Playing With My Heartstrings (24 page)

"Oh well, a lesson learnt, don't you think?" Joel raised his eyes at the blue clouds, which stood out as vividly as his indigo jeans. Secretly, I suspected that memories of our one and only night together - the night when sweet, once-in-a-lifetime teenage love came to the surface, sending me into a spell-binding trance - had hit Joel because every few seconds, his adoring eyes focused on mine, revealing a message which was nearly incomprehensible. I thought that I got it.

"Are you staying the night, Joel?" Luke inquired, calmly.

Joel smirked, shaking his head vigorously. "Nah, camping wasn't really my style - I nearly got lost walking through the woods, stumbling over twigs and maybe once a squirrel." He laughed, rudely shaking me out of my dazed reverie. "I've still got the scratch on my ankle." Joel remarkably maintained his balance - did he attend ballet classes when he was at primary school and or was horse riding a secret sport of his? - whilst he took off his Converse and pair of Homer Simpson-patterned socks to reveal the gory, yellow-coloured bruise surrounding the vicious cut, the crime of which had certainly laid in an irritated animal's claws.

"OK, I think we've got the picture," I said, frantically, desperate for Joel place his cheese-scented socks onto his flipper-sized feet as soon as possible.

"Not a nice one, is it?"

Well, wasn't it rather obvious in the first place?

Elated to have gathered an audience to showcase his blood-stained cut, Joel hastily put on his socks and trainers, then announced, "My mate is goin' to drive me home, so I better call him."

I wrinkled my freckled nose questioningly. "Are you sure he is old enough to drive legally, Joel?"

Joel's wild grin grew wider, somewhat resembling a chuckling Joker, minus the terrifying insanity. "Although Alex is a few years older than me, we get along like a house on fire; in fact, he is Kate's older brother."

Oh. So, I assumed that Joel hadn't broken the truth to Alex about his day-long relationship with Little Miss Dramatic (i.e. me), then? Hmm, it didn't matter, really; a foolish, hormone-driven (my own adjective, not anybody else's) mistake could be easily forgiven and forgotten about, according to what Dad once drunkenly stated during the World Cup after England was slaughtered by top-dog Germany.

Becoming aware of the fact that a farewell was closing towards a near, Luke shifted in his shoes and addressed to Joel, albeit quite fumblingly, "Thanks for, um, coming down here tonight for Sadie, Joel. I also appreciate it because it has cleared up quite a few things which had been playing on Sadie's mind." Placing his attention onto his leaf-covered trainers, Luke turned an alarming shade of red and looked down, embarrassment seemingly washing over him. Men. Wasn't it always up to women to perform the hardest bit of work, even with an easy-as-pie conversation?

"Sure, no problem," Joel replied, "at least we've sorted out our differences and can walk away amicably, unlike before," making a slight reference to our previous encounter inside the cafe, of which I'd informed Luke long ago. "Sometimes, mistakes have to be made in order to learn - I didn't really plan on learning anything new after school broke up, so imagine my surprise!"

I giggled, softly, somehow agreeing with Joel's honest statement. After acing my end-of-term exams and spending the last few days baking raspberry muffins in Home Economics and chatting excitedly about getting a real tan with my then-friends in the sunny playground, I just didn't figure that I could have picked up something new - whether it was related to fractions, finishing my abused copy of Romeo and Juliet or even dealing with yet another aspect of life - within a couple of weeks. Well, I'd surpassed all of my expectations with flying colours - or did I originally have any? So what, I couldn't have cared less.

Joel stiffly walked over, wrapping me in a warm, though friendly hug - the very last thing I would've expected all those weeks ago in the Rollers Cafe - and I caught a second-long whiff of his shampoo, the scent of which was embedded in his messy, lovable mop of hair.

"You like coconut, hmm?" I whispered, quietly, provoking Joel to chuckle tenderly.

"I like to be eccentric, I suppose," he admitted, slowly pulling away from me. "Coconut appears the be the boldest scent I've yet come across."

"It suits you."

Honestly, as I later realized, what part of a sweet coconut could prompt memories of Joel? Still, it seemed the right thing to say in the heat of the moment.

As soon as I moved back to Luke's side, he instinctively grabbed hold of my hand as though it had never left his.

Joel grinned and stuck his hands into his near-invisible pockets, which my eyes hadn't noticed due to the lack of sunlight. "See you at school, Sadie," he told me, thrusting his hand into a half-wave. "And you too, Luke, though I haven't seen you around Applebury High before."

"I don't go there," Luke pointed out, "as I reside in Millingbourne around twenty miles away, but I don't allow the distance to stop me from visiting Sadie every so often," ending his words with a dashing smile that tickled my heart as gently as the easy-going breeze touching my cool arms.

"Oh right," Joel replied, hastily preparing his getaway. "Anyway, see you around, Sadie - don't put on those neon pink tights this year, OK?"

I chucked lightly, remembering my well-publicised mistake of accidently placing a pair of disco-style pink tights instead of my boring, funeral-suitable black ones on the first day of lessons starting, which resulted in a strict telling off by the double-chinned headmaster, Mrs Powler. Clearly not listed as one of my finest moments.

Joel stalked over to the gate, pulling it open easily as the handle had been left unlocked, and he treaded onto the twigs, humming a tune from a noisy genre which would blast my ears off. Literally.

Fully noticing that the weak orange sun had set behind the forest-load of sturdy oak trees, a beautiful full moon captivated my attention, alongside a stunned Luke, who was, fair to say, moonstruck by its alarming beauty.

