Follow Me Down (28 page)

12 DAYS AFTER

MAY

I didn’t say a word on the drive back to Crofton, just looked out the window at the fields rolling by. It felt so final, like the ride to the airport after a vacation, and I made myself memorise everything – every blade of grass, every dandelion, each break in the clouds that exposed the blue, blue sky – holding on to that last moment with both hands – with my fingernails – before I went back to Crofton and everything changed.

I guess Bones thought that was it, that I wasn’t going to say another word, because when he pulled up outside the main hall and I got out of the car, he didn’t follow. I turned back, stooping down to look at him before I closed the door.

‘Come on.’ I nodded at the doors.

He took off his seat belt. ‘Where are we going?’

‘What time is it?’

He checked his watch. ‘Almost four.’

‘I know where he is.’

When we got to the classroom, he was humming to himself, but when he glanced over to find me in the doorway, he shook his head.

‘Please, Adamma,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘Not now.’

I guess he didn’t see Bones, because he turned back to the whiteboard and I felt an ache in my chest as I remembered our last social, him in the suit he wore to Edith’s wedding, me in a dress he told me later was the colour of Dundee marmalade. He made me wait until it was almost over before he approached me, just in passing, just for a moment, and I’d pretended to pout, asking if he’d even seen me. ‘You’re the only person I see when I walk into a room, Adamma,’ he had said with a slow smile.

For a moment it hurt too much to speak, as I stared at him, noting the scuff on his shoes, the missing button on the sleeve of his tweed blazer. I searched for some hardness in his jaw, some blackness in his eyes, but he looked as he always does, awkward and a little flustered, his hair in his eyes.

‘I think I made my feelings clear earlier,’ he said without looking at me, rubbing away the notes from his Year 10 class.

I stepped into the classroom. ‘Daniel, what did you do?’

His hand stilled for a second, but when he recovered, he shook his head and continued running the eraser over the whiteboard. ‘For goodness’ sake, Adamma, I thought we agreed that—’ He shot a look at me as Bones followed me in. ‘DS Bone.’ He put the eraser down and faced us, his chin up. ‘Is everything OK?’

I wanted to fly at him, yell at him, but all I could say was: ‘Daniel, what did you do?’ again, because they were the only words in my head, churning around and around and around.
What did you do? What did you do? What did you do?

He looked genuinely bewildered. ‘
Do
? To whom?’

‘To Scarlett.’

There was a moment of silence, her name dropping like ink into water, bleeding – spreading – until the classroom suddenly felt darker. I watched him swallow, his Adam’s apple rising then falling again, before he paced over to the door and closed it behind Bones. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, if he was going to turn into a pantomime villain and laugh in my face, grab me by the arm and call me a liar. But he just came and stood in front of me again, his cheeks suddenly too red as he looked at me through his hair. It was the same look he had given me outside the theatre when he had tugged my pashmina over my shoulders and, just like that – as always – we were the only people in the room. Bones wasn’t there, there were no desks, no chairs, and he looked so much like the Daniel I knew – my Daniel – young and awkward and unsure of what to do with his hands, that I wanted to press a kiss to his mouth and tell him that it would be OK.

But I took a step back.

‘Adamma, I can explain,’ he said, his hands shaking as he reached for me.

Even then, I still couldn’t believe it and I stepped back. ‘No!’

‘Adamma, please.’ When I wouldn’t let him touch me, he pressed his hands together as though he was praying. ‘Please. It’s me.
Me
. I love you so much.’

‘No you don’t.’

‘I do. I
do
.’ He reached for me again and I yanked my arm away.

‘No you don’t. You were going to leave.’ I shook my head and stared at him as I remembered the letter from Yale I’d seen in the glove compartment of his car. They must have discussed going together and he was just going to go without her.

‘Just for a year.’

‘No! You were running away!’

‘Adamma, please.’

Something in me gave way and I started crying. ‘Daniel, please.’ I sobbed and I wanted to reach for him so much, to touch his familiar arms and shoulders, to sweep his hair out of his face with my hand. ‘Please tell me you didn’t do it.’

‘It was an accident.’ He looked inconsolable, like a little boy. ‘She wouldn’t listen.’

‘No, Daniel.’ I shook my head and took a step back. ‘No.’

‘She was going to keep it. She wouldn’t listen. She was going to ruin everything.’

He tried to reach for my hand again, but I ran out of the classroom before he could.

42 MINUTES BEFORE

MAY

I shouldn’t have skipped swimming practice this afternoon, but when he texted, asking me to meet him in Savernake Forest, I didn’t hesitate. I should have – Coach told me that I’d be kicked off the team if I missed another practice – but I didn’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore: about swimming, about my parents getting another letter, about getting kicked out of Crofton. And it’s kind of scary, how much you’ll give of yourself without realising. Sometimes it feels like I’m not giving, but throwing, pieces away. All I want is him. Him. Him. Him. Everything else can burn. So as soon as I read his text, I didn’t think, I just left.

It’s moments like that that make me wonder if I have any control over this, that make me feel like an alcoholic hiding empty bottles at the back of closets. I can’t remember the last time I told a stammered lie, the last time I felt a sting of shame when my father called and I rejected the call because I was with him. If this is love, then I’m mad with it. Drunk on it. Like today. It was another perfect day, the sun out, high and bright in the sky as we lay on a tartan blanket, the trees arcing over us. I took his hand and counted the bones in his fingers, claiming each one as my own – distal phalanx, middle phalanx, proximal phalanx – while he laughed.

