“525,600 minutes – how do you measure a year in the life?”
There was no answer when Josh knocked on the door. He opened it gently and stuck his head around. He could see why she hadn’t heard him – she was singing along to her iPod.
“Hey!” Kayleigh said, surprised to see him. They hadn’t had any plans to see each other that night and she was already in her pyjamas, with no make-up on and her red hair pulled into a messy knot on top of her head, despite the fact that it was only half past seven. She pulled the earphones from her ears and put her iPod on the bedside cabinet. “I didn’t even hear the doorbell.”
“Your mum let me in,” Josh said, sitting down on the bed at Kayleigh’s feet, and leaning over to kiss her hello. “She’ll probably come upstairs any minute to make sure we’re not getting up to anything unacceptable.”
Kayleigh hit him on the arm. “Don’t be silly, she likes you.”
Josh gave her a sceptical look.
She decided to change the subject, gesturing towards the wide-open window, which wasn’t actually succeeding in letting in fresh air because the evening was so still. That August had been one of the hottest on record. “How crazy is this weather? Look!” She held out her arm. “I got more sunburn today.”
Josh took hold of her wrist gently to inspect the damage. “Ouch! The sun must be on its way out now, though. That’s been a week. I reckon it’ll be stormy this weekend.”
“Which reminds me,” Kayleigh said. “I don’t need a lift to Jodie’s party tomorrow night – she’s asked me to help set up.”
“Oh right. Well, a bunch of the guys were talking about meeting up beforehand, so I guess I’ll see them instead.”
“They’re not going to get really drunk, are they? Jodie gets really anxious about every little thing and she’s been looking forward to this party for ages.”
“No worries. They’ll have a few drinks because they can’t buy anything once they leave the house.” He put on a posh voice. “Not being legally of age to drink alcohol, unlike myself.”
“Yes, unlike yourself – as of two weeks ago.” She stuck her tongue out at him and he made a face back. “Anyway, what are you doing here?”
“Ah, well,” Josh said, smiling broadly. “I have a surprise for you.”
“You do?” Kayleigh was a little suspicious. He had announced the same thing a week ago, the day before her 18th birthday, when he decided that he was taking her paintballing; she’d had a great time but was still bruised.
“Don’t say it like that!” he said, tickling her foot.
“Eek! Don’t do that!” She crossed her legs and held her feet away from him. “So, what is it then?”
He stood up and removed what looked like a photo envelope from the back pocket of his light blue jeans. He held it out to her.
She looked warily at it. “Have you been developing embarrassing pictures?”
He laughed. Kayleigh smiled. She loved how his laugh made his dark blue eyes scrunch into little crescent moons, and allowed her to see the tiny gap in his back teeth.
“No, but I’ll keep that idea in mind.” Josh continued to hold out the blue envelope. “Take it. Paintballing wasn’t really part of your present; this just wasn’t ready in time.”
Kayleigh took the envelope guardedly. Then she noticed the logo in the top corner – a travel agent’s. She glanced up at Josh who still had a ridiculous grin on his face, then opened the envelope. It was full of leaflets and different things paper-clipped together.
“Josh, what is this?”
“I’m taking you to Paris in two weeks!” He was obviously pleased with himself. “That’s if you want to go, of course.”
“You know I’ve been wanting to go to Paris for, like, ever.”
“So, you’ll come?”
“You can’t do this,” Kayleigh said, but she continued to look through all the information – a weekend trip for two, Friday to Sunday; a table booked at the Eiffel Tower; tickets for entry to Le Louvre; a booklet containing lists of the best places to eat or to visit, ‘not normally found in ordinary tourist brochures’. In short, everything anyone would need for a perfectly prepared holiday. “This must have cost you a fortune. I can’t accept this.”
“Well, in two weeks, two people will be going to Paris,” Josh said, with a pretend, nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.
Kayleigh rolled her eyes.
“If you want to be one of them, let me know.” He stood up and made as if to move to the door.
“Come here!” She grabbed his arm.