"Want to go back to camp?" Luke asked, after a few minutes silent.

Forcefully taking my eyes away from the magnificent spectacle, I whipped my head around to Luke and replied, "Yeah, I do."

Then, still hands entwined in one another's, we strolled to the gate, taking one last look at the sensational meadow, its magic still so strong on both of us, and locked the handle, treading away into the night.

Chapter 17

Slowly walking on the bumpy, leaf-surfaced ground, Luke and I eventually arrived back at our makeshift camp, the last few embers of the fire dying and turning into coal, which was almost as black as the thin leather jacket that Luke had tossed onto his shoulders.

Minding the bunch of twigs that were scattered all over the grass, I skipped over to the log, relieved to be sitting down on a surface which would not irritate my skin; despite a torch being needed to make our way during the night, I could faintly mark the outline where my pointy talons had recklessly scratched my ankle, which throbbed sorely. Undoubtedly, a new nail file had jumped to the top of my imaginary 'Must Buy Immediately' list.

"God, that must've hurt!" Luke remarked, catching a glimpse of the offending mark as he plopped down beside me, inhaling deeply.

"And you were thinking that I was lying in luxury on the grass," I muttered, mostly to myself, yet Luke still heard me.

"Yeah, about that," he said, wincing in remembrance of his out-of-character outburst a while ago. "I didn't mean what I said, Say; I just wasn't expecting to see you sitting in the middle of a meadow with your ex-boyfriend, that's all."

"Me too," I agreed. "I only went there to clear my head and get some peace - the meadow was the perfect place to take a deep breath and calm down, but I wasn't even given any time to smell the flowers until Joel turned up, scaring the hell out of me." Luke snickered softly, possibly fantasizing my leaping into the air like a cat whose tail had been trodden on by an unsuspecting human. Sorry, I was going to disappoint him on that note.

"If you don't mind my asking," Luke started, hesitating slightly, "what did Joel have to say to you?"

I pondered on my response. Within the space of less than half an hour (or so I imagined), I'd faced a bitter fight with Luke over virtually nothing, fallen in love with a meadow that I once visited in my dream/nightmare, given a piece of my mind to Joel, listened to his side of the story and somehow came to forgive him, whilst realizing my own mistakes in the process.

Nobody, as I eventually conceived, was born with the much-envied gift to live a life without making regretted errors and experiencing gut-wrenching guilt, which could weigh one down with an unbearable heaviness; life was purely about taking chances, leaping into the unknown, and experiencing the good and bad aspects of living.

I thought that it counted as my lesson of the whole year, let alone the summer holiday.

"After talking in his typical laid-back manner, he turned off his care-free tone, as though my sister had changed the channel from ESPN to re-runs of The Hills on MTV during the all-important football match that my dad was watching, and explained his actions," I admitted.

"And what did you think?"

"Hmm. You wouldn't hate me if I said that I think he has won me over?"

Luke exploded into amused laughter, his body rocking as vigorously as a wave hitting a Devon beach. "Sadie, you know that I wouldn't want you to hate anybody, even an absolute idiot like Joel."

A disapproving frown hinted on my pouting lips. "Joel isn't an idiot," I protested, in a whisper. "He has just made mistakes like myself, which he and I now realize."

"I never said that you've made mistakes."

I hesitated, hugging my arms into a tight wrap, shivering slightly against the cooler breeze. A woolly, crisp-littered cardigan definitely would have come in handy.

"Yet I felt like you implied that I had made mistakes when we argued earlier," I asserted, giving Luke a gentle reminder of his remark. "And guess what? You were completely right; and although I couldn't stand the idea of it, you gave me the perfect wake-up call to my foolish actions over the past few weeks."

"Like what? Strolling around town with me, cracking jokes and devouring tub loads of caramel ice cream?" Luke suggested, shaking his head, confusingly. "The only 'fault' that you've made is talking about your desire to get a pair of Converse, but it doesn't matter."

A blush warmed its way into my reddened cheeks, as I believed that Luke had long since forgotten about my confession to not owning a beloved pair of the shoes that my feet were born to wear from the moment I could hobble up and down the stairs, hand-in-hand with my Chelsea kit-wearing dad. "Luke, what I mean is that I was foolish and utmost selfish to not take any of my family's feelings into consideration shortly after that weekend." I paused, momentarily. "You weren't living in my house, residing inside the tense atmosphere, where I was passing out, crying every five minutes and playing the most depressing songs ever sung in the world."

Luke raised his eyebrows, revealing a tiny red bump underneath one. "But how can you be foolish if you have realized your so-called mistakes and you are trying to repair them?" he objected.

Without a doubt, Luke had beaten me hands down, and my foolishness would've hit rocket level if I denied the fact that he was right, scoring a perfect A in his 'Explaining the Truth' to me. "Yeah, that's true," I mumbled, staring at the burnt-out campfire.

Luke moved closer towards me - the heat radiating from his jacket was enough to get rid of my army of goose bumps and make my skin baby-smooth once more - and he twisted his head around to catch a glimpse of mine, his breath smelling of eye-watering vinegar and cheese. I made a probable assumption that he'd scoffed the last packet of cheese-flavoured crisps whilst Joel and I were spitting out our opinions.

"Sadie Thompson -" he began.

"Sadie Marie Thompson," I interjected, shrugging with a half-smile. "My mum utterly adored the pink-bowed kitten in The Aristocats, so it was undeniable that my middle name would be shared with a white-furred cat."