Love Hurts

And I’m glad I’m wearing a grey tracksuit today, with no personality. I want to clutch the air and keep this moment. It’s the last time she’ll look at me like that.

  Mum says we should go and get some pizza and expresses her desperation for a glass of Sauvignon while I decide it’s time to write a letter myself.

  Dear Sara,

  I’m sorry this has taken so long to explain. It’s just, I’m sure you’ve probably noticed some changes in me over the last couple of years and thought, What the hell is going on with D–

  I scrunch that one into a ball and start again.

  Dear Sara,

  You know how much you mean to me. I’m sorry I was so rude when you–

  ARRRHHGHHHHH. NO. NO.

  Dear Sara,

  I’m so glad I’m writing to an open-minded person, like yourself–

  OH, WHAT A WANKER. SHUT UP!

  Dear Sara,

  I know I’ve been weird recently. I’m weird because I am not who you think I am–

  OH, NO. I’M JUST A SERIAL KILLER? NO. NO.

  Dear Sara,

  I am not the 15-year-old boy, Dan, that you think I am.

  My name is Danni and I am 15 and I am a girl.

  I have love– NO– liked you for the past–

  I rip it up. I know she will never sit on my front wall again, like she used to before school. I know I will never know her again.

  6.

  I know the letters have been received because we get one back and we’re even sent some flowers, as though I’ve died. The letter asks:

  Is this the right choice as a mother?

  Are you sure Dan isn’t too young?

  Has he had enough time to think about it?

  And it’s from a woman that Mum really likes at her work. Mum’s hurt.

  ‘What a load of bullshit!’ Mum rips the letter up right in front of me. ‘She lives in the dinosaur years!’ She throws the letter in the bin but then clenches her forehead, which sometimes wears lines that tell another story. Of fear, maybe. Or doubt. But she’s my mum.

  Dad rolls his eyes. He’s thinking, That woman is right, but holds his tongue, the way he hasn’t held me for years.

  I still haven’t heard from Isaac. They would have got a letter. I try to call and text, but no response. Mum calls his mum too, to ask about him, even though I ask her not to.

  Isaac’s mum says, ‘You know what the summer holidays are like, June, they’re out more than in, you barely see them!’

  And Mum looks at me on the same spot on the couch wearing that same grey tracksuit, that sexless hybrid middle ground, like a deep fog that’s never going to lift, and fake laughs. ‘Yeah, tell me about it. Just get him to give Danni a call when he can.’

  The night before my first day back at school I am a mess. Six weeks is long enough to change, but it’s also long enough to go insane. Forty-two days of difference and denial, of going through the motions when you’re not even sure what the motions really are, and nobody has replied to your messages and nobody has called you back. And then I get a message, from Isaac.

  Hi Danni, obviously things are really different, happy to still be your mate, like online and that and if you’re ever in trouble, then just call. Isaac.

  I calmly read the message. I feel sick. I brush my hair. Then I wash it again, because I’ve brushed it and played with it so much that it’s gone greasy.

  I make the shower really hot. Female shower products are much more fruity than male shower products, all berries blasting and mangoes crushing and lavender in the wind, but they don’t make me feel as clean so I always opt for scentless body wash. The hot water pounds on my back. I think of Sara. Then I wash the thoughts away like grains of sand after a day at the beach.

  I dry myself with a clean towel. I catch my reflection in the mirror. My hair is long. I am pale. I am scrawny. I am tired-looking. My ribs show. I don’t look like a boy. I don’t look like a girl. I look unfinished. An unfinished alien. One that Sara will never be attracted to. One that Isaac will never get along with. One that my parents will never be proud of.

  They peel me off the floor, my parents. In front of the mirror. Collapsed. I must look like a broken tree. I am shivering.

  ‘It’s OK. I’ve got you. I’ve got you,’ says my mum and her touch stings my skin but I know it’s what has to happen and even though I hate it I can’t tell her to stop, and Dad begins to cry even louder than me because he hasn’t seen me naked in so many years and that’s what makes me stop crying and before I know it, he pulls me in, like a tiny baby. And we cry together.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he says. ‘You are my baby. You will always be my baby. I love you. I haven’t been a very good dad to you, Danni. I am sorry.’

