Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(50)
Any joy with your head of year?
xx
Wednesday 17.19
From: Suzanne Watts {[email protected]}
To: Caddy Oliver {[email protected]}
Nope. So I’ll be at the cafe tomorrow. Hey, if you’re free after school you should stop by for cake :) Wednesday 17.22
From: Caddy Oliver {[email protected]}
To: Suzanne Watts {[email protected]}
Amazing! I will if I can. I’ll bring Roz, yeah?
Wednesday 17.23
From: Suzanne Watts {[email protected]}
To: Caddy Oliver {[email protected]}
OK.
xx
In less than twenty-four hours, Suzanne and Rosie seemed to have got over their snippiness and were back to their usual selves. I came home late on Thursday evening, after a Sixth Form information evening at Esther’s, to find they’d both spammed my Facebook page with forty-eight photos and videos of Elton John.
If anything, Suzanne seemed to enjoy her three days off school and her time in the cafe. When Rosie and I visited on Friday afternoon she was behind the till, concentrating so hard on taking an order that she didn’t realize immediately that we were there. She brought us millefeuille and chocolate milkshakes and we sat at the corner table together, people-watching and talking.
On Saturday, Suzanne texted me to let me know she was outside with Sarah and I went out to meet her. She was dressed in the most casual of Saturday clothes, the picture of a teenage girl on her way to a friend’s house for a sleepover.
‘Just a quiet night for you girls then?’ Sarah asked as she drove.
‘Yeah,’ Suzanne said before I could try to lie. ‘It’s been such a weird week I couldn’t face anything else.’
It was almost scary really. I knew she was lying, and even I was momentarily convinced. It wasn’t just what she’d said or even the placid expression on her face, it was the relaxed way she was sitting in the front seat, her overnight bag containing her going-out clothes right there on her lap, her fingers tapping her leg to the beat of the music. She lied with her whole body and it seemed effortless.
I thought about asking her about it later, but I couldn’t think of a way of doing it that wouldn’t come out confrontational. The last thing I wanted after everything that had happened that week was an argument.
Levina’s house lived up to its billing. It turned out to be much closer to my own house than Rosie’s, near to the seafront and huge. Her older sister and brother – twins in the Upper Sixth – had invited their own friends, so even by the time we arrived you could barely move for people.
‘Come and get a drink!’ Levina squealed when we arrived, already giggly with alcohol. She was wearing a too-tight dress and a large hat in the shape of a birthday cake. ‘Oh my God, Suze, I can’t believe you came!’
‘Happy birthday,’ Suzanne said in reply, a tight smile on her face.
When we headed into the living room to find the alcohol, she turned to me and gripped my wrist momentarily. ‘Oh my God, I need a drink.’
‘Me too,’ I said, already feeling self-conscious and out of place. Suzanne had done a good job making me up on the outside, but it hadn’t had the transformative effect I’d hoped for on the inside. I was still me.
We took our drinks into another room which had a table covered in pizzas and a crowd of excitable teenagers and found a spot for the three of us on the bench that was built into the wall.
‘Cheers,’ Rosie said, angling her bottle towards me.
‘Cheers,’ I replied, more enthusiastically than I really meant, clinking my bottle against hers. Suzanne leaned over the two of us and jiggled her own bottle between ours.
‘I see Dylan,’ Rosie said quietly.
Suzanne took a sip from her bottle and made a face. ‘Can we pretend he’s not here?’
I was about to ask which one Dylan was, but there was no need. As soon as he spotted us his face changed and he started to make his way over.
‘Oh great,’ Rosie muttered to me. ‘Can’t we at least get a few drinks in first?’
When both Rosie and Suzanne had talked about Dylan, I’d expected a good-looking lad-type. Probably a bit obnoxious, aware of his appeal; hot in an obvious way. But Dylan was tall and lithe with messy dark hair and the unlikeliest blue eyes. He was wearing skinny jeans, a Bon Iver T-shirt and, most unexpectedly of all, a lip ring. This was not in any way a description I would have thought to put on a boy my two best friends both liked.
But then he smiled. And it made a lot more sense.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Suzanne said.
He ignored this. ‘Hey,’ he said, looking right at her. ‘You all right?’
Suzanne just looked at him. A fierce, furious glare.
‘Want to come out for a smoke?’ Dylan asked, undeterred. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and waved them slightly, still with that smile on his face. The smile said, Of course you do.
Unexpected. That was the only word I could think of for him.
‘Dylan, just go,’ Rosie said, her voice exasperated.
‘Aw, Roz,’ Dylan said, surprising me again. He called her Roz. ‘I’m building bridges here.’
I glanced at Suzanne just in time to see something flash across her face. She did want to go with him. Even if it was just for a second, she did.