Playing With My Heartstrings (2 page)

I sat down on my sleeping bag, utterly distraught when the tiny bar on the screen of the phone eventually faded away and I closed my eyes in the hope that I'd awake from my worst nightmare.

After years of waiting to make my first move on Joel, how come that he seemed to welcome me into his open, out-stretched arms and then he left me as soon as my back was turned? None of the words I said to him last night were a lie; that night was truly the best one that I'd ever experienced in the whole of the fifteen years I spent on earth. And surely he could have said the same, too, otherwise he wouldn't have set my body on fire with a burning passion had he not kissed me?

A while later, I fumbled around for my phone - no matter how many times I placed it at the top of my New Years' Resolutions, I never bothered to place it in a safe place - and I checked the time. 7.48am. I breathed a sad, lacklustre sigh of relief; Mum would be coming to drive me home in an hour. And unless I did something, I'd be going home without Joel.

With time now running against me, I had two options: one, either stay here and cry my eyes out at being rejected by the one who I've always loved, or two, go into the woods in a last-resorted attempt to find Joel.

Although I tried to do the most practical thing - staying here would dramatically decrease my chances of being eaten by a hungry, Anti-Care Bears fan wild bear, or worse -  I was certain that I'd follow my heart instead of my head before I'd even properly decided. Some may have called me crazy - in the past, I would've classified that as a decent compliment - but at that moment, I didn't care about anything except getting Joel back.

And so I set off into the unknown, with hope as my only ally.

********

"Joel! Joel!" I painfully yelled, my eyes darting around the many trees surrounding me. Wherever I looked, there was absolutely no way out of this claustrophic maze - one of my many (though understated) fears - and perfect, green leaves were scrawn all over the dry ground, which looked as though it had recently been trod on. A sudden burst of hope surged through me, but I kept on walking, casually avoiding treading on twigs and sometimes disgusting bugs, which I willed myself to ignore.

In the meanwhile, I lost all meaning of time and it felt like hours until I eventually came to a sudden, much-needed rest. I sat down on the cleanest log in sight - i.e without any irritating insects or dirty-looking leaves - and checked the pockets of my hoodie. The only contents were my battered phone, cherry lip balm, a miniature mirror (as if I wanted to primp at my make up-free face at that moment) and a half-eaten Mars bar, which would have to serve as my breakfast/brunch/lunch.

As I silently cried about my anguish and betrayal from Joel, self-doubt began to seep into my mind. Was I the one who had unlovingly pushed him beyond his limits and he felt as though there was no way to reject my actions - which I'd never done for any boy before - except leave me alone in a tent during the middle of the night?

Anger, dangerously hot and strongly bitter, ran through my veins and I used all of my strength to beat the now-unlocked emotions which  were boiling up inside of me. One more tear and I'm going flip, I warned myself as calmly as I possibly could, though rage was threatening to tighten its grip any second now.

I stiffly got up from the uncomfortable log - my sore, tired legs had casually fallen asleep without my realising - and I began to pace the ground, my mind ablaze with thoughts and feelings of pain, horror and shock. Was this simply a terrible, gut-wrenching dream from which I couldn't awake? I would have done anything to have opened my bleary eyes and awake to find Joel lying in his sleeping bag beside mine, a wistful, calm expression on his oh-so-handsome face.

Gosh, was it only four days ago when Joel asked me to go camping with him this weekend? My heart literally leaped into my mouth when, one Wednesday afternoon at the Rollers' Cafe, he mentioned that he wanted to experience 'the wild side of life' by setting up camp at the local forest on Saturday, only a few miles away from where I lived.

"I hear that you've camped several times before," Joel said, running his long, gangly hands through his light blonde hair, "so I was wondering whether you'd like to go with me?"

Midway through a sip of super-hot coffee, I almost choked and it took me several seconds before I replied, "Sure, of course I'd love to go," in my coolest voice, "though I must admit that I haven't camped for a while."

Joel raised his eyebrows, a perfect half-smile playing on his mocking lips. "OK, how long ago?"

"Um," I mumbled, racking my brains for a reasonable answer, "not since I was around eleven. And only ever in my back garden; those squirrels which used to lurk on the outskirts of the forest, let's say, never really liked me."

As I finished speaking and was responded to by a stony silence, I feared that I'd well and truly destroyed any possibilities of ever being given an opportunity like this again. My large, chatterbox mouth seemed to have got in the way of my pursuing a chance of hanging out with my crush and I wished that the ground would swallow me up. At least nobody would hear my cries.

Then Joel, famed for his cool, laidback attitude at school, did the greatest thing my eyes ever witnessed: he sat back and laughed for what felt like a hundred years until my tense body relaxed and joined in with him.

Tears of joy almost threatened to fall down my ecstatic face, but before I got the chance, Joel leaned over the table and whispered in my ear, "You, Sadie Thompson, are truly one of a kind."

That was it. My world, with all of its imperfections and flaws, was set alight by those words and I was untouchable. Light overcame darkness and created a whole new meaning of life for me; as far as I knew, my wings had grown and I was flying across the sky without a care in the world.

But that never really happened, yet it created a memory of happiness that would never be erased from my lightning-struck mind.

As I steadily came back to Earth with a bump, I utterly didn't know what to say - nothing popped into my head at all. Taking a deep breath, I breathlessly replied, "You too," with what I hoped was my hottest smile.

