Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(26)

We took no chances with the next batch, piping small discs of the mixture into lonely pink islands on the tray. They turned out perfect and they tasted like sugary almond heaven. We took the broken pieces from the first batch and, with the help of cream and raspberry sauce, salvaged them into a gloopy, delicious mess that we heaped into one bowl to share.

Together we squashed on to the sofa in the living room, Suzanne in the middle with the bowl on her lap, the two of us on each side with a spoon each.

‘Did you know it’s Suze’s birthday in a couple of weeks?’ Rosie said to me, and Suzanne made a face.

‘No!’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you say something? What are you going to do?’

‘It’s not a big deal,’ Suzanne said.

‘It’s your sixteenth – of course it’s a big deal,’ I said, thinking about the hall my parents had booked for my birthday. ‘Are you having a party?’

‘Where would I have it?’ She gestured around the living room, which was indeed too small for revelry.

‘You could hire somewhere,’ I suggested. I picked a piece of broken macaron off my spoon and nibbled at it.

‘That costs too much.’ Suzanne said. She shrugged. ‘I really don’t care. I don’t want it to be a big thing.’

This made no sense. ‘Why not? Your birthday is, like, the best day of the year.’

‘Not for me,’ she said tightly, and I finally got it.

‘Oh.’

There was an uncomfortable silence, before Rosie adjusted herself on her side of the sofa and pointed her spoon at us importantly. ‘I have an idea. How about you spend the whole of your birthday weekend with us? We’ll both come to yours on Friday night, have dinner or whatever, and then on Saturday we can go to the beach, meet Lev and the others, have a few drinks and stuff, then crash at yours. Then on Sunday, on your actual birthday, we’ll do things like have birthday cake and whatever. Sarah will make you a birthday cake, right?’

Suzanne nodded slowly. ‘But, the beach in November?’

‘Sure. We’ll take blankets.’ Rosie was in full-on planning mode. ‘Say yes. You can’t not celebrate your sixteenth. And you should celebrate it with us.’ She caught my eye. ‘Shouldn’t she?’

‘Definitely,’ I said.

A small smile had lifted Suzanne’s face. ‘That sounds nice.’

‘Of course it sounds nice,’ Rosie said. ‘It’ll be great. Quiet but celebratory. With presents.’ She looked pleased with herself. ‘Are you in?’

‘I’m in,’ Suzanne confirmed. She took a spoonful of macaron gloop. ‘I can’t believe how good this tastes. Why do people even bother with proper macarons when you could just do this?’ She licked a spot of whipped cream off her wrist. ‘You know, this is what I want the rest of my life to be like.’ She looked happy and relaxed, maybe more so than I’d ever seen her. ‘Baking with my friends.’ She grinned at us both.

‘I am definitely on board with that,’ Rosie said.

‘What do you think, Cads?’ Suzanne asked me. ‘A new tradition?’

The macaron pieces in the cream were sweet and chewy and perfect.

‘A new tradition,’ I confirmed.





As soon as I got home from school the Friday before Suzanne’s birthday I went straight to my room to pack my stuff for the weekend, something I’d been too lazy to do the night before, when I’d actually had time.

I was just flicking through my T-shirts, trying to find the one that featured Moomintroll, when I heard the phone ring. As it was the landline, I hoped immediately it was Rosie, and strained to hear Mum calling my name. When no shout came, I turned in slight disappointment back to my clothes. A few minutes later, just when I was pulling the Moomintroll shirt over my head, Mum poked her head in. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Sure,’ I said, pulling my hair out from under the T-shirt.

‘That was Suzanne’s aunt on the phone,’ Mum said, her voice cautious and measured. She let out a long sigh and then said, ‘There’s not going to be a birthday weekend. It’s been called off.’

My first thought was that Suzanne had done something wrong, that she and Sarah had fought over something and Suzanne had lost. My second, far more ridiculous and yet right on the heels of the first, was that it was just me that had been uninvited, that Rosie would still be there. ‘Why not?’

Mum didn’t say anything for what felt like a long time. She looked like she was thinking hard. Finally she said slowly, ‘Suzanne’s finding things difficult at the moment, and she’s just not in the right frame of mind for celebration. Does that make sense?’

Not even a little.

‘What do you mean, difficult?’

Another silence. ‘The word Sarah used was “sad”. She’s very sad, overwhelmingly so.’

‘You mean like depressed?’ None of this made sense. I’d seen Suzanne so recently; in fact we’d all three met up in Starbucks earlier that week, and she’d seemed fine. And Rosie hadn’t mentioned anything about her being sad at school.

‘I don’t think it’s like that. I think it’s just the case that a weekend of joviality is too much to expect right now.’ It was just like my mother to use the word ‘joviality’ in a sentence. Why couldn’t she just say fun, like a normal person?