Josh dropped his act and turned around, smirking down at her.
“Thank you,” Kayleigh said, simply. She kissed him, pulling him back onto the bed with her.
*
“He’s taking you to Paris?” Sam exclaimed.
“Yep,” Kayleigh said, trying to make herself heard over the rain battering the windows. Josh had been right about the sunshine not lasting much longer; the following day, the dull morning had given way to a darker afternoon, before turning into a miserable, stormy evening.
She held up one end of a ‘happy birthday’ banner, while Sam lifted the other. There were five girls taking the liberty to decorate the hall how they pleased, since the birthday girl, Jodie, was away worrying in the kitchen over whether or not they had enough food and drink, and whether anyone would actually brave the weather to show up.
“Wow.” Sam sellotaped her end of the banner to the wall. “You guys are so cute, you know that? How long’s that been now?”
“Like, three years,” Kayleigh replied. She had been a fifteen-year-old new kid in school when she first met Josh. He attracted her attention immediately with his humour, and he had asked her out within weeks. They had been inseparable ever since. Those three years didn’t feel that long to Kayleigh, but other people generally looked surprised when she told them. “Three years next month.”
“Wow,” Sam repeated.
“Guys, how’s it going?” Jodie called as she reappeared in the doorway from the kitchen.
“We’re making the place sparkle for you!” Sam yelled back.
The party was in full swing before Josh arrived. There had been eight guys at Mark’s house and they’d piled into two cars once they remembered they had a party to go to. Well, until the two designated drivers – the sober pair – reminded them.
The dark hall was lit only by the coloured disco lights that reflected off a glitter ball hanging from the ceiling, and the occasional flash of lightning. Almost a hundred people danced in the middle of the room, and still more people crowded around little tables set up around the perimeter. It took Josh ten minutes to even spot Kayleigh, dancing with a group of her friends in a mini circle at the front of the floor.
He stopped for a moment just to watch her. Her turquoise knee-length dress set off her red hair, and he knew that it would bring out the blue in her eyes. He was glad she’d decided to wear it; ordinarily she lived in jeans because she hated her legs. He thought she looked amazing.
He twisted his way through the crowd towards her, forgetting about his friends for a second. Kayleigh saw him a few moments later and she smiled and moved over to him.
“Hi!” she said, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. “What took you so long to get here?”
“Hey!” He tried to focus on her face. “Kayleigh! You look hot!”
“And you’ve been drinking,” she said, stepping back so she could take another look at him through narrowed eyes.
“No.” Josh swayed on the spot.
“You’ve been drinking a lot.”
“A bit.”
“I told you not to let your friends get too drunk, but I should have been telling you.” She rolled her eyes, before turning around and disappearing into the crowd.
Josh tried to follow her but staggered; he must have had more than he’d thought. For another hour he wandered around the hall, hanging out with his friends occasionally, always keeping an eye out for Kayleigh.
Kayleigh spent most of this time with Jodie and Sam, trying not to think about her boyfriend. She didn’t mind him drinking; she just didn’t like him when he was in such a state.
“Cheer up!” Sam yelled over the music, as she did the Macarena to a completely unrelated song.
“Yes, please do!” Jodie yelled. “He’ll sober up soon enough, but for now just forget him! Please? For me! On my birthday!”
“Aw!” Kayleigh hugged her best friend. “I’m sorry I’m bringing you down.”
“You aren’t!” Jodie said, her brown eyes concerned. “I just don’t like seeing you all upset. You know you guys will be fine tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kayleigh admitted.
About half an hour after losing her, Josh spotted Kayleigh again. He made his way towards her, making a decided effort to walk steadily through the fuzziness in his head.
“Kayleigh!” he said in her ear.
She jumped, spinning around and glaring at him.
He adopted a pleading tone, though his voice slurred. “Please don’ be angry wi’ me!”
“What?” she said, speaking loudly near his ear; standing right beside the speakers was not the best place to try to have a conversation. “I’m not angry with you. I just can’t really be bothered with you when you’re this way.”
