Hold Your Breath (2 page)

A duck skimmed onto the water with a creaky quack, sending a long V-shape in its wake. The long grasses at the side of the river were tangled with the remnants of wildflowers, humming with
insect life, and the trees opposite were mirrored on the still surface of the water. Tara took slow, deep breaths of the sweet air.

A mother and a small girl on a bike were coming towards her and she stood to one side, allowing them past. She got out her phone and pretended to text someone. She always looked away when small
children were around. But it was hard to ignore this one, with her over-the-top bike. It was festooned with ribbons and a bunch of bells, which looked like the sort that came with chocolate Easter
rabbits. The bells
ting-ting
ed as the girl trundled by, fat knees pumping away.

‘I zooming, Mummy,’ said the little girl proudly.

‘Yes, lovey, you are,’ said the woman, swooping her weary eyes up and grinning at Tara. Tara smiled back weakly and then let her gaze slide quickly away as they passed.

‘C’mon, Samster,’ she said, too loud, slapping her thigh. The dog was engaged in some vigorous sniffing action in the bushes but happily trotted over at the sound of her
voice.

Walking along with her dog in the warm air helped the knots of tension in her muscles and mind begin to loosen. She reached into her pocket for her iPod. Soon she was humming along to Kings of
Leon, her feet moving in easy rhythm to the pounding beat.

She liked walking along the river. It always calmed her.

In fact, she didn’t mind living in this new town. Not that she had made any friends but, for now, being anonymous was the very best she could hope for. She dreaded someone knowing
someone
who knew
someone
at her old school.

If anyone asked, the official reason for the move was that Dad had got a new, better-paid job and it meant relocating fifty miles north of where Tara had grown up. But there was another,
unspoken reason. No one knew them here. There would be no sly stares when she went into town. No whispers behind her back at school.

No one here knew about a little boy called Tyler Evans.

The music was loud and she was engrossed in thought, so when someone walked past close enough to brush her arm, she yelped, yanking out her earbuds.

‘God!’ she said. ‘You scared me!’ Her shocked heartbeat echoed into her throat and her cheeks flushed.

A tall boy, a little older than her, was regarding her with a surprised expression.

‘Sorry,’ he said gruffly. ‘I said
s’cuse
, but you didn’t hear me.’ He had close-cropped dark hair and navy blue eyes with enviable lashes. He was
wearing a white T-shirt that showed tanned arms with curving muscles and low-slung jeans. Almost gorgeous, but with an arrogant moodiness that was a turn-off. He looked like he loved himself a
little too much. He took a step back as Sammie bounded over to say hello. ‘Whoa . . .’ His hands were up now, his lips drawn into a tight line.

‘He’s just being friendly,’ said Tara.
What a wimp,
she thought
. Fancy being scared of Sammie.

The boy muttered something and hurried off, checking his mobile as he went. There was a single word written on the back of his T-shirt.
Lifeguard.

The dog looked as though he had every intention of chasing after the boy in an attempt to bond with him further.

‘Sammie!’ barked Tara harshly. ‘Play dead!’ It was one of the many commands Dad had painstakingly trained the dog to do as a puppy. But it was the only one he’d
trained him to do successfully. Calls of ‘Sit!’ and ‘Fetch!’ were met with looks of stubborn resistance.

Sammie flumped down onto his belly and placed his head on his paws.

‘Good boy,’ said Tara. She clipped on the lead and sat down on a bench, watching the boy disappear around the bend in the river. He had that air about him, of someone who thought he
was a bit of a Hard Man. She knew his type. She didn’t like really short hair on boys either. Much nicer to have something to twist your fingers into. Like Jay’s hair. It was impossible
not to think about the way it curled into his neck now. And his sparkly brown eyes, which always seemed to contain some vaguely naughty knowledge.

Tara sighed deeply. When would thoughts like that stop bugging her?

The list of
Things Tara Didn’t Want To Think About
was getting longer by the day. She wished she’d listened to her friends at the time. Hadn’t they warned her about
Jay Burns? She was just another notch. That’s all. Nothing special about her, despite all the things he’d said about her being ‘like no one else’. That was probably true,
she thought. But not in a good way.

