Girl Heart Boy: No Such Thing as Forever (Book 1) (2 page)

It’s not as if I had self-esteem issues. I didn’t spend hours in front of the mirror hating my body; I didn’t wear much make-up; and I had ambition. I wanted to
be a writer when I was older and had every intention of making it. Like, give me half an hour to stare into space and imagine my future self doing a book-signing in Waterstones and I was there. But myself in a sex-based scenario? Way less believable. Go figure.

‘… anyway, join us if you fancy it.’ Joe looked at me expectantly. Shit, I’d been so busy analysing our conversation I’d forgotten to actually engage with it (story of my life).

‘Sorry, say that again?’

He gave me the
strange-girl alert
look again and said, ‘We’re having a barbecue on the beach tonight. Wondered if you wanted to come?’

‘Oh yeah. Cool. Definitely.’ Mercifully I stopped just short of adding, ‘I’ll ask my mum.’

Joe jumped to his feet and brushed the sand off his bum. ‘OK, great. See you here, nine-ish.’

And with that he grabbed his princess ball and ran off to continue kicking Cinderella repeatedly in the face.

Over lunch that afternoon I brought up my plans for the evening.

‘So, I was thinking of going out tonight,’ I said, casually spooning potatoes on to my plate.

I felt my parents’ eyes on me. ‘Oh yes, who with?’ asked Dad, cutting to the chase, as is his way.

‘Just some people I met on the beach.’

‘People … or
boys
?’ Dad widened his eyes and waggled his fingers.

‘
Boys
 …’ I hammed it up, mirroring him. ‘But don’t worry, they’re my age.’

Dad squirted sauce on to his steak. ‘Oh right, I’m not worried at all then.’ He and Mum smirked at each other. I hated it when they did that
Ooh, look at our teenager playing at grown-ups
stuff.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Well, we were planning on having a massive orgy, but if it’ll make you feel better we’ll just go to the beach for a barbecue.’

‘What’s an orgy?’ piped up Dan.

‘That’s fine,’ said Mum, ignoring him. ‘Just don’t be back too late. And don’t get drunk.’ She and Dad exchanged smiles again. Oh, how amusing to have a teenage daughter who caused you no trouble.
Just watch it
, I thought.
All that could change.

That evening I stumbled down the path to the beach with butterflies in my stomach and fake tan on my legs. I’d spent a stupid amount of time choosing what to wear, from the ridiculously underdressed (swimming costume and sarong) to the plain ridiculous (heels). I finally settled on an H&M sundress with flip-flops and my mum’s pashmina for warmth. Not exactly cutting edge, but then I’m no fashionista.

When I got to the beach the light was just beginning to fade, and I stopped for a moment to watch this strange boy who, even stranger, had apparently taken an interest in me. He was sitting on the sand, light from the setting sun giving him a kind of bronze glow. He was looking out to sea and occasionally swigging from a bottle of beer. His mates were messing about in the water, their shouts and laughter ebbing and flowing like the sea. But Joe was content to sit and just … be.

And ping! I fell for him. In the time it takes for a signal to move from eye to brain, I had transformed from a woefully inexperienced seventeen-year-old with stupidly high standards to one who had just been waiting for the right person. I almost laughed. I took a deep breath and set off down the beach, my flip-flops sliding around in the sand so my sophisticated sashay turned into an attractive drunken lurch.

‘Sarah, hey!’ said Joe, jumping up and kissing my cheek. He was a bit stubbly, and he smelled lovely. Sort of fresh and cucumber-y.

‘Sit down. Drink?’ he said, offering me a beer, which I hate but I took one anyway. I looked around for the barbecue.

‘Turns out they enforce the “No Barbecues” thing,’ said Joe, reading my mind. ‘We got ours confiscated.’
He jutted out his lip petulantly like a little kid, and I’m sorry, but it was cute.

‘How come you’re not with your friends?’ I asked, taking a sip of beer and wincing. Joe looked at me.

‘You don’t like it, do you?’ he said, smiling.

‘Not really,’ I admitted.

‘Here, I’ll have it.’ His hand brushed mine as he took the bottle. ‘There’s a couple of Cokes in there, I think.’ He nodded at a supermarket carrier bag.

‘Thanks,’ I said, taking one and clinking his bottle with it. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers to you too, Sarah Doesn’t-like-beer.’

‘So, how come you’re not swimming?’ I asked again.

Joe looked down at the sand and smiled, then lifted his eyes to mine. ‘Because I have good friends,’ he said cryptically.