  7.

  I wear the bra and the fillets. They feel weird and the bra feels tight, but it’s OK. I have practised.

  The skirt is actually more comfortable than the trousers, but I don’t really like the tights. They’re itchy and blue, like the tights the other girls wear.

  I wear my hair down. My eyes are open. The lash implants have made a big difference. My brows are smooth, aligned. I apply just a little bronzer and blush to my face, and some lip salve; a plain-flavoured one for now.

  I am beautiful, I think. Natural. Myself. I can see it now. Even though I’ve rehearsed before, now it’s for real. I can’t believe it’s me. I feel lighter. Breezier.

  Like myself.

  School has been prepped about my change. Apparently they’ve been really good, according to Mum. So they should. My behaviour has always been impeccable.

  ‘Ready, Danni?’ Dad asks as we leave the house.

  ‘Ready,’ I say, and he squeezes my hand and opens the front door.

  Sara is sitting on the wall outside mine. Just like she used to. She hasn’t changed. My heart is smashing against my chest. My heart, which has always been the same.

  ‘I’ll walk with her,’ Sara says, and Dad looks at me to see if that’s something I want to do.

  She loops her arm in mine and, linking, we walk to school. A change in the weather brings falling leaves that dance behind us in relief.

  FROM

  HEROIC

  BY

  PHIL EARLE

  Sonny

  So you probably want to know who the girl in the crowd was. And that’s fine by me. I could talk about Cameron Thompson all day long. Although, inevitably, thoughts of her bring me back to Jammy, and another of his commandments.

  Thou shalt not cop off with thy mate’s sister.

  Keeping to this was proving more difficult than the stealing one.

  I mean firstly, they wouldn’t have got away with this in Jerusalem or wherever Moses was when his hormones kicked in, and secondly, it was clearly aimed at Cam, as there’s only Wiggy who also has a sister.

  No disrespect to Tina or anything, but she’s . . . ample. So big there’s a health warning tattooed under her bra strap about the danger of suffocation.

  Don’t get me wrong, she’s a nice girl, big heart, big everything really, but she’s not interested in me, and frankly, phew, ditto and amen to that.

  Cam on the other hand is . . . well, it’s impossible to explain. She’s just Cam.

  A stupid, gorgeous, tough, quirky mess of contradictions.

  People who don’t live on the estate would tell you she’s typical of a girl from the Ghost, that she’s brassy and confrontational. But if you actually watch her, I mean really watch her, you’ll see that she’s never the first to speak. All right, she’ll fight her corner if pushed, in fact she’s tastier with her fists than any of the lads from the west side of town. But you’ll never see her strike first, only strike back.

  That’s one of the things that makes her rock my entire world, but by no means all of it.

  I mean, the girl is fit. Tall without being lanky or scrawny, everything in the right place, without her ever feeling the need to flaunt it like others I could mention.

  She’s everything I’m not, basically, and
for that reason I always reckoned she was leagues above me. She’s Man Utd to my Grimsby Town. If any of us were ever going to stand a chance with her, it was Jammy.

  Which is why the whole thing messes with my head on such an epic scale.

  No one knows about it of course. Not Wiggy, Hitch or Den, and especially not Jammy or Tommo. Though if it did get out, the news wouldn’t take long to reach them. Ghost estate gossip could easily reach Afghanistan, believe me.

  I tried to work out who would be most hacked off if they heard, Tommo or Jamm. Tommo’s her brother, after all, so you might say him, but the rules belong to Jammy, so he’d probably try and come down hard to mark his territory.

  I thought about it for a few minutes then gave up. It wasn’t like I signed a contract or anything, and I didn’t chase it either. These things just happen sometimes. And when they do? Well, you just have to roll with it, don’t you?

  You see, Cam and Tommo’s situation is complicated.

  Actually, that’s not true. It’s not complicated at all, they just have a disgrace for a dad. The kind of disgrace who likes to hide behind his drink; the kind who can’t hold his beer by the end of the night, because by then his hands have clenched into fists. Fists he can’t straighten out until they’ve had a go on someone who he’s supposed to love.

