Page 15 of Going Solo (The Brent Boys #2)

Chapter Eleven

T hat weekend, the Make Me a Pop Star theme burst from the speakers of the huge ninety-inch TV on our living room wall. It was the Colchester audition episode, and my heart was pounding with excitement, fear, and dread. My face would be on the TV for the next month, as the pre-recorded audition and group stage episodes went out. I should have been on cloud nine. I wasn’t.

The house was overflowing with relatives, family friends, and assorted hangers-on. I’d been crying most of the day, hiding in my room. Aunty Cheryl had arrived late, wearing a silk neck scarf to hide her hickeys and pulling one of those shopping baskets you see old ladies dragging around the supermarket, stocked with gin. She looked like a Ryanair hostess who’d nicked the passengers’ duty-free. Mum plonked herself down beside me on the couch, sending bubbles swirling over the top of her champagne flute.

“Have a sniff, Tobes.” She offered me her glass. “Go on, bubby. You’ve earned it. You’re famous!”

As I knocked back a large gulp of Mum’s fizz, Dorinda Carter’s beaming face appeared on the screen.

“Here we go!” Dad said.

A dozen kids were running around our back garden, screaming, ignoring the main event. The trampoline was seeing its first use in years. It was holding together better than I was, but either of us could have randomly flung a child over the fence at any moment. Dad barked at my sister.

“Elsa, shut the patio doors.”

Elsa groaned. “Why do I have to do it?”

“You’re the closest.”

She got up with a huff.

The noise outside muffled as the latch clicked into place. The house stank of barbecued sausage fat and J’adore by Dior. Dad turned the TV volume up a couple of notches. A roar went up around the room as my face appeared on the screen in a crowd shot.

“There he is!” Mum shouted in my ear. “There’s my boy.” Random hands slapped my shoulders, my legs, the top of my head.

On the TV, Dorinda Carter walked through the crowd of audition hopefuls, asking people who they were and where they came from. Cole and I appeared on-screen again. The house erupted into screams of delight. Mum hushed everyone in time to hear Cole and me say our names and where we were from. The package moved on to a couple of girls who’d obviously been asked to do the same.

“I’m super proud of you, bubby,” Mum said.

“You remember that I didn’t get through, right?”

“You get through in this episode, bubby. Anyway, you did your best. I can’t ask for more than that. There’s always next year. Did Cole message to wish you luck?”

I shook my head. Despite Cole’s promise, it had been three days since I’d been kicked off the show, and I hadn’t heard from him once. It was the longest we hadn’t spoken since the night we started texting.

“He’s probably busy with the show, bubby.”

“Did you hear from Orla?” I asked. Mum had invited the Kennedys down to our watch party.

“They couldn’t make it. It turns out milking cows twice a day really interferes with your social life—even on the weekends.”

“Did she say anything about Cole?”

Mum frowned. “Sorry, love.”

Forty-five minutes later, Cole appeared on-screen again, strumming the opening chords to “You Got It.”

“Cheryl, this is Orla’s boy,” Mum said. “You remember. He came into the salon.”

Aunty Cheryl looked up from her phone. “Tall bloke. Boy band–issue swoopy fringe. Carries broken hearts around in his pocket. That the one?”

My phone pinged.

Aunty Cheryl: Stay strong. I love you. xxx

We watched as the song ended and the argument between Johanna Thorsdóttir and Robbie Johnswagger played out. Erik, Dad’s workmate and weekend sporting buddy, couldn’t believe his ears.

“They can’t be serious. The kid was incredible.”

“Shu’up babes, I wanna hear this,” his wife, Delice, said.

Next, Felicity Quant asked Cole about Suffolk and their mutual haunts.

“Is old FQ flirting with a teenage boy?” Dad said. I felt bile in the back of my throat.

Felicity asked Cole about his heritage, and he explained that he was adopted and didn’t know where his birth father was from.

“Oh, that’s well sad,” Delice said. “He should do one of them NDA tests and find his real family.”

“It’s DNA, you melt,” Erik said.

“All right, Albert Epstein. Do y’ mind, I’m trying to watch this.”

Cole walked offstage to a roar of applause from the crowd, and the camera cut to Dorinda slapping me on the back and wishing me luck. The living room erupted into squeals. Dad and Erik shouted “Come on” in the same way they did when they were flogging each other on the tennis court. The shaky first notes of “Firework” quivered their way past my vocal cords. I sounded like a cat trying to claw its way out of a set of bagpipes. I felt everyone in the room wince and knew they were already trying to work out what consolatory things to say. I sank into the sofa. But, on-screen, I warmed up—and soon I was belting out the chorus and dominating the stage. Mum’s hand gripped my knee, and I couldn’t tell whether the wet patch forming was her sweat or mine. The song ended, and the room erupted into cheers and cries of “well done” and “congratulations.” In the relief, I cried.

