Then Came You (6 page)

I snort, covering my mouth with one hand to hide my silent laughter and hitting her playfully with the other. “Then you would presume wrong – he doesn’t like me in that way.”

She pretends to huff, crossing her arms over her chest. “You gotta fight, fight, fight, fight, fight for this love,” she sings under her breath, nudging me with a smirk. I snort again.

“Say you love me, say you need me, don’t let the silence, do the talking…”

I roll my eyes, “I’m officially ignoring you now.”

“I wanna be with you, gotta be with you,
need
to be with you…”

The bell rings, interrupting her silly song game, and I breathe a sigh of relief, hoping she doesn’t notice my grin as I grab my bag and make a mad dash for the cafeteria, trying to get away from the crazy rainbow singing girl following me.

Dana raises an eyebrow when I reach the table, stopping mid-bite of her pasta salad. She somehow always manages to get here early, every lunch. She said it’s something about a nice teacher who lets her out early. In other words, she walks out before the bell.

She laughs when Remy slides into her usual seat, belting out Rihanna’s ‘we found love in a hopeless place”.

“Oh, so I see she’s found a new game,” Dana snickers, winking at me when my face turns crimson. “Good luck when Joey gets here. He just loves his love songs.”

“Aw, man,” I groan, putting my hand in my head when Remy turns on to “and I will always love you” loudly and off-key, earning a few glares from the popular kids. Everyone else either ignores us, or just watch in amusement.

Joey walks over, his eyes twinkling when Dana tells him what’s going on. “Oooh, sounds like fun!”

“It’s all about you, it’s all about you baby!” He belts out McFly, Remy smiling and joining in with the harmonies.” By now, even Dana is laughing, practically falling off her chair.

“It must be love, love love…” she sings cheerily.

“Dana!” I yelp, looking at her in shock. “You’re supposed to be on my side!”

She tips her head back and laughs, throwing an arm around me. “Aw, come on, girlfriend! Lighten up, yeah? “

Remy jumps up and starts twisting, pulling joey up with her so they can dance hilariously together. “Don’t break my heart, my achy,
breaky
heart…”

Dana laughs, taking my arm so that I’ll dance with her. I giggle, mimicking her crazy moves as our table dances and sings crazy love songs, until a teacher eventually tells us to shut up and sit down.

“
Well…
” Joey says dramatically, pursing his lips jokingly at the teachers back.

“How rude,” Remy agrees with a murmur, before flashing a cheeky grin at me.
“Oh, and Darcy?
I
think
some
one, really liked your little show.”

“What?” My head snaps around to see Tyler watching me from his table, his amber eyes flashing with humour as he smiles. He nods slightly at me, grin spreading wider, as I blush red and turn away, trying my hardest not to hear his gentle laughter, which seems to be louder than every other sound in the cafeteria.

Nine

It’s one of
those
days. Dad wakes up in a foul mood, slamming ever door and banging everything in his reach to make as much noise as possible. Unfortunately, it’s a Saturday, so I can’t escape.

I roll out of bed with a groan, throwing on sweats and a plain hoodie before running a brush through my knotty hair. When I make my way downstairs, I realise now is probably not the best time to mention the £200 fine. He’s already begun nursing his bottle of whisky like it’s his prized possession.

Oh, wait – it is.

Silently, I shuffle into the kitchen to grab a snack. I pour a glass of water, and find some biscuits behind the door of a cupboard. I sigh, smiling proudly as I hurry back upstairs to hide away in my room.

Once upstairs, I open my latest novel and start to read, blocking out the world. By midday, my mind is numb and my stomach it rumbling. Downstairs, I can’t hear anything, meaning he’s either watching TV, sleeping, or he’s left the house. I’m not really sure which one I’d prefer.

When mum was alive, dad was the happiest man on earth. He love us both, you could see it in his eyes; they had that… spark. His smile was the widest smile you could imagine, and he’d hug us both daily. Now, though, it’s like he’s forgotten I exist.

That’s the problem with love; it can make you the happiest person alive, or it can crush you into nothing.

I’m fixing myself a jam sandwich when the phone starts to ring. I answer it with a sigh, pressing the cold bulk to my ears. “Hello?”

“Darcy? Is that you?” A small, faintly annoyed voice says on the other line.

“Oh, hi Dana,” I mumble. “What’s up?”

There’s a sad sigh on the other line, making me stand taller with concern. “I just… I really need a friend, Darcy. And you’re the first person I thought of. Can we hang?”

She
sound
like she’s been crying, her voice breaking on the other end. My heart twists slightly and I chew my lip, knowing that my dad isn’t here anyway. He won’t need me, right? “Sure we can. Where do you want to meet?”

“I’ll pick you up at the normal spot? We can go to mine, my Grandma won’t mind.”

I was going to ask her where her parents were, but then I stopped suddenly. I didn’t want to intrude – I knew all-too-well what it was like not having your parents around. It’s like my dad died that night, too.

“Okay,” I say gently, before hanging up. I quickly clean the kitchen counter before running upstairs to change into jeans, making me look slightly ore presentable then before. I finish off my lunch as I lock up the house and walk down the street, where Dana’s already parking up.

“Hey,” she says hoarsely when I get in the passenger seat. I say hey back, and we drive to her house in comfortable silence, the radio switched off for once.

I’ve never seen Dana’s house before. I never expected it to be a semi-detached, with gnomes and flowers blanketing the entire garden, and yellow brick walls. It looks like a house from a kids show.

I’m staring with wide eyes at the house as Dana parks, rolling her eyes at me. “Coming? Or are you going to stay here and look at it all day?”

I shake my head, looking at her with raised eyebrows. “You live
here?
”

“Yeah…” She snorts, “What did you expect?
A cemetery?
A gothic mansion?
I live with my Grandma, not Dracula.”

