Playing With My Heartstrings (15 page)

"Does it matter?" Cassie sighed, her fingers speedily typing a message on her Samsung smartphone, smoke nearly puffing from the screen.

"Are you sure you can see in that light?" I asked, re-adjusting my bronze-shaded sunglasses and gazing at the sights of families setting up picnics ahead of me. As Mum had literally begged for us to get some fresh air and hog the dwindling-in-supply fridge every half-an-hour, Cassie and I had headed to the local park, soaking up some sun rays and lying on the same bench where Luke and I usually talked, chatting up on some sisterly gossip.

"Just about," Cassie murmured, then shifted her position towards the green oak trees, whose thick, long branches offered a cool place of shade and darkness. "Ugh," she grumbled, letting out an irritated groan, "my friend never replies back to me!" Cassie moved again, her expression showcasing pure annoyance.

"Which friend?"

"Amelie," Cassie huffed. "She only tends to talk whenever I meet up with her, which has only happened once this summer." Cassie sighed sadly.

My hand reached out for Cassie's, who willingly took it and held it, sighs of sadness the only communication we both shared.

"I've had the same problem, too, though I may not have talked about it much," I said, my tone passive and emotionless. All of a sudden, a chill spread through my frozen body and I shook my head, willing myself to turn a blind eye.

Cassie's face darted to mine in a blur, interest sparkling along with a notion of forlornness in her eyes.

"Apart from Tara, I haven't met any of my friends since school broke up last month," I confided, a surge of gut-wrenching misery rising in my stomach and bringing unfallen tears to the brims of my glassy eyes.

"Why?" Cassie inquired, panic turning her skin a pale shade of paper white. "I thought your friends liked you and -"

"Yeah, they do," I cut in, wishing to calm Cassie's nerves.

Cassie gaped, then abruptly zipped her mouth shut, slowly digesting my cut-throat response.

"Look, most of my friends are away on their holidays or doing other things, it's hardly a big deal," I huffily pointed out.

"B-but you look quite upset, Sadie," Cassie admitted, in a muffled whisper.

I looked away, forcefully blinking my watery eyes, which were longing to rush into an untameable stream of provoked tears, and avoided responding to Cassie until I was positive that I wouldn't cause a very public scene of reality TV-style crying.

"No, I'm fine," I promised, after turning my head back in Cassie's direction, a forceful, fragile-as-glass smile placed on my wobbling lips.

Cassie, having gained a reputation for her quizzical nature, was on the verge of raising a questioning eyebrow, but I heavily shook my head in protest. "Cassie, all of us have wobbles at times," I conceded, secretly acknowledging my wished-to-be-forgotten feelings, "and after all, we wouldn't be human without it."

However, Cassie wasn't going to be accepting my response as a reasonable and satisfying answer without further quizzing - why, oh why, did I put on my sixth birthday list for my sister to be an exact doppelganger of myself? At this rate, a career as a detective would certainly be on the cards for Cassie - or a demanding interviewer. One of the two, anyway.

"But they are supposed to be your friends, aren't they?" Cassie wondered. "So, if they truly are, then why haven't they bothered to send you any texts or emails? That's my honest question."

And honest it was. Surely my friends, such as show jumping pro Alice or New York-born Natalie, couldn't be riding over brightly-coloured 4ft jumps on their stunningly handsome Arabian horses or going on magnificent tours to the Statue of Liberty, living the wonderful life of a native New Yorker, without a second to spare to pick up their cheetah print-covered iPads or luxurious phones and get in touch with any of their BFFs? Nothing made sense at all.

Sure, I'd been offered an engagement-free summer, which some overworked people would kill to have, and so far the majority of it had been wasting by rolling around on my bed, flicking through year-old issues of ELLE and finishing off the final bag of bargain-priced salted pretzels, yet no objects were standing in my way to stop me from catching up with beloved friends and seeing the world from their point of view, which made a much-appreciated change from mine.

Perhaps they'd grown bored about hearing of my miserably dull existence?

"I can't tell you, Cassie, because I really don't know," I said. "I wish that I knew, I honestly do, as I detest nothing more than being left in the dark unknown."

"Have you sent any messages recently? Maybe they forgot to reply to some of your older texts?"

I vigorously nodded, red-hot heat boiling in the centre of my pounding heart. "Yes, I only sent one to Natalie yesterday evening, so she wouldn't be woken up at 4am in the morning and fly into a rage." I icily laughed. "Natalie was always to be feared whenever she got annoyed - her tantrums apparently became famous before she joined high school, which were easy to believe."

A miserable frown darkened Cassie's concerned expression. "Hey, it doesn't matter about my friend - I guess that all of us go through it at one stage or another." Cassie paused, placing her index finger on her baby-smooth lip. "C'est la vie, huh, don't you think?"

"Yeah, certainly indeed that's the way life is, whether you like it or not."

My words sparked the end of the depressing discussion, a gloomy atmosphere filling the air, and Cassie sat in silence, unsure of how to respond or talk about a happier and uncaring-friends-free subject without provoking any sudden reactions from myself.

"Um, do you want anything?" I asked, tentatively.

"Like what?" Cassie was scrolling through her cat-themed Twitter account on her phone, her eyes a million miles away from my direction.

"An ice cream? You mentioned earlier that you wanted to get one."

"I'm not in the mood right now."

