mum now. She won’t mind.’
‘I dunno, Iz,’ Harry says. ‘She seemed super keen to have you there as soon as possible.’
‘Being half an hour late isn’t gonna kill anyone, is it?’
‘S’pose.’ His eyes flit to the time on the display. ‘I’d just rather get you back, Izzy. Your mum…’ he doesn’t seem to know what to say, ‘she wasn’t messing around when she laid down the rules. And rule number one was straight home.’
‘Well, we already broke that.’
‘Yeah, and that didn’t exactly turn out perfectly, did it?’
‘I got the jar, didn’t I? We’re alive!’
‘Ha! Because it’s always a good sign when you’re pleased to come out of something alive.’ He’s laughing, but Harry’s voice is the huge exhale of a near miss. ‘She’s pretty fierce, your mum. Like you.’ And he gives me this smile, like, believe it. ‘Knows what she wants.’
‘And what she doesn’t want.’ He hears it then, the betrayal of my thoughts. And it’s not like I wanted to say it. It’s not even like I wanted to think it. I was happy thinking about being a lion and taking over the world. But it lurks somewhere just beneath every other thought I’m having, this constant reminder of Mum’s choice. And, honestly, I understand the reasons why she doesn’t want this baby. His baby. They make complete sense, and if it was anyone else, I swear I wouldn’t judge. But maybe because it’s my mum, I am. Judging, I mean. Because I know she could pull it off. She could be the kind of mum she was to me before Daniel came along. She could make it work.
‘Izzy?’
‘It’s nothing.’ But the tears I’ve missed with the wipe of my wrist prove otherwise.
‘Whassup?’
‘It’s my mum.’
Harry’s like, uh-huh, as if this conversation is like any other normal conversation.
‘She’s pregnant.’ And before Harry can even think of congratulations, I say, ‘She’s having a termination’, rushing through the word like I used to rush through chocolate biscuits when Daniel wasn’t home in some weird belief that if he wasn’t there to witness it, they wouldn’t count. Their moment on my lips would not be forever on my hips. But this isn’t a biscuit. It is forever though. Either way, this decision is definitely for forever.
‘And you don’t think she should?’ Harry makes a whole load of effort to sound neutral.
‘It’s the woman’s right to choose.’ The opinion was far more convincing when it came from Grace.
‘I’m sure it hasn’t been an easy decision.’
I get what he’s doing, but I say, ‘And you’d know, would you?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, still in that voice like he’s used to this, like this isn’t something that happens to other people, like this is something he’s talked about before. ‘I do.’
I don’t say anything.
‘You know, you’re not the only one with history, Izzy.’
And this time it’s Harry who keeps his eyes forward, as he reveals that his closet has skeletons of its own.