365 Days (27 page)

Came home tonight and discovered Mum had made us roast chicken for tea. She said, ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were having a roast at lunchtime?’ and I said, ‘I had a wee at 3 p.m. this afternoon. Should I have told you about that as well?’ then got shouted at for being cheeky!

I can’t stop thinking about stupid Facebook. It’s eating me up. I dunno whether it’s just curiosity or paranoia, but I just kinda want to know who some of Han’s friends on there are. Maybe part of me needs to know who Han was before I knew her, ’cos she doesn’t really talk about it much. Or maybe I’m just being nosy? Nosy and paranoid at the same time. Jeez. I mean, she’s a good-looking girl; anyone with two eyes in their head can see that, and she could, like, have anyone she wants. If she knows that many people, someone’s bound to come along and catch her eye, aren’t they? Then where would that leave me??

Thursday 20 December

We got our Christmas tree tonight. Dad insisted on standing it in a bucket of water for an hour like he always does, to help stop the needles dropping off it by Christmas Eve, then we dragged it into the house and plonked it by the front window. After Mum had hoovered up the trail of pine needles from the back door to the lounge, we placed the lights round it and switched on. Nothing. An hour later, after Dad had gone through every bulb and checked the fuse, and Mum had hoovered up some more needles, the lights were switched on and bathed us all in a Christmassy glow of red, green, and white.

We dug out the tinsel and baubles and threw out an old mince pie that had somehow found its way into the box, and set about decorating the tree with such enthusiasm that it was twinkling like Paris Hilton jacked up on Red Bull
by the time we’d finished with it! HRBH put the fairy on top of the tree and got covered in needles, then Chairman Meow brushed past it on his way onto the window sill and got covered in needles, so that he looked a bit like a green hedgehog!! Dad started grumbling about the mess and said we’d be having an artificial tree next year, but then he says that every year so we all ignored him.

Sent Han a text just before I went to sleep and told her we’d put our tree up. She just sent me one back saying, ‘Nice’. Sending nondescript messages like that does nothing to make me feel better about stuff!

Friday 21 December

Last day at school, and I wish I could say it was a happy one. We were allowed to go home early, so Han asked me over to hers. As we were walking to her house, I stupidly tried asking her about the text she’d sent to me by mistake again, and then I asked her if any of her ex-girlfriends were on Facebook (I know, I know!) and she got dead snappy with me! I said I was just intrigued at how many people she knew on there and she said, ‘For God’s sake, Clem! Enough, already! Facebook, Facebook, Facebook! It’s all you bloody talk about at the moment.’

I kinda just mumbled ‘Sorry’ to her, although I wasn’t really sorry, and she said, ‘How many times do I have to tell you that it’s just friends from the past, friends of friends, friends off music forums I chat on. You know all about those, don’t you?’

I nodded meekly and, ’cos I felt a bit stupid, I tried to take her hand as we were walking along the road, but she let it drop again, which kinda upset me.

She said, ‘Do you think I’m cheating on you, or something? ’cos that’s what it feels like,’ and I just said, ‘Of course not!’ but I don’t know how convincing I sounded.

She kinda looked hurt and said, ‘Good, ’cos I’d never do the dirty on you, not in a million years, so can you just change the record over it?’

We walked to her house in silence after that. There were so many things I wanted to say, and I kept saying them in my head, but something stopped me actually saying them to her. Anyway, in the end I spent, like, only an hour at her house because the atmosphere between us was so strained I made an excuse to leave and come home again.

The sad thing is, she didn’t try to stop me.

Saturday 22 December

Alice sent me a text at 7 o’clock this morning to wish me a Happy Christmas (!!) She was at the airport ’cos she’s going to Germany with her parents to eat schnitzel and frankfurters, or whatever it is they eat in Germany at Christmas. She’s so lucky! All we do is the same thing every year: have turkey and sprouts and then Great Aunt May on Boxing Day (to visit—not to eat).

I suddenly felt really sad. Mainly, I suppose, because I didn’t know Alice was going away for Christmas ’cos she never told me. We used to tell each other everything, and that’s all over now. I s’pose that’s what happens when your best friend makes declarations of love to you, like, totally out of the blue. How can you ever go back to being as you once were when that happens? You can’t. And I think that’s what’s happened to me and Alice.

Anyway, I didn’t want to just text her a Happy Christmas wish, so I rang her. She sounded a bit awkward, like she always seems to these days when I speak to her but we at least managed to have a bit of a chat about nothing in particular. She asked me if I was okay, ’cos she said I didn’t sound my normal self, and I felt tears welling in my eyes. I wanted to tell her about Han, but I didn’t really feel like I could.

She said, ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ and I said, ‘Kinda,’ and she said, ‘’Cos if you want to talk that’s cool. My flight’s delayed and my parents have conveniently buggered off into the Duty Free lounge and left me with all the bags, so I’m bored rigid.’

I giggled a bit and she said, ‘That’s better,’ and I felt like my heart was shattering, I dunno why.

I said to her, ‘Things are just a bit strained with me and Han, is all,’ and she just said, ‘Oh,’ which was cool ’cos I didn’t really expect her to say much more than that.

Anyway, I kinda told her about Han and Facebook and me wanting to know who her friends were on there, and that she wasn’t telling me anything and it was making me think horrible thoughts, and even as I was saying it, I realised how ridiculous and clingy it all sounded.

Alice said, ‘Clem, anyone who’s anyone has loads of people on Facebook. Doesn’t mean they’re cheating on their boyfriends or girlfriends.’

So then I asked her how many friends she had on it. She told me she had 465.

465!!!

How??

I felt real stupid when she asked me how many I had, and I told her I only had, like 10, then I felt even stupider when I realised what a fuss I’d been making over Han and her measly 88 friends! How is it possible for one person to have 465 friends? What does she find to talk about all the time?

