The End is Where We Begin by Maria Goodin (open ebook .txt) 📕

out of my mind. But now here we were, Hellie and I, coming down from our high, talking about death and heartbreak, and suddenly I felt miserable again.

“I thought it must be nice,” she muttered, “to be as peaceful as my baby brother. To just have everything go away.”

She reached out and fiddled lazily with the strap of my watch.

“I tried to throw myself from a speeding car once,” she added matter-of-factly.

I already knew this. The whole school did. Rumour had it that she’d been under some kind of psychiatric care for a while. Nothing Hellie Larsen ever did stayed quiet, and that’s just as she wanted it. But what nobody ever knew was why she did it. For attention? To kill herself?

“Sometimes I just want to get out of myself,” she said when I asked her, “get out of the moment I’m in. I guess it was just one of those times.”

Her hand slid over mine.

“Don’t you ever feel like that?”

The warmth of her touch felt good. I’d missed someone holding my hand, tucking their body next to mine.

I thought of Libby and my heart felt like it might break with the sense of loss.

And then anger rose in me. Anger at myself for having lost her, anger at her for having given up on me.

Yes, I knew what it was like to want to get out of yourself.

I knew, as soon as she kissed me, that I wasn’t going to take this all the way. It would be too much too soon. I knew it was over with Libby, that I’d driven her away, but I’d always believed my first time would be with her, and it was too early to think differently.

But, just for that moment, kissing Hellie made everything feel better. It made me forget. And what did it matter anyway? What did anything matter anymore? It was only a kiss. Nothing more.

And then we found ourselves lying down, pressed together on her narrow mattress. So what? We could touch each other, even remove a couple of items of clothing. It meant nothing. We could stop – would stop – soon. I wasn’t going to take this all the way.

She was on the pill, she said. That’s fine, I told her, but that’s not where this is heading. However good it feels. However much it helps to take all the other thoughts and feelings away. This isn’t what I came here for.

So we should stop.

Or we could take it a tiny bit further. Why not? Who gave a crap anyway? We were here now.

Just a little longer. Just a little bit more. Just because it felt so good.

But then I’d stop.

Because this really, really wasn’t going all the way.

Chapter 15

Stars

After the night of the fairground, my friendship with Tom quickly withered. We were hostile towards each other. Angry. Stressed. We drank and fought. We should have spoken about it – all of us should have – but instead we bottled it up inside, not knowing how to express the things we’d felt that night. Fear. Panic. Helplessness. These weren’t things we knew how to discuss. Instead, Tom buried himself in his schoolbooks, while I rebelled and barely looked at mine. Fast-forward a few months and Tom was preparing for university while I was up to my eyeballs in nappies.

I knew there was a good chance he wouldn’t reply to my email. I had no right to ask for his help. He didn’t owe me a thing. So when his reply popped up in my inbox, I opened it with trepidation. Would he tell me to shove it? Politely reply that the past was the past as far as he was concerned?

Jay

Sorry for the slow reply. I was surprised to hear from you. It’s been a long time.

Yes, I think a meet-up is long overdue.

Best

Tom

I’m not sure what to make of his tone. It doesn’t sound like the Tom I used to know, but then again why would it? He’s thirty-two now, a grown man. Still, I’m glad he’s replied. There are things I want – things I need – to say to him.

I quickly tap out a reply and send it before I lose my nerve.

Tom

Thanks for agreeing to meet. I can come down to the hospital sometime in the next couple of weeks if that suits?

Jay

It feels cold, perfunctory, and matches the tone of his own email. It’s sad that such a long, close friendship full of laughter and mockery and jibes has become a sterile exchange of words. He was my first friend, my closest friend, for so many years. Perhaps we’d be meeting once a week for a pint down the Canal House if the course of our lives hadn’t taken such a sudden turn.

I delete the junk from my mailbox, thinking for the hundredth time that I should really get round to unsubscribing from all these things I unknowingly subscribed to in the first place. In fact, I’m deleting so fast, I almost don’t notice it. It’s only the first three letters of her surname embedded in the email address that make me stop in my tracks.

My stomach tenses. What the hell does she want?

I open the untitled message with a sense of dread.

Dear Jay

I hope you are well.

My parents have no doubt told you that I am currently living in New York. I intend to come over to the UK in the next couple of months and I would like to see Joshua. We haven’t had much of a relationship over the past few years and I would like to address that.

Obviously I will work around whenever is convenient for the both of you.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Love Hellie xx

My heart’s pounding in my chest.

WHAT THE…??!!!

Luckily, it’s Saturday afternoon and Josh is hanging out with Sam again, the two of them having become pretty much inseparable since the start of the summer.

I immediately call Michael, my hands trembling with anger.

“Yo,” he answers, lazily. I