Page 10 of I Would Die for You

“So, you’ve skipped school to come into town to see them and they’ve run over your foot in their car?”

“Yep, but it was worth every second of pain,” says Cassie, still smiling. “Because Ben Edwards actually looked at me. He knows I exist, and he can break alltenof my toes if it means he knows who I am.”

Nicole tsks condescendingly. “You think he’s going to remember you forthis?The only thing he’ll remember you for is being the stupid kid who threw herself under his car.”

“I don’t care,” says Cassie, sounding every bit the immature sixteen-year-old that she is.

“Dad is going to kill you when he finds out,” says Nicole, taking a dishcloth to the recently vacated table and wiping it down. “Notonly have you skipped school behind his back, but you’ve done it to chase these boys across town. You know how he feels about all this…”

“But it was with Mum’s permission,” whines Cassie.

“Well, that’s even worse—you’re going to getherin a whole heap of trouble too.”

Cassie’s hunched shoulders relax. “I don’t know why he gets so bent out of shape around this stuff. I could be doing a lot worse…”

“Not in his eyes,” says Nicole. “He can’t bear to see you waste your time and energy on a fantasy that will never come true. He’s been there, seen it—remember? All those years he spent trying to get a break, quite literally working his fingers to the bone on that bloody guitar, night after night, so convinced was he that he was going to hit the big time. But his commitment and sacrifices amounted to nothing.”

“He met Mum, didn’t he?” muses Cassie petulantly.

“Yes, and he dragged her around the countrywithhim,” says Nicole. “And that’s something he’s never forgiven himself for…” She looks away, quelling the desire to cry. “Especially now.”

“That’s not exactly his fault,” says Cassie, her bottom lip softening.

“Of course it isn’t,” says Nicole, pulling herself up short as she looks at the girl with her sister, not wanting to air her family’s issues in public. “But he doesn’t want the same for you.” She ruffles her little sister’s hair affectionately. “And you shouldn’t want it for yourself—you’re worth more than that.”

Cassie shrugs despondently. “Butyou’refollowingyourpassion,” she says.

“Oh yeah, I’m smashing it,” laughs Nicole sardonically, not wanting to give Cassie false hope of a life she’s not sure exists. She hopes it does—that somewhere out there in the universe is a spotlight just waiting to shine on her. But it hasn’t happened yet, despite months of gigging up and down the country every night, and waitressing in Jim’s every day. She’s exhausted, and spends some days barely ableto function, but shehasto push on—not just because that’s what you have to do if you want to earn your stripes on the circuit, but because time is running out.

Her father had allowed her to ditch college, to pursue a dream they once both shared, only on the strict understanding that if, after a year, she hadn’t made significant inroads into establishing a career that was notoriously hard to conquer, then she was to return to her studies with not so much as a by-your-leave. But what they hadn’t yet agreed on, with just two months to go, waswhat, exactly, amounted to “significant inroads.”

In Nicole’s mind, it can be gauged by the fact that she’s able to support herself, although the lion’s share of her income isn’t coming from her singing. But still, she’s set herself up in a rented studio flat in Islington and is managing to put petrol into her run-down Mini. Surely that has to be seen as a win?

Yet Nicole fears that her father’s barometer is going to be set by whether she’s played Wembley Arena, thus creating an impossible task that she can’t help but fail. She understands his reservations; no one had tried harder to be a professional musician than he had, and most would argue that that’sexactlywhat he was. But he’d been under-booked and underpaid, which didn’t bode well with a mortgage and a baby on the way. So, he’d given up on his castle in the sky and believed that everyone else should, too.

But Nicole’s not ready to return to her marine biology course just yet, because performing speaks to her soul in a way that the underwater world, however fantastical, never could. It’s in her blood, as much as it was in her father’s, and although he may well have developed a method of denying it, as one brutal rebuttal followed another, if you have something burning within you—a passion that you can’t extinguish—you have to at least follow that light for as long as you can.

“But you’re happy,” says Cassie, not yet mature enough to understand the sacrifices Nicole has made in pursuit of a dream that maynever be realized. “You don’t have to listen to Dad droning on about how you’re wasting your life. He doesn’t get to dictate where you go or what you do anymore.”

“It’s only because he cares,” says Nicole. “Being a grown-up is hard, and I imagine being a parent even harder, so go easy—try not to upset him with all your antics. He’s got a lot on his plate right now.”

“That doesn’t give him the right to be even more of an arse than normal,” says Cassie.

“Perhaps he haseveryright—what with everything going on with Mum,” says Nicole, looking at Cassie questioningly as she wraps a bag of ice in a tea towel and carefully places it on her sister’s foot.

“I wish you’d come back home,” says Cassie. “It was better then.”

“Me being home isn’t going to make what’s going on any easier,” says Nicole, though she has to admit, it would certainly alleviate some of the guilt that makes her feel as if she has a ten-ton weight around her neck.

6

Despite the pain, Cassie is still riding high when she wakes up the following morning, her dreams having been interspersed with the reality of how close she came to her idol.

As if reading her thoughts, Ben smiles down at her from the ceiling directly above her bed, the poster’s staple holes peppering his square jawline. She’d had to buy six of the same magazine in order to find one with the foldout of him. Each of the three band members had been photographed individually andSmash Hitshad wrapped the inserts up like a Willy Wonka chocolate bar, so you didn’t know who you were getting until you ripped open the silver foil.

Cassie’s heart lurches as she looks at him, the secret they now share bringing them closer together. But the split-second euphoria is superseded by the maudlin compression of the oxygen cylinder in the next room as it pumps life-saving air into her mother’s lungs.

Snatching up the Sony Walkman from under her pillow, Cassie slides the headphones onto her ears and turns the volume up tomaximum. As well as drowning out the noise, the beat of Secret Oktober’s last single also has the ability to transport her to another time—back to when she was just a normal girl, whose mother would meet her with a hug and hot buttered toast when she got home from school. Back to BC—Before Cancer—when they were all living a life that had felt impervious. How quickly the carpet can be pulled from beneath your feet, upending everything you know.

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