“Shush, it’s the judges’ comments,” Mum said. I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch as the inevitable played out. When Felicity Quant finally said yes, the room went wild. I opened my eyes to see myself crying on the screen. I bowed. I clasped my hands in front of my chest and minced offstage into the waiting arms of Mum and Dorinda Carter. Then they showed the moment where I spotted Cole and threw my arms around him. Cole looked… shocked. Which was not how I remembered that moment. They cut to an interview with us, filmed earlier that day. Dorinda asked Cole about us forging a friendship in the queue, about his song choice, and about the Hallelujah Curse. Then the microphone moved to me, and Dorinda asked why I’d helped Cole. And that’s when it happened. That’s the moment my life changed forever. That’s when I opened my stupid mouth and said, “Why wouldn’t I? He’s marriage material!”

Everyone in the living room cringed.

Worse, on the TV, Cole cringed.

The sound of a record scratch blasted from the television speaker. The footage rewound. The microphone reappeared under my chin. Dorinda asked her question again. I said, “Why wouldn’t I? He’s marriage material!” again. And the camera punched in on Cole’s reaction. They froze the frame on him, his eyes bulging. Closer. Closer . CLOSER. I watched in horror as, in slow motion, Cole unwound his arm from around my shoulder.

Finally, Dorinda went on with her interview. “What do you say to that, Cole?”

“Yeah, um, that’s… a bit intense,” he replied.

“Not keen on marriage?”

“Someday, sure,” Cole said. “When I meet the right person. And maybe when I’ve known them more than, like, four hours.”

Another record scratch. Rewind. The editors had enjoyed themselves.

“Maybe when I’ve known them more than, like, four hours!”

The camera focused on me, and the image on screen burst into flames, and my face melted away. The show cut to an ad break. My utter humiliation was complete. Hot tears scalded their way down my cheeks.

The room fell into silence.

“What were you thinking, mate?” Dad said.

Mum enveloped me in a hug. “Oh, Tobes.”

My sister chimed in triumphantly. “Oh my God, social media is not being kind.”

“Already?” Mum said.

Elsa burst into laughter and held up her phone for everyone to see. “You’re already a meme! How are people so fast?”

I ran up the stairs to my bedroom, slammed the door behind me, and threw myself onto the bed—screaming into my pillow, drenching it with tears. My phone was pinging with text messages. I switched it off.

A few minutes later, there was a light tap on my door.

“Tobes?”

“Go away!”

I heard the door click open and close again, smelt the telltale cloud of J’adore, and felt Aunty Cheryl sit on the edge of the bed.

“You OK, Tobes?” She rubbed my back with her hand.

“Leave me alone.”

“I can’t do that, babes. Not till I know you’re OK.”

“I’m not OK. I’ll never be OK again!”

She held my shoulder and tried to roll me over. I buried my face deeper in the pillow.

“Look at me.”

“No!”

“Look at me.”

She sunk her nails in, deep enough to show she was serious. I rolled over.

“Sit up. Come on.”

I did as I was told, and my aunt folded me up in a hug.

“I love the bones of you, Toby. You know that?”

I nodded.

“And I’m so bloody proud of you. That was a brave thing you done.”

“Everyone’s laughing at me.”

My aunt pulled back, one hand gripping my shoulder, her piercing blue eyes staring fiercely into mine.

“I’m not being funny, but fuck ’em, babes. You spoke your truth.”

“It’s a stupid saying! It was a joke, and it’s ruined my life.”

“Only if you let it, Toby Lyngstad.” A fierce watermelon-pink nail sliced the air, millimetres from my face. “What you done, going to that audition, getting as far as you did on that show—and doing it all as your true self, not hiding anything, putting your heart and soul out there. I’ve never been so proud of you in my whole life. And I was so proud of you the first time you did a poop on the potty, I kept the photo on my fridge until you were five.”

“A photo of… my poop?”

“No, you melt, a picture of you on the potty. What are you like?”

“I do not remember this.”

Aunty Cheryl’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. She squeezed me, rocking me from side to side. I buried my face in her hair extensions. “I’ve got a scrapbook of everything you ever done, Sonny Jim. Did you know that?”

I sniffed. “No.”

“I do. I’ve got all the programmes from your school nativities. That get-well card you drew for me when I got my boobs done. And I’ve been keeping all the articles about Make Me a Pop Star too.”

“You can chuck those out.”

“I know you’re hurting right now, babes. But one day you’ll want to look back on this experience, and you’ll be glad someone kept a record. Who knows what this might all lead to.”

“Public humiliation and heartbreak?”

“That’s the risk we take when we dare to dream. What matters, Tobes, is that we continue to dream.”

That was too much. I choked on my sobs. Aunty Cheryl gently rubbed my back, listening to me cry.

“God, I need a spliff,” she said.

Over the next few days, I got hundreds more texts and calls. Some supportive. Some vicious. Some from the press. What absolutely killed me was not one of them was from Cole.