Irritated to find tears pricking her eyes, she found a tissue in her pocket and blew her nose, then tried to rub away the leaky mascara that had somehow strayed under her eyelids.

Coming here was a fresh start. In future she was going to keep her heart locked away. She wouldn’t let herself get hurt like that again.

Getting up, Tara looked up the river path and wondered whether she should just go home. But she was thirsty and remembered there was a row of shops up the road a bit, off the river. She’d
buy a can of something to drink first. An evening alone in front of the telly wasn’t something she was in a rush to do.

She carried on walking and turned the corner, where a distinctive iron bridge covered the river. Standing in the dark curve underneath, where the bricks were stained green and the river usually
smelt like drains, was the boy who had passed her before. Tara’s steps slowed down. He wasn’t alone. Voices echoed off the walls. The words were indistinct, but clearly full of anger
and heat.

A girl was leaning in towards him, her face pushed so close to his they must have been breathing each others’ air.

Oh
, thought Tara with a sinking feeling, recognising her.

Melodie Stone. The biggest bitch in her class.

Melodie had sleek golden hair and a mean, pretty face. She always had the top of her school skirt turned over that extra inch, one more button on her shirt undone than anyone else. Tara had
accidentally sat in her seat on her first week at school. Melodie had looked at her as though she was pond life, lip curled and eyes bright with malice. She hadn’t even spoken, but had waited
until someone else pointed out Tara’s ‘mistake’. Tara had been tempted to stay put but decided there was no point making enemies on her first day. In the few weeks since then,
Tara had heard some of her withering put-downs to other people. Once, Melodie had almost reduced their mousey art teacher, Mrs Henderson, to tears. It was probably best that she’d taken a
deep breath and moved seats that day. She didn’t need the hassle.

Tara sat behind Melodie in English and was therefore in prime position to witness the tedious way Melodie lifted up her silky mane of hair before letting it swing back again, like she was in
some shampoo advert. She’d caught Tara watching her once and given her an annoying, slow smile as though saying, ‘Gorgeous, aren’t I? Unlike you.’ Tara had swooped her eyes
and looked away again, cheeks flaming.

Melodie was at the centre of a group Tara privately called the Gossip Girls, because they seemed to think they’d just walked off the set of some shiny American TV programme. Some of them
even had ratty little handbag dogs. She tried to keep out of their way. An air of meanness hung about them, as strong as their perfume. She didn’t want to give them an excuse to pick on
her.

Tara’s step slowed now as the argument increased in volume. Melodie’s hand snapped up so fast it was almost a blur. The boy put his hand to his cheek, said something quietly with a
vicious expression and stalked away in the other direction, hands in his pockets and head slung low.

Melodie Stone fumbled in her handbag and produced a pack of cigarettes. With a shaking hand she lit one up and inhaled deeply. She spotted Tara then and fixed her with a dead-eyed look.

‘Er, are you okay?’ said Tara uncertainly.

Melodie barked a sudden harsh laugh that made Tara flinch.

‘Yeah, I’m completely
brilliant,
’ she said, blowing smoke sideways out of her mouth. ‘And it’s none of your business anyway. Why don’t you get
lost?’

‘Pardon me for breathing!’ said Tara, turning back the other way. ‘I’m sorry I asked.’

Rattled and hot, she headed home.

Sammie looked up at his mistress anxiously as she marched along, picking up on her irritation. Tara wished she’d turned back before Melodie had seen her. She’d probably have it in
for her on Monday morning because Tara had witnessed her stupid row with her idiot boyfriend. It was all she needed right now.

But that was one problem Tara didn’t have to deal with.

Because when she went to school again on Monday, Melodie Stone was gone.

T
he first she knew about it was when she spotted Jada Morgan from her class huddled with her cronies in a way that transmitted ‘drama’.
Jada was snivelling loudly but Tara noted she didn’t have a red nose or piggy eyes like normal people got from crying. She held perfectly French-manicured fingers under her brimming eyelids,
catching the jewels of her tears before they damaged her foundation.

‘But why didn’t she just
tell
us?’ wailed Jada. This seemed to be the tipping point for another girl, Amber, who started to sob.