‘Oh. Right. Cool,’ I said, not wanting to presume. Although I totally was presuming. Had they really left him so we could be alone?

Joe didn’t move his eyes away from mine, and I could feel my face getting hot. ‘You’re quite beautiful, aren’t you?’ he said simply. I presumed it was a rhetorical question. What was I supposed to say? ‘
Well, as you can clearly see, I’m not actually beautiful. In the right light I am quite pretty, though
’? I kept quiet, and smiled goofily. Turns out even if you know a compliment isn’t
true, hearing it can make your heart sing. I took a mouthful of Coke for something to do besides grin inanely.

With his eyes on my lips, Joe moved his face towards mine. I’d like to say that our lips met in a passionate kiss while the waves crashed symbolically in front of us. But actually I choked on my drink.

‘Oh God,’ I said when I’d finally finished spluttering. ‘That was not supposed to happen.’ I dared to look at Joe, but, instead of regarding me with the disgust I deserved, his eyes were twinkling with what seemed suspiciously like affection. He put his hand gently behind my head.

‘Come here, you,’ he said, and pulled me towards him.

Cue kiss.

And cue further screaming from the girls back in the common room.

‘Oh my God, what was it like?’ asked Cass, her eyes shining as she clasped her hands in rapture.

‘Never mind that,’ said Donna. ‘When’s the sex part?’

‘It was lovely,’ I said, smiling as I remembered the way Joe stroked my face and ran his other hand up through my hair at the nape of my neck. Lovely didn’t cover it. It was bliss – pure and simple – and it made me feel gorgeous and sexy and special.

‘Aw, look at her,’ crooned Ashley, reaching out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. ‘She’s in lurve.’

‘Shuddup, Ash,’ I said, trying to ignore the heart-based fluttering that happened whenever I thought about Joe.

‘Anyway,’ said Donna, making winding-up movements with her hands. ‘The sex …?’

‘All in good time, young Donna,’ I said primly. ‘A lady waits, you know.’

Ashley snorted. ‘Sod that. A lady gets it when she wants it.’ Me and Cass looked at each other and rolled our eyes. This was a favourite theme of Ashley’s.

‘Mark of a true feminist,’ she said, picking at a hangnail on her big toe.

‘Yeah, all right, keep your Birkenstocks on,’ said Cass, ignoring the one-finger salute she got in return. ‘Go on, hon.’

But the beeps for next period put paid to any more revelations. With a promise to meet back in the common room at lunch, we went our separate ways. Me to English, Cass to business studies, Donna to theatre studies and Ash to media studies. Not that we knew each other’s timetables or anything.

Actually we knew everything about each other, more or less, and had done since the first week of Year Seven. You know how when you start a new school you hook up with people pretty quickly but only find your real friends over time? That didn’t happen with us. We found each other straight away, as if it was meant to be.

We were put on the same table in science on our second day at school. Cass and Donna had been at the same primary school, although they’d never really spoken, but otherwise we didn’t know each other at all. My best friend from primary school,
Megan Roberts, had emigrated to Australia in the summer holidays, and I was properly grieving. I felt like half of me was missing and I didn’t really care who I sat next to. Anyway, we didn’t get a choice cos our teacher, Mr Evershot, placed us.

It was my policy to instantly hate any teacher who didn’t let us choose our own seats or partners in group work, but you couldn’t hate Mr Evershot because he was tiny like a gnome and nice without being try-hard. He had a
really
strong northern accent. He was from Wakefield in Yorkshire. I know this because we saw it written on the board when we got into class that first day. ‘Mr Evershot. From Wakefield in Yorkshire.’ Some boy had shouted out, ‘Is that why you talk funny, sir?’ and Mr Evershot had just looked him in the eye and said, ‘Yep.’ That shut him up.

Anyway. There we were: Donna and Cass all uncomfortable because even though they’d gone to the same school they’d hardly spoken and definitely never sat next to each other; Ashley chewing the skin off the side of her nails and scowling because her mum had just finished with a boyfriend who Ash had really liked; and me feeling miserable and awkward. On paper, not exactly a match made in heaven.

But then Mr Evershot made us break off into groups to discuss what the most dangerous room in
the house was (Year Seven science for you), so we were forced to talk to each other.

‘Well, obviously it’s the kitchen,’ said Ashley, who I was instantly terrified of because she was chewing gum in class and sounded bored (it didn’t take much to freak me out back then).

‘So let’s say living room,’ said Donna. ‘To be original.’