“When I’m wha' way? Please, don’ be mad a’ me.”
“You’re proving my point!” she said, louder. “I am not angry, OK? You just get too clingy and weird when you’re drunk, and I just want to have a good time tonight!”
“See, y’are mad at me! You’re yelling!”
“That’s because the music’s loud!” she yelled, partly in anger by that point. “Look, just go and hang out with your friends and I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
“S’ now you don’ want to spen’ time wi’ me?” Some of Kayleigh’s anger was beginning to rub off on him, and he felt his temperature climbing.
“God! You have to stop drinking!”
“An’ now you’re tellin’ me wha’ I can and can’ do?”
Kayleigh let out a growl of frustration before turning her back on him and pushing her way through the crowd.
*
Perhaps it had been leaving the party atmosphere; perhaps it was getting soaked to the skin by the pounding rain on the way to the Clio. Either way, Josh felt like an idiot.
“I’m an idiot!”
“We know,” his friends chorused.
“Can you turn the car around?” Josh asked Andrew, who was driving. “I want to go and apologise to Kayleigh.”
“Do it tomorrow!” Mark said, sticking his head between the two front seats. “We’re not going back there to sit in the car for fifteen minutes while you make it up with your girlfriend!”
“Yeah, man,” agreed Paul, also sitting in the back. “You guys fight all the time. You’ll be fine by this time tomorrow.”
“We don’t fight all the time,” Josh protested.
“Yeah, you do, like twice as much as normal folk!” Paul said. “That’s just what you two are like, it’s no big deal.”
*
“I’m so angry at him right now!”
Kayleigh watched everyone dancing as she stood at one of the food and drink tables, no longer in the mood to do so herself. She had been joined by Jodie, who had witnessed the last part of her argument with Josh.
“He was being an idiot,” her friend agreed.
“Yeah.” Kayleigh took a sip of her drink. “Was I too harsh on him, though? Everything seemed to get blown out of proportion.”
“That would be the alcohol,” Jodie said. “But seriously, don’t worry about it. Loads of guys are bad drunks, and Josh doesn’t get that way very much anymore.”
“Yeah.” Kayleigh put her empty bottle down on the table. “Look, I’m not feeling that great. I’m just going to phone my dad and see if he’ll come and get me.”
*
“I can’t see a bloody thing!” Andrew said, angrily.
The rain was falling in sheets. Spray from the water on the road flew ten feet in the air as the car drove through it; any pedestrians crazy enough to have been walking anywhere in such weather would be soaked to the skin. Any dip in the road was topped up to the rest of the road level with rainwater, and Andrew had to slow right down to avoid aquaplaning.
“I better text Kayleigh and say sorry.” Josh took his mobile out of his jacket pocket, pulled his feet up onto the seat and rested his chin on his knees as he began a text.
*
“Are you alright?” Kayleigh’s dad asked, as his daughter got into the car.
“I’m fine.”
“OK.” Kayleigh knew that her dad could tell something was bothering her but, unlike her mother, he left the subject alone when he saw that she didn’t want to talk about it.
“I’m just shattered. I need some sleep.”
*
The twenty minute journey back to Mark’s house had already taken twenty-five and they weren’t there yet. The rain was torrential, obscuring the road and the few other sets of headlights they came across.
Andrew had just taken a corner on the back roads when the car skidded. It flew across the lethal layer of water covering the tarmac towards one of the trees lining the road.
With a deafening smash that was louder than the thunderstorm, the front of the car crumpled. Then there was no noise but the rain.
*
Eleven days later
“How are you feeling?”
Kayleigh looked up to see Mark standing beside the bench, the wound down one side of his face bringing her back to reality. She hadn’t even sensed him standing there.
She took a moment to answer. “I don’t know.”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “Can I sit here?”
She nodded. She couldn’t tell whether she wanted to be alone or around other people. Inside, she had been desperate to get away from everyone; outside, by herself, she felt almost as if she didn’t exist.
They didn’t speak for a long time. The sun was shining feebly, though the sky was blue again. The storm had cleared up the weather.
