3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream (24 page)

I shake my head. ‘If I hadn’t disturbed you, argued with you, none of this would have happened. And I fainted because I’d hardly eaten anything all day, not because of the smoke.’

Honey shrugs. ‘I’ve been worried about you for weeks,’ she says. ‘I’m just not good at showing it. It’s anorexia, Summer; you have to face up to it.’

I nod. ‘There’s a doctor at the hospital, a specialist. She’s going to help me.’

‘I hope so,’ Honey says. ‘Because I can’t bear it, watching you disintegrate. I’m the disaster in this family, OK? I’ve just proved it once and for all, so don’t even try to pretend you can come close. Running away sucks by the way. I met so many creeps I was almost glad when the police showed up.’

‘Were you trying to get to Dad?’

She shrugs. ‘I wanted to be as far away from here as possible, and I thought Dad might understand. As if. I spoke to him on Skype last night, and he was furious.’

‘He’s pretty hopeless, as dads go,’ I say.

‘I guess,’ Honey says, and that’s how I know she is really hurting because I have never heard her say a word against Dad before, not ever.

‘I’ve crossed a line this time,’ she goes on. ‘Smoking, starting a fire, letting my little sister almost burn to death …’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ I argue.

‘It was a bit like that,’ she says. ‘And what do I do? Stay and face the music? No. I run away and end up in the middle of a major police hunt with headlines in the newspapers and everything. That’s bad, even for me.’

I smile sadly.

‘I’ll be grounded until I’m about sixty, I suppose,’ Honey grins. ‘My life is over. Marty will never look at me now, or JJ. I might as well sign up for extra maths class and start dating Anthony.’

‘Anthony’s OK,’ I say. ‘You haven’t treated him very well …’

‘I don’t treat anyone very well,’ Honey admits. ‘It’s not my style. I’m a bitch, right? I don’t care about anyone else …’

I squeeze Honey’s hand. ‘You do care … I know you do.’

She wipes a hand across her eyes, fierce, furious. ‘Just be
careful, Summer,’ she says. ‘I’m the rebel and you’re Little Miss Perfect, but it’s just the same. You act a certain way and people expect you to go on doing it. It becomes the only way you know, and then you’re trapped …’

I blink. All these weeks I’ve been looking for someone who might understand how I was feeling – I just never guessed it could be Honey. Both of us feel the same hurt; we just react to it differently. I bottle up the pain, get angry with myself, push myself harder and harder, looking for perfection; Honey rebels and lashes out, angry at the world, making the wrong choices time after time. So different, yet so alike. I wish I’d seen it before.

‘We can change, can’t we?’ I say. ‘I feel like I’ve been on a treadmill for years, pushing the whole time, trying to be perfect … but I can’t quite get there. And right now, I’m tired of trying. I just want to be well again.’

My big sister holds me close. ‘You will be,’ she says.

34

Mum has made a huge feast of a dinner, a farewell meal for Grandma Kate and one designed to tempt me into eating. She makes all my one-time favourite foods: chicken pie and roast potatoes and gravy, with every kind of vegetable. Even Honey has helped, concocting a huge tower of meringue, whipped cream, strawberries and nuts. The table is heaped up like a Christmas feast, and my heart sinks because I know I can’t eat this, can’t even try.

‘It’s great to be back,’ Mum says, breaking the silence. ‘Peru was amazing, absolutely incredible, but … there’s no place like home.’

‘Trip of a lifetime,’ Paddy says. ‘And finding an organic cocoa supplier was the icing on the cake. It’s a real family set-up. Our involvement will make all the difference to
them, and we get the boost of having an organic Fairtrade product too …’

‘Wonderful,’ Grandma Kate says. And then the conversation crashes.

‘Aren’t you eating, Summer?’ Mum cajoles. ‘Just a little? I want to feed you up now that I’m home …’

I hang my head, panic rising inside me. There is just too much of everything, and besides, I don’t want to be ‘fed up’. I spear a green bean and try to eat it, fail. I put my fork down.

I thought I would feel better, facing up to the problem, agreeing to get help. Isn’t that meant to be the hardest part? I thought some kind of magic switch would flick on and I would begin to get better, that the fears would lift and I could eat again, but that hasn’t happened.

‘You’re scaring her,’ Skye says, picking up on my mood. ‘This isn’t going to work.’

I scrape my chair back roughly and get up, pushing out of the kitchen. I run up the stairs, find my mobile and punch out a message. A reply pings back almost at once, and I smile.

I push a small bundle into my pink shoulder bag and go
downstairs again, sneaking out of the front door and across the grass, beneath the trees and down to the cliff path. I pick my way down the steps, kick off my shoes, walk down to the sea. The tide has turned, leaving a margin of damp sand, ridged and ribbed, edged with surf. I wade into the water, shivering as a swirl of seaweed tangles around my ankles, feeling the push and pull of the ocean.