  It’s when I see his ratty face that I’m glad I don’t have an old man of my own. He’d only disappoint me too.

  We’ve known about what Larry does for years, how he rules the house and how the drink rules him, but it’s not like we can do anything about it. Police aren’t interested unless someone in the family makes a statement, and the chances of that, knowing the beating that would follow? Well. It’s never going to happen.

  I often wondered if that was the reason for Tommo joining up. He’d never gone on about the army before. Maybe he’d just had one too many pastings from Larry. I don’t mean he signed up out of fear. Tommo wasn’t scared of his dad. He’d often take one for the team. Two black eyes and a split lip meant his ma and Cam were left alone. No, he might’ve followed Jamm because he was about to snap and put the idiot in the hospital. And if he did that? Well, Larry would have no problem dialling 999.

  The issue I had with him going to Afghanistan was Cam. I mean, if she was my sister, there’s no way I’d leave and put her next in the firing line.

  But Tommo had his reasons, and he’s sound. One of us. An Original.

  On the day he left with the rest of them, I saw his face. What it meant. I could see some of the other soldiers, all screwed up out of fear for themselves, wondering whether they’d ever come back. I’m sure Tomm was feeling that too. But the way he held on to Cam, the way their bodies shook without a word? It said everything I needed to know, and what I needed to do.

  I know what you’re thinking when you hear all this. That I engineered it, me and her. But that’s not how it happened. First week I dropped her a few texts:

  how u doing?

  Nothing heavier. Responses were brief.

  Fine.

  All gud.

  Then everything changed with a knock at the door about two and a half weeks in. Listen to me being vague. I know exactly when it was. Eighteen days after they left. It was a Wednesday. Three in the afternoon.

  I’d not been in long, still burning up after a run in the heat. It wasn’t a clear-your-head-and-keep-fit kind of run, more the if-you-stop-you’ll-have-your-head-caved-in variety, but either way, I was sweating. Shirt off and Coke in hand, I’d collapsed in front of the box and was surfing for something to watch. The knock was irritating, but not for long. Not when I saw who it was through the frosted glass.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Her words were out before the door was fully open, before I had time to stick my pecs out and pull my stomach in.

  ‘Course,’ I said, resisting the urge to sniff my pits.

  ‘Sorry to barge in,’ she went on, turning to face me.

  Her cheeks and eyes were red, the top of her chest above her vest was blotchy. Instantly I thought of Larry, of rearranging his face.

  ‘What’s up?’ I offered her the chair but she wouldn’t sit. ‘Is it your dad? What’s he done?’

  Reaching for my phone I scrolled for Den’s number. He was the biggest of all of us, the one you wanted at your shoulder when it all went down.

  ‘It’s not Dad. I haven’t seen him for days. He does this, goes under for a week or so then pitches up like nothing’s happened. Longer he’s face down in a pint, the better.’

  ‘Then what’s up? What’s going on?’

  Her face dissolved. Not in a pathetic way. She could never be that.

  ‘It’s the telly. The news. I’ve barely switched it off since Tommo went. It’s on twenty-four hours. Always about bombs and shootings. I want to turn it off and leave the house, Sonny, but I can’t. I keep thinking if I leave it on I’ll catch a glimpse of him, and be happy. But he never shows up, and now there’s reports of another explosion. One of those improvised ones. The worst yet. Then they said where it was and I couldn’t remember if it was the same place that Tommo and Jamm went . . .’

  No more words came. She just swayed and looked at me, so scared she couldn’t even manage to wipe the smudged tears that fell to the carpet.

  I didn’t know what to do. Hold her, calm her, stick the news on myself? I daren’t do any of them for very different reasons, but had to pick one, so I stabbed at the remote until I reached News24.

  As the camera settled on a raging cloud of smoke, I felt nerves prickle across my chest.

  It summed up why I’d been resisting the news ever since they left. It was bad enough the scenarios playing out in my head without being confronted with it on the TV too.

  I thought about others on the estate going through the same thing. Young mums little older than us, their kids screaming as Daddy left for Helmand. They told me about stuff they did to keep the little ones calm. Jars full of sweets: a Smartie for every day Daddy was away. And when the jar was empty? Then Daddy would be home.