I exhaled a sigh, submerged in melancholy. Why did I have to thrust the spotlight on myself in Cassie's moment of need, when all she desired was comfort and safety that only a loving elder sister could offer? I only meant to assure her that she wasn't the only person dealing with that situation, but instead tears issued a threat and I'd be bound to lose control, having not realized how my locked feelings, chained inside an imaginary box at the back of my crowded mind, had been bruised and wounded, awaiting the ideal moment to make its pain known and knocking me off my stunned feet without a second to grasp anything. Selfish, thoughtless and way too sensitive, as a stifled cry choked my lumpy throat.

"Well, I'm just going over to get one. See you in a moment, OK?"

A reluctant nod was the sole response I received from zombie-brained Cassie, whose hands were stuck like super-glue to her phone, as though she was cradling a much-loved teddy bear. It barely felt like yesterday when she used to carry Melvin, the polar bear with a permanent sticky jam-flavoured patch, around wherever she travelled; I would've much preferred him to an over-the-top, highly fragile mobile which never offered any consoling hugs.

I jumped out of my heated seat and followed the clear path towards the ice cream van situated near the pavement by the hectic, car-swamped road, butterflies sweeping past my waves of hair, which lightly lifted into the breezy air, and giant bumblebees, their loud buzzes remarkably near my ears, nearly flew me into a frightened state, my lifelong fear magically coming to life.

Sometimes, it may have been too noisy for my liking or the boiling sun would've prevented me from sprawling on a blanket for hours on end, lightly dozing with only a wide-brimmed hat to offer any protection, but I loved the park from the bottom of my heart. One of my very first memories as a toddler was racing to the swings on a crisp late September day, just as the leaves were falling from the trees and turning from a bright green to a dark brown, and my out-of-breath dad was pleading for me to slow down. I laughed, happiness bursting like a balloon, and I spun around and around until I was dizzy...

That was the sensation that passed through my head right at that moment, a pounding ache hurting my eyes, compelling me to force them shut and restore my energies, all of which mysteriously drained within a flash. Where did my stamina disappear? Strength was willing my body to perform actions just a moment ago, otherwise getting up from the bench would've been an impossible task. How the heck had I been capable of doing it?

My exhausted legs as heavy as bottles of filled water, I used all of my reduced power to move, as my eyes bolted open and skimmed through the hordes of gleeful families and chattering friends, desperate to find a particular person. Confusion muddled my thoughts. Who was I looking for? Cassie was somewhere around here, never looking up from her phone, but my instincts warned that she wasn't the one I seeked; instead, it was somebody else who I'd met before. It was a he, a tall, blond-haired boy whose handsome appearance would could make any girl lustful for him within a blink of an eye. I thought that I'd even loved him...

Joel was comfortably perched a black-painted bench a couple of steps away from a streetlight overlooking the can-littered pavement, avidly speaking to a girl of a similar age beside him, his hand willingly grasping hers. The girl, whose natural auburn bob glistened in the sunlight, kept bursting into laughter and nodding her head, gasping at the right moments and playing the perfect role as a friend. Or maybe there was more to her than I initially believed?

Shrugging his shoulders with an I-don't-care aura which would've send thousands of girls into a throbbing swoon, Joel moved closer to the girl, whose gentle smile was firmly planted on her lips, and they shared a Hollywood-style kiss, Joel clutching wisps of the girl's hair, completely unaware of my protruding eyes glued upon their very public act of affection.

A bitter taste immersed with jealously and heartbreak destroyed my previous appetite for ice cream, which resolutely remained in my firmly-shut mouth, and regardless of how much I prayed to release my concealed torment, no tears brimmed to my eyes, making the world look like a watery mess, hopefully blurring the formidable sight beyond me.

After all the agony I'd endured with Joel, one of my resolutions was to no longer experience any feelings for him, yet here I was, witnessing, against my will, the sight I'd always dreaded. Part of myself hadn't disclosed the fact that I still had a hint of emotion for him - or, oh God, even loved him. How could a publicized argument declaring my hatred for Joel be sign of undying love? I didn't believe it at all.

As Joel slowly pulled his face away from the girl, whose cheeks had turned a flushed, ecstatic pink and was grinning wildly, he searched around the park, amazed by the mind-blowing kiss he'd just experienced.

Uh oh, he's going to see me, I panicked, as I scrambled to move my feet from the spot I was seemingly stuck on. Unlike the rest of the park, there weren't any tall, green bushes to offer me any cover, so I was placed in a dangerous position which would develop in more trouble than I could handle.

Too late.

Joel leaped with a start, dismay jerking him out of his seat, and he grimaced with utmost annoyance as he placed his domineering eyes on me, flashbacks of our last encounter returning to the centre of his mind.

As if I'd give him a chance to remember.

My body jumped into action, no longer numb and powerless to my instructions, and I ran in the opposite direction, heading towards no certain destination in mind. What a freak I am, I contemplated, whilst leaping over empty plastic bags of Skips and getting out of the way of a hard black bin. I had to get out of here fast before Joel was able to give me a piece of his mind, which was likely to be a chunkier slice than the one I gave in the cafe.

And then a fretful voice startled me, sending me into the hugest shock of my life. "Sadie, Sadie, Sadie!" he yelled, his voice getting nearer.

Luke.

Oh hell.

Chapter 11

I froze halfway in my majestic escape, a frosty chill settling into my shocked bones. A noisy clap of trainers trawling upon the bumpy path filled my ears, as extreme fright pummelled my heart into a rapid beat, sending my head into a greater spin.