I reach into my pink shoulder bag and my fingers close round the new satin pointe shoes I had for my audition. My eyes blur with tears. I lift out the shoes, flinging them in a graceful arc across the waves so that the ribbons fly out behind them like streamers. They land randomly in the surf, buffeted backwards and forwards by the tide, getting further and further from the shore.

I am not going to ballet school, not now, maybe not ever. I’m not sure I even care any more. Mum mentioned something about studying dance after A levels, taking a performing arts course or training to be a dance teacher, but right now, I can’t think that far ahead.

The girl most likely to succeed … that’s a laugh. The dreams are over, shot down in flames, and I have nobody to blame but myself.

I feel like my heart is breaking. I turn away from the ocean, and in the distance I see Alfie walking along the sand towards me.

‘You came,’ I say, once he is close enough to hear me.

‘Of course I came,’ he says simply. ‘You asked me to.’

‘I messed up,’ I tell him. ‘Already. I want to get well again, I really do, but Mum made a special meal for me and everyone was looking at me and I couldn’t eat any of it …’

‘Hey,’ Alfie says. ‘Early days. You have to take it slowly. Give it a chance – this doctor person hasn’t even started helping you yet. You can do it, Summer. Believe it.’

He pushes a rucksack into my arms. ‘Anyhow, I brought supplies …’

We spread a blanket on the sand, unpack strawberries, apples, hard-boiled eggs, even a strange-looking cake that dips a little in the middle. ‘It’s carrot cake,’ he explains. ‘My own recipe. Wholemeal flour, no sugar, extra-low-fat cream cheese frosting …’

We sit side by side on the beach, looking out to sea. I eat a hard-boiled egg, an apple, and it doesn’t feel scary and the voice in my head stays silent. I bite into a strawberry, letting the sweet juice stain my lips. Alfie slips an arm round
my shoulder and I lean into him, relaxing. I wonder if he will kiss me again, and if the kiss will taste of strawberries.

If I look hard enough, I can still see the pointe shoes, bobbing slightly on the current, far out to sea.

‘I won’t be going to ballet school now,’ I tell Alfie. ‘That dream bit the dust.’

‘OK,’ he says. ‘Plan B then.’

‘There is no Plan B,’ I sigh.

‘Better think of one then. And if Plan B falls through, move on to Plan C. There are twenty-six letters in the alphabet, right? You’re not a quitter, Summer.’

‘I guess.’

Alfie slices a piece of carrot cake, the tiniest piece ever, and offers it to me. I break off a corner and take a bite. It’s lighter than it looks, moist and sweet and fresh-tasting.

‘It’s good,’ I say, surprised.

‘Yup,’ he grins. ‘I’ve given up on the celebrity chef idea. I’m aiming more for the healthy wholefood market now. Plan D I think that is, for me.’

Broken dreams … maybe they’re just stepping stones to new possibilities? I like that idea.

Alfie leans across and kisses me then, swiftly, gently. He
tastes of carrot cake and strawberries and hope, and that makes me smile. I am not sure you could ever have enough of a kiss like that.

‘Hey. I made something else for you,’ he says, taking something from the side pocket of his rucksack. ‘It took forever because my fingers are all clumsy and slow, but …’

He holds out a daisy-chain circlet and puts it in my hair, tucked behind the pink silk flower, a princess-crown, fragile, perfect.

Resources

If you are worried about an eating disorder, please talk to a parent, teacher or to your family doctor and get some adult help and support. As Summer comes to realize, controlling your food cannot solve your problems – it will only add to them.

If you are worried about a friend, talk to a trusted teacher and share your concerns, in confidence if need be. Letting an adult know is important, as an eating disorder is easier to treat when spotted early on.

Remember that diets of any kind are bad news for teens or pre-teens; your body is still developing and restricting calories can cause real damage. If you genuinely feel you need help with your weight, please see your family doctor.

WEBSITES:

www.b-eat.co.uk
– help and support for anyone worried about an eating disorder

www.eatingdisorderssupport.co.uk
– confidential support for anyone with an eating disorder

www.eating-disorders.org.uk
– beating anorexia, bulimia, binge-eat disorder, etc.

www.evamusby.co.uk
– for parents worried about a child with anorexia

EMAIL SUPPORT:

[email protected]

UK HELPLINES:

Beat Youthline: 0845 634 7650

Eating Disorders Support: 01494 793223

BOOKS:

Letters To Cathy
by Cathy Cassidy – help and advice on self-esteem, confidence and learning to accept and like yourself, plus support with many other growing-up issues.