I could hear Alice sighing down the phone which probably meant she either thought I was being ridiculous too, or she really didn’t want to hear about mine and Han’s tiffs, and then I heard a muffled announcement somewhere in the background on her phone and she said, ‘Clem, I gotta go. They’ve just called our flight at last.’

I wished her a Happy Christmas again, and told her not to eat too much Simnel cake, but then she told me you only eat that at Easter and I felt a bit stupid again. She said, ‘Listen, Clem, I don’t confess to know Han very well, but I’ve spoken to her enough times at school to know she’s not the most open person in the world, not the most talkative, you know?’

I said, ‘She’s an EMO, they don’t do talking,’ and Alice just said, ‘Yeah, but what I do know is that she’s nuts about you. You only have to see the way she looks at you when she thinks no one else is looking to know that. I notice these things, Clem, ’cos it’s only what I’ve done myself in the past.’

I didn’t know what to say to that so just kinda mumbled ‘Thanks’ to Alice, and remembered just what a thoroughly nice person she really is.

She said, ‘I’ve really gotta go. Have a great Christmas, Clem. I’ll be thinking of you.’

I started to say I’d be thinking of her as well, but the phone had gone dead by then, I guess either cut off or Alice had had to dash off for her flight. I dunno.

I think I felt a bit better after speaking to Alice, but I suppose I’ll feel even better still if I could shake this niggling worry from me about it all.

Sunday 23 December

Mum and Dad dragged me and HRBH over to Autumn Leaves to visit Great Aunt May today, when all I wanted to do was hang out with Han and try and get things back to normal between us.

I texted her before we went and told her I was going to see Great Aunt May and she just sent one back saying ‘’K. Have a good day.’ Nothing else. After feeling a bit more positive yesterday, I was back to feeling crap all day. Even HRBH noticed, telling me I was ‘quiet for a change. You’re usually gobbing off left right and centre. Cat got your tongue today or what?’

How could I tell her? How could I tell her that I feel sick all the time at the moment, sick with feeling like things aren’t great with me and Han? How can I tell her that all I seem to do is wait for Han to text me, then dread her texts at the same time? My sister has no idea what real love is, but I do.

Every tiny part of me loves Han, so why do I feel like crap all the time at the moment?

Monday 24 December

Christmas Eve! Texted Han first thing and asked her if I could come over later and give her her present. She texted me back and just said, ‘Sure.’

I got a sinking feeling at getting yet another short text and really didn’t know what to do. It’s our first Christmas together but there’s such a crap atmosphere between us at the moment, I just can’t enjoy the feeling of it. I should have a warm feeling of fuzziness, of seasonal cheer, but all I seem to feel at the moment is sick.

Anyway, I decided to go over to her house after lunch. I handed her the presents I’d bought her and she handed me mine and then gave me strict instructions not to poke it. I told her (probably a bit too huffily) that I was seventeen years old and had ceased to prod my presents when I was about eleven. She just smiled, kinda tightly, I thought.

Tuesday 25 December

Woke up at 6 a.m. but thought better of getting up, bearing in mind Mum didn’t get home from Midnight Communion until about 1:45 this morning. She got chatting to Brenda Shelduck in the Lady Chapel and didn’t realise the time.

Sat up in bed willing it to get lighter so I could get up and start opening some presents, but then curiosity got the better of me and I had a rifle through the pillowcase Mum had put at the foot of my bed. Remembered then that I’d put Han’s present under my bed; I wanted to open it in the privacy of my own room, just in case she’d bought me something that wasn’t fit for my parents to see, such as a poster of a comely lady showing off her bits, or some chocolate body paint or some such. I needn’t have worried though, ’cos she’d bought me the funkiest T-shirt, like,
ever
, a Foo Fighters CD to add to my collection, a book of funny pictures and jokes about cats, and another leather necklace, a bit like the one she brought me back from Portugal.

I lay in bed with her presents scattered across my bed and imagined her opening my presents in her room too. I wondered if she was thinking about me, then wondered if she ever thought about me like I always think about her, or didn’t she bother anymore? I got myself a bit spooked thinking stuff like that, so I texted her and wished her a Happy Crimbo and thanked her for her presents.

I was ridiculously pleased and relieved that she texted me back pretty much straight away, and kinda thought that, yeah, maybe she
was
lying in her room thinking about me as well, after all. She wished me ‘Happy Holidays’, which is a bit too American for my liking, but she’s an atheist so it would be just a bit hypocritical of her if she wished me anything else, I suppose. She thanked me for her presents and then just as I was texting her back to tell her she was welcome, she sent me another one, saying that she wished we could be together. My throat tightened when I read that, and suddenly really wished we were together as well.

I got up and went downstairs and opened some presents from around the tree on my own while everyone else carried on sleeping upstairs. They did eventually deign to come downstairs, just after 10 a.m., and slumped on the sofa (still in their dressing gowns, mind you) to watch some bloody awful Christmas special on the TV.

Then Han sent me another text a bit later on to tell me that she, Dan, Joe, and her dad were all waiting to go out for a walk, but her mum was holding them up ’cos she still had her hand up the turkey’s bum (stuffing it, I hope). She also said that they’d put tinsel round Toffee’s neck but were a bit worried ’cos some of the tinsel was now missing, and her dad was stressing in case they had to take her to the vet and pay extra ’cos it was Christmas Day. I looked across at Mum, Dad, and HRBH, still all in their dressing gowns, still slumped on the sofa, surrounded by wrapping paper and all yawning loudly and thought that normal families (i.e., Han’s) do normal things on Christmas Day like bracing walks in the crisp winter air. What do mine do? Sweet FA!