Kayleigh blinked, and a tear raced down to her chin. She was surprised; how could her body still produce tears when she had already cried so many, and when she couldn’t remember the last time she ate or drank anything?
“He died thinking I was angry with him.” There was silence when Mark didn’t know what to say. Then Kayleigh continued, almost to herself. “Why was I shouting at him? I didn’t mean to – to – when he died he probably hated me!”
“Kayleigh,” Mark started, unsure if what he was going to say would help, “did you not get his text?”
A chill ran from the hair on her head to the tips of her toenails. “What?”
“He was feeling really guilty about the way he acted –”
“He had no reason to!”
“But he felt bad. He even asked us to stop so he could come back and say he was sorry. But we said…” His voice cracked. “That there’d be time tomorrow.” He stopped talking until he collected himself. “So he was texting you.”
“I never got it.”
Kayleigh felt another surge of grief.
She knew she would never again be able to feel as much emotion as she had when she first heard the news. The shock had struck her like lightning, broken her into a million miniscule little shards that, no matter how much her friends or family or she herself tried, could never be pieced back together properly ever again; more loss was just the removal of another tiny fragment of herself.
“I don’t believe I’ll ever get past this.” The tears began falling faster until she was sobbing. She cried, her insides a whirlpool of emotions that she couldn’t deal with, until she got the hiccups.
“My dad let me sleep.” Her voice was thick. “He said he knew I wouldn’t be getting much sleep again for a while. When I woke up, Josh - he'd been dead for ten hours. I – I –” Then she realised she didn’t know what she was trying to say.
“I think your dad did the right thing,” Mark said, quietly.
Kayleigh didn’t answer. She didn’t know what she thought, she didn’t know what to say, she didn’t know if she could still speak.
“It was strange.” Mark thought back to waiting at the hospital after the crash. “It was like it wasn’t really me. We were all just waiting and waiting to see about Andrew and Josh. Then when this nurse appeared, she asked for Andrew’s parents to come with her, and you could tell he was awake. Then another nurse came and wanted to speak with Josh’s mum and dad… and you could tell.”
Kayleigh scrunched her eyes closed in pain.
“It was a while before Andrew was thinking properly. Me and Paul were in the room when he asked about Josh.” Mark began crying, recalling the scene. “His mum just shook her head and his dad said, ‘He had severe internal bleeding’ and Andrew’s face just shut down. He feels responsible.”
Kayleigh didn’t consider that she could feel anything more than all the emotions swirling inside her, but she was shocked at this. Nobody thought it was Andrew’s fault; in fact, Kayleigh had been feeling that it was hers.
She remained outside for the rest of the wake. Her parents came to fetch her just before everyone started leaving. She never said another word that day.
Once at home, in her own room, she put in the earphones of her iPod and switched it on. The first minute of the song that began to play had elapsed when Josh was still alive; when he had appeared in her doorway to surprise her. She curled up on her bed as she started sobbing, the sound not quite covered by the song playing into her head.
Remember the love,
Measure your life in love...
*
Josh’s mobile was recovered from the crash scene. Mark spoke to Josh’s parents, who handed it on to Kayleigh. Saved to the drafts folder, when the phone had switched off, was this message:
Kay – I’m sorry about tonight. I never want to upset you again, OK? I was a total idiot and I promise I’ll make it up to you. Sorry, again. I love you. – J
-
A/N: Title references lyrics from the musical Rent by Jonathan Larson
Lyrics at the beginning and end from the song ‘Seasons of Love’, also Rent
This is a story I've been wanting to write for a while, but I feel like there's something missing. Any comments are appreciated.
. When I say necessaries I mean the characters that are necessary for your story to flow. Don't just shove them in where they're needed and forget about them. You did well with Jodie putting some info in about her. But what about Andrew, Mark, Sam and Kayleigh's father? What are they all like? I'm especially interested in the boys here. Expand on them. Make them into real people, like your main characters, because it's not just MCs that need to be believeable. Am I making sense or rambling?