Undone(26)

Christmas wasn’t as awful as I’d expected. I mean, it was awful, but I’d steeled myself for it to be excruciating. The hardest bit was Christmas Eve, when Kai and I always used to exchange presents. I had a tiny fake Christmas tree on my desk and we’d put each other’s presents under it about a week before Christmas. Kai had made this super-cheesy Christmas playlist that we had to listen to every year without fail. I didn’t play it this year. And when Mum brought my little Christmas tree down from the attic I told her to put it in Noah’s room. For a second there I thought she was going to protest, but she said nothing.

Some of Kai’s wishes came true at least. Noah did get a lot of presents and I did get left alone – for the most part. Mum didn’t get stressed, even though the turkey turned out to be even more overcooked than usual. But Dad did get drunk. Still, three out of four wasn’t bad.

It was a sort of tradition in our family that you opened your best present last. Of course the problem was, you didn’t know which was the best present, so you had to rely on parental advice. Mum kept aside this big box for me to open after everything else. Big boxes were usually a good bet. Soft parcels were rarely good because soft parcels meant clothes. Mum’s idea of the sort of clothes I should wear and my idea of the sort of clothes I should wear had been mutually exclusive since I was ten years old.

When she handed over the parcel, she was smiling. She was proud of herself, which both annoyed and worried me. I hated having to pretend I liked things – summoning up that fake enthusiasm never came easily.

It was a fancy gift box from some crazy-expensive cosmetics company. Nestled among red tissue paper were tubs and pencils, brushes and bottles and things I couldn’t even identify. It must have cost an absolute fortune.

‘Mum, this is . . .’

‘Do you like it? Oh, I do hope you like it! I had such fun choosing it all. I must have been in the shop for hours!’

I couldn’t get over the timing of it. For a mad second there I thought she must have read Kai’s letter, but of course she hadn’t. I didn’t know how to feel. I was sort of annoyed that she was trying to change me too. And horrified that she’d spent so much money. And, more worryingly, I was a little bit excited. But I’d never have admitted that to anyone in a million years.

When I took my presents up to my room after lunch, I took each item out of the box and lined them up on my desk. Then I took out the ancient pencil case that had served as make-up bag for the past couple of years (covered in Tippex, holes punched through with a compass, complete with bits of pencil shavings). There was some cheap foundation that was two years out of date, my trusty kohl and mascara, and some blusher I’d never used. That was it. My make-up collection in all its glory. It was truly a pathetic sight.

Without even thinking I chucked the whole thing in the bin, kohl and all. Then I came to my senses and retrieved the pencil case (sentimental value) and the kohl (just in case). When Mum emptied my bin the next day she didn’t say anything, but she definitely noticed the new make-up lined up on the desk. It was there again – that almost-smile that made me want to punch something. I wanted to shout, JUST COS I’VE THROWN OUT SOME CRUSTY OLD MAKE-UP, IT DOESN’T MEAN ANYTHING’S CHANGED! IT DOESN’T MEAN I’VE CHANGED.

Kai had it all wrong with his amateur psychology. If I hadn’t wanted people to notice me I would have probably gone for no make-up at all and my natural baked-mud hair. That would have been the best way to blend in with all the others. They wouldn’t have called me freak or goth or emo then, would they? No. There’s no deep, dark reason for the way I looked. It seemed like a good idea at the time, that’s all. And once you do something like that, it’s pretty much making a statement: this is who I am. And once the statement’s been made, it can be hard to take it back.

I spent a fair chunk of the Christmas holidays messing around with the new make-up. It was all subtle and muted and understated, but that’s not to say it looked good straight away. Far from it. I looked like some strange version of myself whose skin didn’t exactly look like skin any more. But the more I experimented the better I got. I’d always liked art at school and this was sort of similar. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of embarrassment. It felt shameful to be wasting all this time on something so meaningless. And I couldn’t escape the feeling that I was using the make-up to plaster on a shiny, happy face so no one would know I was drowning. I don’t think that was quite what Kai had in mind.





chapter seventeen


On New Year’s Eve we watched the usual crap TV. Noah was hyper because he was allowed to stay up till midnight for the first time. Mum let me have a couple of glasses of champagne and we all hugged each other as the fireworks erupted over London on the telly.

As she was hugging me, Mum whispered in my ear, ‘This year will be easier, sweetheart. I promise.’ She had no idea that this time next year I wouldn’t be here. I’d be dead. Just like him.

There was only one thing on my mind as the minutes after midnight ticked by, stretching the bond between me and Kai even further. Suddenly, he was last year. The way I saw it, I had a choice: I could sleepwalk my way through the days and weeks and months between Kai’s letters, or I could do something.

I’d wasted so much time already – two whole months of self-indulgent grief had got me precisely nowhere. It was time to put all that aside (or at least bury it deep enough so that no one else could see it). Somehow I’d allowed myself to forget that I’d wanted revenge even before he died. Kai’s humiliation was enough to make me want to hurt someone. But his death had forced me into some kind of suspended animation.