When I’m older, I’m sure I’ll think spending a Sunday lying around in the sun is a waste. But today wasn’t a waste. Today all we had was time: seconds, minutes, hours, floating around us like dandelion fluff as we looked up at the endless sky, the blanket scratching at our bare elbows as we watched the flimsy clouds float past, pretending each one was a country. (‘India! Let’s go there. Australia! Let’s go there.’)

We only stopped when we heard the distant chugchugchug of The Old Dear on the road, somewhere beyond the wall of trees. Usually, it would have ruined the afternoon, the thought of her reminding me of something nasty she had said in class or another rumour she’d tried to start, but I just lay back on the blanket with a sigh.

I think he was surprised. ‘So how was the party? You don’t have any bruises.’

‘Fine.’

He groaned, lying down next to me. ‘What did she do this time?’

‘Nothing. We didn’t even speak.’

He rolled onto his side, taking my hand. ‘Do you think that’s it?’

‘Who knows with Scarlett.’ I threaded my fingers through his and looked up at the sky. ‘But it’s the happiest I’ve seen her in a long time.’

‘Was Dominic there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Were they together?’ When I shrugged as if to say,
Aren’t they always?
he sighed. ‘I don’t know why he puts up with her. Why he puts up with any of this.’

‘He loves her, Daniel.’ I turned my head to smile at him. ‘You don’t know what you’ll do for love until you do it.’

He smiled back, then pressed a kiss to my forehead. ‘Did you talk to him?’

‘He told me I should apologise, make the first move.’

‘Did you?’

‘I took her a present.’

He chuckled. ‘Well played.’

‘I bought it ages ago. I was going to give it to her for Christmas, but then, you know.’ I shrugged again. ‘I didn’t attach a card so she won’t know it’s from me.’

‘What was it?’

‘Nothing. Just a picture frame I saw in a shop in Marlborough.’

I squeezed his hand as I thought about the white wooden frame, the red words:
A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for
.

‘It’s kind of funny. If I hadn’t met her, I don’t think I would have been brave enough to do this.’

He kissed me, but before I could kiss him back, his cellphone rang. He pulled it out of the pocket of his jeans and looked at the screen with a sigh. I asked him what was wrong, but he just rolled his eyes. ‘Crofton. They know not to ring me on a Sunday.’

I groaned before he said it –
I have to go
– rolling onto my stomach to watch him walk back to his car. He was only a few steps away before I felt the tug on the thread between us and I started missing him. I wonder if he knew, because he turned back to smile at me before he disappeared between the trees. When I lost sight of him, I rolled back onto my back with a lazy sigh, a hand on my chest.

Is this love?

I think it is.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I must thank you, lovely reader. Whether you’ve bought or borrowed this, thank you for reading. I hope this is a story that you will want to read again or, if you’re one of those people who read the acknowledgements first, I hope that what I’m about to say will encourage you to go back to the beginning.

Now I must thank the people who worked so hard to put this in your hands. My agent, the delightful and oh-so-patient Claire Wilson, without whom this book would never have been finished. My editors, Hannah Sheppard, Frankie Gray and Sherise Hobbs, without whom this book would be a
mess
and just about Bones. To the incomparable Sam Eades who is not only the best publicist a
n author could ask for, but always makes sure I have a brew. To the charming Lynsey Sutherland and everyone at Headline, who continue to overwhelm me with their talent and passion. To the booksellers and librarians who have supported me and thrust
Heart-Shaped Bruise
into the hands of so many readers, thank you.

Speaking of
Heart-Shaped Bruise
, this is a great chance to formally thank everyone who read and reviewed it, as well as the judges on the panels of the CWA Daggers, the National Book Awards, the Branford Boase and the Redbridge Children’s Book Award, who thought it worthy of nomination. You make me want to be a better writer.

But back to this book, thank you to Funmi Anazodo and Zaina Miuccia for answering all of my many, many questions. Oh and the poor police officer from Wiltshire police who I’m pretty sure thinks I murdered someone. To Godson Echebima for translating the Igbo and Fiona and Claire Hodge and Martha Close for letting me pillage their boarding-school stories. And not forgetting Sarah Genever, who drove me around Wiltshire in the relentless rain as I tried to imagine what Ostley would look like.

On a personal note, I must thank my fellow UKYA Crew – Amy McCulloch, Cat Clarke, James Dawson, James Smythe, Keris Stainton, Laure Eve, Tom Pollock and Will Hill – who have all been so supportive and pretty much kept me sane this year. Particularly Kim Curran, who has fed me tea and cake and told me I could do this while I’ve ugly cried more times than I care to mention. Much love to my friends Cristin Moor, Jade Bell and Kelly Bignall for just being brilliant, really, and for still being there when I was too busy to call them back or reply to their emails. Thank you, too, to my family – Carly, Martin, my mother and my nephew, Jacob, who has no clue what this writing malarkey is about, but will be bored senseless with stories about it one day.

And finally, thanks once more to you, lovely reader, for persevering through these acknowledgements, which are almost as long as the book. Your dedication is duly noted and very much appreciated. You’ve earned a cup of tea.