Beautiful Broken Things(Beautiful Broken Things #1)(75)

For another agonizing minute the stillness remained unbroken. I was just wondering whether I should give up on this ridiculous exercise and go home when the curtains twitched, then moved aside. When she saw me, Suzanne’s mouth dropped open in shock, then shifted into an enormous grin. As her fingers scrabbled at the window, I felt my nerves subside. I’d been right to come here, of course I had. I was pretty sure that no one, in my entire life, had ever been that happy to see me.

‘Oh my God,’ Suzanne whispered once she’d opened her window. She leaned out of it, reaching out to hug me. ‘Oh my Gooodddd, Caddy!!!’

‘Who did you think it would be?’ I asked, attempting a joke and hugging her back.

‘I thought I was imagining it!’ Suzanne replied. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I came to see you,’ I said. ‘Obviously. Want to go somewhere?’

‘Did you climb over the garden wall?’ she asked, her voice incredulous.

‘Yeah, of course.’ I was starting to feel unsure of myself again. Did she have to be so surprised?

‘Why?’

‘To come and see you,’ I said.

‘Oh my God,’ she said again, this time sounding a little nervous. ‘Everyone’s right. I am a bad influence on you.’

‘Oh, don’t you start,’ I said, annoyed. ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’

‘I am!’ She laughed a little, but her eyes were still anxious. ‘I really don’t want to get you in more trouble though. Maybe you should go home, before they realize you’re gone.’

I shook my head. ‘It’s fine – my Mum already checked on me. Let’s go somewhere. Let’s actually do something, instead of just sitting on the beach. What about the pier?’

She shook her head. ‘You can’t access it at this kind of time. It’s completely locked up.’

‘You’ve tried?’

‘Once.’ She smiled coyly. ‘With Dylan.’

It had never occurred to me that she and Dylan had ever actually gone anywhere at night. I’d kind of thought that was our thing. Why did I assume so much about people and their lives? Why did I think that if it didn’t happen in front of me it didn’t happen at all?

‘I have an idea,’ she said.

Suzanne had the intelligence to bring an umbrella with her, and we huddled together underneath it as we walked away from our two houses.

‘So go on, tell me,’ she said, tucking the umbrella closer to us as we walked under a particularly low hanging tree, ‘what made you come to get me?’

‘What made you come and see me all the other times?’ I asked, thinking I was being clever.

‘Loneliness,’ Suzanne said simply.

‘Oh,’ I said, thrown.

She looked at me expectantly.

‘I tried to talk to my mum,’ I said. ‘To try and explain. But she basically made it clear that nothing was going to change. And I kind of thought . . . fuck it.’

For some reason she smiled. ‘Really? Is that what you thought?’

‘Yes!’ I said, defensive. ‘Fuck. It.’

‘But seriously, have you thought about what you’ll do if you get caught?’ she pressed.

‘Stop it, you’re spoiling my buzz,’ I said.

At this she outright laughed. ‘I love you so much.’

‘Then stop patronizing me,’ I said, wiggling the umbrella so the water dripped on to her face. ‘Don’t forget I’m older than you.’

‘By about three months,’ she said, grinning. ‘That hardly counts.’

I decided to ignore this. ‘I kind of want to get caught,’ I said instead, realizing as I spoke that it was true. The feeling of recklessness that had propelled me out of my window and over the garage roof welled up inside me again.

‘Hmm,’ she said, noncommittal.

‘Then they’ll see that trying to stop us being friends is never going to work,’ I explained. ‘They’ll have to accept that part and move on to helping you.’

I felt her bristle beside me. ‘Helping me?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I don’t need help,’ she said. ‘What you mean is, they’ll accept that we’re going to be friends no matter what and just deal with it. Right?’

I paused, trying to think of a way to respond. It didn’t seem like a good idea to say what was in my head, which was that she clearly did need help, and she was the one with the problem, not me.

‘You’re the troubled one,’ I said, making my voice as light as possible so she’d know it wasn’t a judgement.

Suzanne took a step backwards, out from under the umbrella. I stopped walking and turned back to look at her. ‘You’re as bad as they are,’ she said, her voice fierce. ‘That stupid word. I hate that word. Troubled. What the fuck does that even mean?’

Shit. ‘That you’ve had a hard time. It’s not a bad thing.’

‘Of course it’s a bad thing! Look at us!’ She gestured between us; me standing helplessly under the umbrella, her already half drenched just outside it, then upward, presumably towards the 2 a.m. sky. ‘You want to fix me, just like everyone else. You want me to be better, so you can be all proud of yourself.’