  It seemed so simple. Made me wish I was ten years younger and a hundred times more innocent.

  It was clearly getting to Cam. She wasn’t blinking as she stared at the screen. She didn’t even react when the newsreader told us that the family of the blown-up soldier had been informed. All she did was pull the phone from her pocket and jab at the keypad before pushing it to her ear.

  ‘Mum?’ Her voice was calmer than when she’d been talking to me. ‘Anyone been in touch?’

  I presumed the answer was no as she exhaled loudly and slumped on to the settee, hanging up in the process. Immediately I checked my own mobile. Couldn’t face the prospect of a missed call from Mum.

  ‘I never understood why they always said that stuff about families being informed,’ she gasped. ‘I do now. It’s so idiots like me can stop bricking themselves 24/7.’ She looked angry at herself, which I wasn’t going to have.

  ‘Give yourself a break. It’s not easy, I know that.’

  ‘I can’t help it, though, Sonny. I can’t walk past a newsagent without looking at every page in every rag, just in case I’ve missed something. If there’s a telly in a shop, I’ll watch it till the news rolls round to the start again.’

  ‘I understand. I do. But you’ve got to try not to worry. It’s not like we can do anything about it, except trust they’ll look after each other.’

  I thought for a second that her face had softened from panic to mild dread. It didn’t last long.

  ‘Do you ever find yourself Googling Jamm’s name? In case it’s leaked on to the web before it reaches the news on TV? I try to stop myself but it’s . . .’

  ‘Hey!’ I interrupted, then let my voice soften. ‘It’s OK. I get it.’ I really did, but had no idea how to make it any easier for her. So I did what I always do and winged it.

  ‘Look at us. All of us, and the scrapes we’ve got through to be here. All right, it’s not easy, but we’re still in one piece despite it all. That’s why I reckon t
hey’ll be all right. There’re as many knives here as there are guns over there, and there’s none sticking out of us yet, are there? They’ll be all right if we are.’

  I made a joke of it, patting for an imaginary blade across my shoulders and hers. My fingers turned pure electric as my skin touched hers, especially when she didn’t flinch. I left them there, squeezing gently as Jamm disappeared from my head for the first time in weeks.

  ‘And we are all right, aren’t we?’ she asked, eyes all the more magnetic for the make-up smudged around them.

  I felt brave. Don’t know why or how, but for once, around her, I felt invincible.

  ‘You tell me? I reckon so.’

  And that was it. The gap between us disappeared. Not because I lunged or took advantage. It just happened. And happened. And happened. The footage on the news disappeared. Jamm and Tommo were looking the other way, for now at least.

  Breaking a rule had never felt so good.

  MISS LUCY HAD A STEAMBOAT

  BY

  DAVID LEVITHAN

  The minute I saw Ashley, I thought, Oh shit. Trouble.

  You have to understand: I grew up in a house where my mother told me on an almost daily basis that until I got married, my pussy was for peeing. In her world, all lesbians talked like Hillary Clinton and looked like Bill, and that included Rosie O’Donnell especially. My mother didn’t know any lesbians personally, and she didn’t want to know any, either. She was so oblivious that she stayed up nights worrying that I was going to get myself pregnant. There was no way to tell her the only way that was going to happen was if God himself knocked me up.

  Luckily, I’d learned that the best defence against such holeheaded thinking was to find everything funny. Like the fact that all the sports teams in our school – even the girls’ teams – were called Minutemen. All you had to do was pronounce the first part of that word ‘my-newt’ and it was funny, like suddenly our football team had Tiny Dicks written on their jerseys. Or the fact that in the past calendar year, my mother had hit so many mailboxes, deer, and side mirrors that her licence had been suspended. I chose to think she did it on purpose, just so I’d have to drive her around and hear her advice on boys, school, and how bad my hair looked. Hysterical. And, best of all for a quick laugh, there was Lily White – that was her name, swear to God – who certainly enjoyed kissing me in secret. But then when I brought up the idea of, hey, maybe doing it outside of her house, she shut down the whole thing and said to me, ‘None of this happened.’