Page 81 of When We Were Young
Liv
I have been sending Chloe a funny cat video every day.
I gave up on sending messages pleading for forgiveness weeks ago.
Lately, it’s kittens: being cute, falling over, thinking they can jump further than they can, discovering they have a tail.
One every single day. And I’m making progress because Chloe didn’t even open my previous messages, but the cat videos get two blue ticks every time.
I’m aiming straight for the heart – kittens are irresistible.
But she never replies, and it’s been three days since she received the photo book.
I miss her.
Before I head off to Amplify , I send my usual cat video.
Today’s is a kitten climbing up its owner to steal food from the kitchen counter.
Two minutes later, my phone pings. She’s replied!
There, at the bottom of a long string of videos, sits a single emoji – the crying-laughing face.
I’m so happy I practically skip to the station.
As I wait on the platform, I send another message: How are you?
She doesn’t reply, so by the time I get to the Amplify office, I’m convinced the emoji she sent earlier must have been a mistake.
But when I check my phone at lunchtime, there’s a message.
Chloe: We should talk.
Me: OK.
Chloe: Tonight?
Me: I’m staying at my grandparents, but I can come to yours?
When Chloe answers the door, her expression isn’t exactly friendly. We say hi and she leads me through to the living room. She invites me to sit and asks me if I want a drink. It’s weird her talking to me like I’m a guest. I usually make myself right at home.
I sit across from her on the L-shaped sofa.
‘How’s your stomach?’ I ask.
‘Still sore, but I’m not taking so many painkillers now.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Thanks for the book,’ she says.
‘No problem. Thank you for all the fun memories.’
We go to speak at the same time.
‘You go,’ she says.
‘I’m so sorry I went to Beatland without you,’ I say. ‘It would have been way more fun if you’d been there.’
She looks doubtful.
‘Seriously,’ I tell her. ‘The whole time I was there I kept wanting to call you and tell you what was happening.’
Her face reddens as she smiles. ‘Maybe next year.’
‘Oh my God – yes! I’ll ask Tumi to get us both VIP passes.’
She goes quiet. Pulls at a loose thread on the hem of her sweatshirt. ‘I think we both know my parents won’t let me go.’
‘They might – we’ll be seventeen by then.’
She smiles at me, eyebrows high, as if to say yeah right .
‘Okay, so we go the year after, when we’re eighteen. But we’re definitely going, okay?’
Her shoulders slump. ‘I want to be a normal teenager. To go to festivals and parties and have a boyfriend. But I have all this pressure on me to do well in school, to get the next piano grading. To win tennis tournaments, all that stuff. It’s such a cliché being the Asian girl with the Tiger Mum.’
‘What’s a Tiger Mum?’
‘A strict Chinese mum who pushes her kids to study.’
‘But it’s your dad that’s Chinese, not your mum.’
Chloe huffs. ‘I know, ironic, right?’
‘But I thought you liked that stuff. You love playing the piano. You love tennis.’
‘I used to love them but practising piano two hours a day, every day, isn’t fun. I hate playing piano now. And tennis sessions three times a week. And the maths tutor. It’s too much. I actually enjoyed being in hospital. I got to stay in bed and watch YouTube for three days.’
I laugh. ‘Hardly any kids stick to a hobby unless their parents make them. I started piano lessons at the same time as you. I gave up after a month. I wish my mum had made me keep going. How amazing is it that you can play piano? Your achievements will look brilliant on your uni applications. I’ve got nothing to put on mine. ’
‘You do now you’ve been working on a magazine.’
I hadn’t thought of that. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘And you’ve found something you’re interested in. You chose it. And you’re good at it.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t want to be a lawyer.’
‘You don’t?’
She shakes her head. ‘I hated the work experience at my dad’s office.’
‘Have you told your parents?’
She nods.
‘What did they say?’
‘It helped that I was in hospital, and they felt sorry for me. They said there was plenty of time to figure it out. Mum said I could drop tennis, and once I get Grade 8, I can scale back on the piano.’
‘Wow, they really rolled over.’
‘It sounds like it, but my cousin says her parents made her drop stuff at sixteen so she could focus on her studies. That was probably their plan all along.’
‘At least they listened. They just want you to do well. They love you.’
‘Yeah.’ She gives me a weak smile. ‘Anyway. Enough about me. What have you been up to?’
I tell her everything she’s missed since we last spoke. I tell her about Beatland, the interviews, losing the internship and Mum getting it back again, not being allowed to do the archive anymore, and the otosclerosis leaflet.
We talk for hours; we order pizza and when I have to get back to my grandparents’ house, she invites me to stay over.
We make a pact to boycott the Leavers’ Ball and go somewhere fancy instead – just the two of us.
We giggle like our old selves.
But we are not our old selves.