Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(3)
If anyone asked me for a story from my life in the present tense, I always went blank.
Of course I wasn’t trying to invite tragedy into my life. I knew the takeaway from pain is sadness, not anecdotes. But everything about me and my life felt ordinary, hopelessly average, even clichéd. All I wanted was something of some significance to happen.
And then, so slowly at first I almost didn’t notice it happening, it did.
Tuesday Rosie, 09.07: New girl alert.
Caddy, 10.32: ??
10.34: We have a new girl!
10.39: Really? Details please.
10.44: Her names Suzanne. Seems very cool. More later, maths now.
13.19: She just moved here from Reading. Takes same options as me! V funny.
13.20: I mean shes v funny, not the options thing.
13.28: Cool. How’s everything else?
13.33: Same as. Call me tonight for chattage x
13.35: Will do x
Wednesday 08.33: I am on the bus and I just realized I forgot to brush my teeth.
08.37: Lovely!
10.38: Guess who isn’t a prefect?
10.40: Is it you?
10.42: Yes.
10.43: WOOOHOOOOOO! streamers
10.44: Your support means the world to me.
13.01: You will always be PREFECT to me!
13.05: Um, thanks?
13.06: Geddit?
13.09: Yes!
13.11: HAHAHAHAHA. Suzanne says I shouldn’t laugh because maybe you wanted to be prefect.
13.29: You told her?
13.33: Yeah! I told her you def didnt want to be prefect and I’m laughing in a good way.
13.35: Sz says all of the best people she knows aren’t prefects.
13.40: Cads?
13.46: I def didn’t want to be prefect. Mum wanted me to be though.
13.48: :(
13.49: We’ll be not prefects together xx
Thursday 13.19: Nikki has clocked that Suzanne is cool. She tried to get her to sit with her at lunch.
13.25: Successfully?
13.27: No. Suzanne said she was good with me. Nikki said, you must have noticed she’s a loser by now. Sz was like, wtf? and Nikki goes ‘SERIOUSLY. I’m SAVING YOU.’
13.28: Bitch!!! Are you OK?
13.29. No. I’m crying in the toilets.
13.30: Want me to call you?
13.31: No.
13.31: Yes please.
Friday 09.01: What did you have for breakfast this morning?
09.02: Um, cereal?
09.03: Mum made me pancakes. I WIN!
13.12: Idea. How about I bring Suzanne with me when I come to yours after school? Then you can meet her!
13.42: Sure, OK.
13.43: Yay! You’ll love her, she’s amazing. We’ll come straight over, probs be at yours at about 4.
13.58: See you then x
15.33: WEEKEND!!!
I’d planned to make it to my house before Rosie and Suzanne arrived, mainly because I tried to keep the amount of time Rosie saw me in my school uniform to an absolute minimum. She was lucky enough to have an ordinary uniform – black skirt, white shirt, black cardigan – and she had a tendency to laugh in my face if she ever caught me in mine.
So it was just my luck that I was pushing my key into my front-door lock when I heard the stamp of feet behind me and then there was Rosie, throwing herself up against the still-closed door and pushing her face right up close to mine.
‘Hello!’ she shouted, all smiles.
I had to laugh. ‘Hi,’ I said, twisting the key and opening the door. ‘Any chance I can persuade you to stay out here while I go change?’
‘Nope!’ Rosie said, pushing herself in front of me and blocking the doorway. ‘It’s too late. We’ve both seen you now.’ She gestured behind me. ‘Suze, didn’t I tell you it would be the greenest thing you’ve ever seen?’
I glanced behind me at the new girl, who was smiling. When our eyes met, she grinned. ‘Hi!’ She was effortlessly friendly, her voice upbeat and her face open. ‘I’m Suzanne.’
‘Obviously you’re Suzanne,’ Rosie said, rolling her eyes before turning and heading into my house, leaving the two of us on the doorstep. ‘Who else would you be?’
‘Hi,’ I said, trying to match Suzanne’s bright tone and failing. ‘Um. I guess you know I’m Caddy.’
She nodded. ‘Your house is really nice.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, as if it was something I had any control over. I stepped into the house and she followed me, moving aside so I could close the door.
Rosie reappeared in the doorway to the kitchen, holding three red cans. ‘You drink Coke, right?’ she said to Suzanne, waving one at her.
Suzanne glanced at me, as if wondering if she should ask permission.
‘Don’t mind her,’ I said, taking one of the cans for myself and starting up the stairs. ‘She thinks this is her house too.’
‘It basically is.’ Rosie sounded far more cheerful than she usually did after her first week back at school. By this point the previous year, she’d collapsed on my living-room sofa and refused to move.
In my room, Rosie pulled over my beanbag chair and sank into it, for some reason choosing not to take her usual spot beside me on my bed. Suzanne sat down next to her, her eyes flitting around. I saw her glance land on my battered poster from the old Disney film The Rescuers – a present from Tarin several years ago as a nod to a treasured childhood joke – and a bemused smile skittered across her face.