*******

Somewhere far, far away, I heard the faint voice of somebody familiar shouting a name. "Sadie! Sadie! Sadie!"  Oh, that was mine.

Their voice was becoming louder and more panic-stricken each time they yelled my name, which became a song in my head. Sadie, Sadie, Where are you? Sadie, Sadie, Can you hear me?

This clearly was a headache that I wouldn't be recovering from just yet.

Just as I was imagining a guitar solo and the thumping beat of drums playing along with the rather catchy lyrics, a strong, blinding light was thrust in front of my closed eyes. I squirmed, quietly moaning about the light being turned off, and after the light was taken away, I found the courage to open my eyes.

Where the hell am I? Everything, apart from the now far away light, was pitch black and I couldn't make out a single figure or shadow. So much for carrots giving me 'super-sight', as Mum once coined it.

"She's awake!" A voice exclaimed, clearly relieved. Cassie? I thought my little sister was away on a weekend-long sleepover with her friends...

As I tried to get up, my head ached worse than ever, like I was experiencing my very first hangover. Wait, did I raid Dad's wine cabinet - somehow succeeding in opening the sturdy lock - and end up lying in darkness? Confusion was overwhelming me a little too much.

The air surrounding me smelt like old trees, mixed with the scent of fresh flowers further away. Then, with a pang of shock, I suddenly remembered where I was. The forest.

A lump formed in my throat and all I could do to express the way I felt was cry as if I was a young, helpless child. Big, fat salty tears rolled down my face and my cries were the only sound I could hear in the whole of the forest. Cassie - I assumed - wrapped her bare, warm arms around my torso and cradled me as though I was a young, helpless child. Perhaps I'd gone back to being the messy, teddy bear-loving and surely emotional two year old Sadie for a moment, but I couldn't have cared less.

"Sadie, we've got to go home now." Cassie's whisper was spoken so softly that I strained my ears to hear her, which made my head ache beyond what I thought was possible.

Cassie grabbed my arms as I made my first (unsteady) attempt to get off the ground, which nearly made me lose what little balance I had left, but my little sister never let go of me. Not even for a second did she loosen her grip on my probably-sore and bruised hands. I'd have to pay her back sometime later.

Further ahead, the light had just come back in view and I could now see Mum and Dad, whose faces made my blood run cold. Mum, despite being disguised in the shadows, was as emotionless and still as a stone-cold statue, whilst Dad was a completely changed man. Gone were any traces of humour or a care-free expression usually etched on his passionate, caring face; instead his forehead was lined with thousands of wrinkles which aged him way beyond his years.

Without a doubt, I was in huge trouble and it wasn't the kind of trouble which could be sorted by simply apologizing and giving my parents a reluctant hug. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me that much. As if I was going to go home and suddenly pretend that this weekend - which had definitely claimed the title of The Worst Weekend Ever - never happened. I wouldn't allow Joel to forget it, either.

Mum and Dad glanced at my panic-stricken face once, then turned away and began to walk ahead, with Cassie and I trawling behind them. Not once did anybody dare to mutter a word - or breathe, as the hooting of owls was all I focused my energies on - though I clearly wasn't in the mood for talking, anyway. Like what would I be able to say? My heart had virtually died because my life-long crush bizarrely dumped me overnight? As if anybody would be able to understand how I felt without losing their sanity - I already feared I'd lost the last of mine.

By the time we reached our silver, Nissan 4x4 wannabe car, the silence had grown too much for me. How could I stand to be with those I loved dearly if they wouldn't even say a word to me?

"Mum, Dad," I said, my voice a complete stranger to my ears, "I'm sorry for what I did out there. I-I wasn't thinking straight and..." For the millionth time in just one day, tears began spilling out of my painfully sore eyes and I turned my face away from everyone, ashamed to be letting my emotions get the better of me.

Mum walked over and held me in a tight bear-hug, gently stroking my hair and murmuring that everything was going to be OK. Well, once one hits the soul-shattering rock bottom, nothing ever seems as though it'll be OK again.

Rather embarrassingly, even Dad tried to join Mum and I's bear-hug, his arms awkwardly out-stretched in my direction. Despite being in my saddest-ever state, I couldn't help but quietly laugh when my usually strong, masculine and totally-never-emotional father hugged me, which seemed to express all of what he clearly felt. The tears, for now, wouldn't be giving me the break I so desperately craved to have.

Our group finally disbanded after Mum almost jumped out of her skin when she heard a miniscule, yet loud owl hoot, whose shining golden eyes bored into mine. The owl jogged a memory of the night before when I saw a similar-looking one out on the top of a magnificently large tree shortly before I went to bed. Maybe it was the same one? I prayed so.

Cassie, half-sleep and undeniably exhausted, rapidly leaped into the car once Mum found the keys in her satchel and unlocked it, and I followed in after her. My thirteen year old sister hadn't said a word to me since she first found me in the forest and she obviously avoided Mum and Dad's embrace with me just a few minutes before - was Cassie angry with my apparent foolish actions? Strangely, I was the one who needed her now - not the other way around as it should have been.

As Mum and Dad got in and the noisy growl of the engine filled the still-uncomfortable silence, my mind started to wander all over the place. What will happen now? Had Joel got in contact with my parents before they found me? Will I ever love again? My last question sent a stabbing pain through my heart that made me gasp in horror.

But before I could wonder further about what would be my ultimate destiny, unconsciousness - a heavenly, refreshing gift that was the most valuable gift to me at that moment - gained control of my body and put my poor mind at rest.