I laugh quietly with her, following her through the maze of rainbow flower beds and colourful gnomes. She opens the blue door, which leads straight into the livingroom, with its white floral wallpaper and bare floorboards.

“Ma?
I’m home, and Darcy is with me,” Dana calls, closing the door behind me with a resolute
thud.

An elderly woman with sparkling blue eyes and grey hair walks out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a strawberry-patterned apron. “Oh, so this is the Darcy I’ve been hearing all about? Hello dear?”

I blush, saying high back, before she folds me into a vanilla scented hug that reminds me of my old neighbour I used to visit before she left. “Hi,” I repeat once she draws back again, beaming at me.

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Darcy. I’ve heard all about you from Dana and the others. Will you be staying for tea?” She coos, fixing a curling strand of silver hair on her head.

Dana nods, “yeah, she is, Ma. Do you mind if we go to my room now?”

“Of course nod, dear. You have a good time, and I’ll call you down when tea’s ready.”

Dana takes my arm and leads me up the creaky wooden stairs, into a small hallway with three separate doors. She opens the last one and pulls me inside.

Dana’s room is… well, it matches her personality. The walls are black, the carpet is a deep red colour, and pictures of everything and anything cover two of the bigger walls. She falls with a sigh onto her black double bed and drapes an arm over her eyes, breathing heavily.

“God, I sometimes feel like shit when I lie to her,” She admits to me.

“What do you mean?” I perch on the edge of her bed gingerly, not wanting to intrude. Her shoulders start to bounce, and for a moment I watch in confusion, before I realise she’s crying. The girl who I thought was the toughest out of all of us is crying right in front of me… and I don’t have a clue what to do.

“It’s… I mean…” She draws in a shaky breath, moving her arm to look at me fully. “She has so much trust in me, and I love her to bits. Sometimes I feel like I’m letting her down.”

“You’re not letting her down, Dana,” I say gently, putting an arm around her like they do in the movies. “She loves you.”

Dana sighs. “Look at me, Darcy. What was your first though when you saw me?”

I blink. “Honestly?” She nods, and I sigh. “Okay, I thought you were a scary bully. But I know now that-“

“Exactly!”
She bursts. “I look like a scary gang banger, or- like, some kind of biker-slut! I know my Ma loves me, but I know she hates the way I look. I’m the kind of person her friends would be scared of if they saw me in the street.”

I roll me eyes, “well, yeah, but… I wear a hoodie.
With the hood
up
sometime.”

She snorts a laugh at that, grinning up at me. “Oh, god, Darcy – you’re right.
Please
don’t kill me in my sleep!” She says sarcastically, before the forlorn look returns to her face. “I never told her about Alex, you know…”

She whispered it so
quietly,
I wasn’t sure what she’d said. “W-What do you mean?”

Lifting her head, she looks up at me with guilty, wide eyes. “I didn’t tell Ma about Alex. She never would have forgiven me. She wanted me to stay pure and true until I found my prince and got married. She didn’t want me to end up like my mother.”

I blink, waiting patiently for her to carry on.

“My mum had me when she was just seventeen, she didn’t have a clue
who
my father was, and she left Ma to look after me whilst she went off to live her life without a care in the world. I don’t miss her – I never knew her. But sometimes, I wish, just for a second, that I
did.
If only to know what I’m missing.”

I nod, understanding her completely. “I know what you mean” I say.

We lie in silence, the silver clock on her dressing table ticking loudly in the room, our breathing light. After a while, she turns to face me, her eyes sad yet hopeful.
“Hey, Darcy?”

“Yeah?”
I mumble sleepily.

“What’s you’re mum like?”

I take a deep breath, my heart panging as I try to work up the courage to tell her the truth. None of my friends have an inkling of what my home life is like, and I’d always assumed it would stay that way. But, if Dana can tell me her secrets, then I can tell her mine, right?
At least one of them?

“She’s dead,” I choke up at last, tears starting to pool at my eyes making my view blurry. “She died a few months ago; drowned.”

She gasps, sitting up to look at me properly, eyes turning sad.
“Oh, god, Darcy.
I’m so sorry…”

I shake it away, smiling weakly at her through my tears. “It’s alright, really. I’m over it now.”

She studies me knowingly, looking for any faults in my façade. She’s like me, in a way; always keeping an act, trying to stay strong. But I can play it
better,
I’m just too stubborn to take my walls down for more than a minute.

“Are you sure?” She asks me, unsure.

I nod again, “yeah, I’m sure,” I lie, shoving the pain, the heartache and the memories of my mum back into the box they belong in, deep in the back of my mind, so I can carry on with the act.

I have to appear strong. Nobody will ever see my weakness again.

Ten

I end up staying at Dana’s until it’s really late, the sun having set a few hours ago. Her Grandma is really nice, talking to us happily over our meal of cottage pie, salad and homemade bread. We helped her clean the dishes, which resulted to a mini water fight, and she just laughed at us and made sure we cleaned the mess.

As we sit in her room, listening to some crazy rock band and reading out embarrassing stories from a bunch of her neighbours magazines she’d found, her Grandma knocks on the door and opens it, smiling at us.

“Darcy, hun, it’s getting late. Are you staying here, or will your parents be wondering where you are?” She says, nodding at the clock.

I look up and gulp when I see that it’s almost nine. My dad was bound to be home by now, right? And I wasn’t sure what kind of mood he’s be in. I smile thankfully at her Grandma and sit up, closing the magazine and fixing my top.

“Yeah, I should probably get going. Thank you for having me, and I’ll see you Monday, Dana.” I say, hugging my friend.

“Do you need a ride?” Dana asks me, sitting up
herself
. “I can take you home, if you want; no worries.”