Ash must have approved of that, although I don’t remember what she said, but Cass piped up with: ‘I don’t think we get extra points for being different. It’s more a right/wrong scenario.’ I still remember the way her voice sounded: sort of sweet and gentle, like she was genuinely trying to help. I was eaten up with admiration that she’d (a) stood up to Donna, who had a rougher accent than mine and was therefore – yes – scary and (b) used the word ‘scenario’.

So we were at least talking, though nobody could accuse us of instantly clicking. But then the Defining Moment of our friendship: Mr Evershot stumbled as he walked past our desk and whispered, ‘Fook,’ under his breath.

And the four of us cracked up. A teacher saying a rude word was funny enough, but a teacher saying a rude word in an accent? We were crying with laughter. Honking and wheezing like a bunch of asthmatic geese. After a minute we’d calm down, but then one
of us would catch another’s eye and it’d start all over again.

‘Something funny, girls?’ Mr Evershot had asked wryly, but he didn’t tell us off, adding instead: ‘Glad to see you’re getting on, but make sure you come up with the goods.’ He pointed at the piece of paper in front of us and we eyed each other and giggled, but got back to listing dangerous household appliances.

And you can’t really not be friends after that. Soon we started going to lunch after the lesson, and it went from there. We were only eleven years old then. Just kids. Most of us hadn’t even started our periods.

And now here we were, still best friends and about to go into the big wide world together.

But first I had to go to English, Cass to business studies, Donna to theatre studies and Ash to media studies …

‘So. Appearance and reality in
Jane Eyre …
Thank you, Mr Jones.’

Mr Roberts handed my friend Rich a bunch of papers to hand out. I loved
Jane Eyre
, but Mr Roberts had the uncanny knack of turning any book into the most brain-bangingly dull story ever written. He also insisted on being called Mr Roberts, in return for which he called us all Mr or Miss Whatever. He thought he was single-handedly maintaining traditional values while treating us with the kind of respect that we, as upper-school students, deserved. We thought he was a dick.

Anyway, I’d read
Jane Eyre
, like, five times so I happily zoned out. I didn’t quite gaze out of the window with a secret smile playing about my lips while absently doodling love hearts with Joe’s initials in them, but it was close.

I so didn’t want to be the kind of girl who couldn’t concentrate on anything except her boyfriend (boyfriend??), but I was having serious trouble thinking
about anything else. I sneaked a look at my phone. Exactly a week ago I’d been sitting with Joe in a beachfront cafe drinking coffee and putting the world to rights. A million miles away from a muggy classroom in Brighton.

Joe and I ended up spending hours together on the beach at the non-barbecue.

His friends eventually got bored of messing about in the sea and came to join us. I reluctantly sat up and straightened my skirt as they noisily went about getting drinks, putting down towels and dripping water on us. They smelled of boy: fresh sweat, beer and whatever they’d sprayed on that morning to make them fragrant. I shifted uncomfortably at the sudden change in dynamic.

Joe gestured airily in his friends’ general direction and introduced them: ‘Ben, Rav, Will: Sarah. Sarah: Ben, Rav, Will.’

I wasn’t sure who was who, although I guessed that Rav was the one with the brown skin sitting in the middle. He smiled and said hello then immediately looked down at his hands. I relaxed slightly. We could be quiet and uncomfortable together.

‘So, where you from, Sarah?’ asked Ben/Will. He was short with a Scottish accent, but he could have
been a local with his deep tan and dark-brown wavy hair. I put on my best first-impressions-count smile. ‘Brighton. You?’

‘Perth.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The one in Scotland.’ I stared at him stupidly. ‘As opposed to Australia?’ I forced out a laugh, and he bowed slightly. ‘I know, it’s a shit joke. But thanks for laughing … Will’s from Brighton, aren’t you, Will?’

I started with the ‘Oh really! Brighton! Wow, which bit!’ stuff, but Will was monosyllabic all over. He was tall, broad and handsome in a ridiculous Hollywood way. All bronzed with cheekbones and flashing eyes. But he knew it, and he acted sort of tired and sardonic, like he didn’t have to make an effort cos his smouldering good looks did the talking. Yawn. And his teeth were nowhere near as good as Joe’s. As the conversation continued in its fairly agonizing, stilted way, I tried to be part of the conversation, but I was distracted by my conflicting emotions, and I couldn’t concentrate. I was desperate for them to leave me and Joe alone again, but at the same time I didn’t want them to in case Joe went with them.