‘All I got was this!’ Jada held up her pink BlackBerry. She wiggled it from side to side like it would talk.

‘Lemme see again,’ said Karis Jones, taking the phone and studying the message.

Tara took her time finding her PE kit in her locker. It was hard not be curious.

‘
Babes,
’ read Karis in a slow, serious tone. ‘
Gotta go away. Love U all. Kisses to my girls.
’

Jada’s sobbing went up a notch.

‘I’m going to miss her, so, so much,’ said Chloe Simmons, a girl with big moist eyes and long hair she constantly chewed.

Tara yanked out the PE kit and walked past the huddle in the corridor. She accidentally caught the eye of Karis, who glared at her, but Tara had to fight back a smirk.

Today was definitely looking up.

Variations of the same conversation buzzed around her all day like static.

‘Have you heard? Melodie Stone has left.’

‘What, just like that?’

‘Yeah, just like that.’

Their form tutor made an announcement at registration saying that Melodie had had a family issue to deal with and would be living with relatives in Brighton for the foreseeable future.

This prompted more hysteria from Jada.

Mrs Linley rolled her eyes in irritation. ‘Try and contain your grief a little, please, Jada,’ she said, prompting disgusted tuts from the rest of the Gossip Girls who snaked thin,
bangled arms around their quivering friend.

The whole thing was a bit strange, Tara thought. People didn’t usually just up and disappear in the middle of term. Although . . . that was exactly what Tara had done at her old school.
But that was a unique circumstance.

She wondered if the scene she’d witnessed with lover boy under the bridge had been him trying to persuade her not to go. But who cared, really? She couldn’t say she was going to be
missing Melodie Stone.

As far as Tara was concerned, it was good riddance.

The end of the day came around and Tara hung back in her English class, hoping to avoid the crush in the corridors as everyone shoved and jockeyed to get to their lockers. She
always hated that part of the day, when plans bounced like shuttlecocks around her head. ‘See you later at blah-blah,’ and ‘Everyone’s going, it’ll be
great!’

Tara was never going and none of them ever saw her later.

She felt someone’s gaze and looked up to see her English teacher, Mr Ford, watching her.

‘Everything all right, Tara?’ he said.

‘Um, fine thanks.’ She quickly gathered up the rest of her stuff and hurried out into the corridor. It was still heaving so she went to the girls’ loos and locked herself in
the least undesirable cubicle for a while to kill some more time. She played with her mobile and, despite herself, wished she hadn’t deleted all Jay’s messages.

After a while she emerged into the corridor, which was surprisingly empty. She hunkered down to decant some books into her locker, wishing as always that it wasn’t so awkwardly placed.
Arriving late in the school year meant she had to put up with one of the rubbish lower lockers. Melodie’s had been head height – perfectly placed. Of course. She was that sort of girl,
the one who always managed to get the advantage. Her locker was just above Tara’s. Many times, Tara’d had to wait for Miss-Loves-Herself to finish up before she could get near her own.
She swore Melodie sometimes took ages on purpose.

She glanced up at the locker now.

A nervous feeling suddenly fluttered in her stomach for no reason at all, followed by a rapid drumbeat in her chest. That was weird. What was making her feel like this?

Everything around Melodie’s locker seemed oddly in shadow, as though at the periphery of Tara’s vision. She was suddenly seized by an overwhelming urge to look in Melodie’s
locker, which was ridiculous. No, she didn’t
want
to at all. But she felt that she
needed
to somehow. It made absolutely no sense. But she had to do it all the same.

Tara licked her lips. Her mouth had gone desert dry. She looked around the corridor. A cleaner was sloshing a mop about at the far end, headphones on, eyes cast down. No one was looking at her.
No one would know.

She looked at the locker again. It wasn’t open, of course, but these lockers were the same kind as at her old school and, if there was no padlock, easy to open. A boy called Alexi had
showed her how to open them with a hairgrip in Year Seven when hers had got jammed. On autopilot, she fumbled in her pocket. Her long black hair was in a ponytail today and she had no hairgrips.
She remembered the compass in her pencil case. Hurriedly getting it out, she pushed the sharp tip into the keyhole and jiggled it a little, feeling something give.