Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(31)

‘I’ll be sure to be on the lookout for destruction,’ I said, this time letting the sarcasm soak into my words. Mum looked at me for a moment like she didn’t know me.

It worked though. She put the key into the ignition and turned it, finally letting the matter drop.





By the time December rolled around, I was up to my neck in exam revision and barely had time to see my family, let alone Rosie or Suzanne. I kept in touch with both of them by text, getting so used to their respective styles that I didn’t even need to check the name any more. Rosie was full of her special brand of snarky cheer in her messages; Suzanne far more random and quick to joke. When I told her that I was revising for my Religious Studies exam, she went through a phase of messaging me with Deep And Important questions.

Caddy, is the green grass you see the same green grass as the green grass I see?

Caddy, would you be able to fly if you really believed you could?

Caddy, what is life?

Caddy, what if you’re dreaming right now? WAKE UP CADDY.

And so on.

On a Wednesday evening in early December I was taking a break from revising, playing an unfeasibly addictive game on my laptop, when my phone began buzzing beside me. I reached distractedly over for it, keeping one hand tapping on my keyboard. I was about a minute from a new high score.

Fingers scrabbling, I found the answer button.

‘Hello?’

‘Hey, it’s me.’

‘Who’s me?’ I asked. In my attempt to pick up without interrupting my game, I hadn’t even looked at the name flashing on the screen.

There was a slight pause. ‘Me as in Suzanne?’

‘Oh!’ My eyes flicked automatically towards the time on my laptop – 21.57 – and that was all it took. There was a trumpet horn of doom and an unnecessarily large GAME OVER sign started pinging all over the screen. ‘Oh, dammit.’

‘Is this a bad time?’ Her voice was bemused. ‘Was that a trumpet?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ I said, ignoring the second question. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’m outside.’

‘What do you mean, outside?’ I asked, not following this.

‘I mean, outside your house. Outside your window.’

I moved my laptop off my lap and on to the floor and scrambled across the bed to look outside. Sure enough, there was Suzanne. When she saw me, she waved.

‘Can I come up?’

‘Why don’t you just use the front door?’ I asked, confused.

‘It’s late. I don’t want your parents to know I’m here.’

‘OK, but how are you going to get up here?’

In answer, Suzanne ended the call, made a couple of pointing gestures I couldn’t decipher and then disappeared from sight. Seconds later her head appeared over the garage roof, and then the rest of her.

I opened the window and she crawled through it, pausing to take off her shoes before sliding down on to my bed. She grinned at me. ‘Hi!’

‘Hello,’ I replied, trying not to laugh. ‘Nice acrobatics.’

‘It’s a handy skill,’ Suzanne said.

‘So . . . not that I’m not thrilled to see you . . .’ I began.

‘Obviously!’ she interrupted brightly.

‘Obviously,’ I affirmed. ‘But . . . why are you here?’

‘I had a fight with Sarah, so I just wanted some space. Just for a bit. Is it OK if I hang out here? What have you been up to tonight?’ She glanced around my room as she spoke, her eyes settling on my photo montage.

‘Not much,’ I started to say, but she interrupted me again, her eyes widening.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, actually saying the word. ‘That’s me!’

She seemed so genuinely surprised and pleased that I laughed. ‘Why so surprised?’

There was just one picture with Suzanne in it in the whole bunch; the three of us on the pier, balanced on one of the benches, posing as the no-evil monkeys. I was see, Rosie was hear, Suzanne was speak. I loved the picture so much that I’d put it up weeks ago, back when it still bothered me to share even photograph space with her.

‘I don’t know.’ Suzanne was smiling, leaning closer to examine the picture. ‘I guess I didn’t realize I was important enough for your wall.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh God, that was a pathetic thing to say. Please forget I said that.’

We talked about nothing for a while as Suzanne roamed around my room, studying various photographs and running her fingers along the spines of my books. Finally she came across my collection of nail varnishes and held one up hopefully.

‘Can I do your nails?’

We settled, cross-legged and facing each other, my back against the wall and my hand splayed out on the floor. We were both quiet for the first few nails.

‘So you had a fight with Sarah?’ I prompted finally.

She nodded. I thought about the first time I’d met Sarah, when she and Suzanne had picked me up on the way to Rosie’s house, way back in September. The two of them had seemed like friends. What had happened?

‘I thought you got along pretty well,’ I said. Suzanne had chosen a teal nail varnish from a set Tarin had bought me a couple of years earlier that I hadn’t even opened, loyal as I was to my spectrum of pinks.