Never Grow Up by Ava Bloomfield

Author:Ava Bloomfield [Bloomfield, Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Balancing act

‘Band practice was cancelled again. Sorry,’ said Lou, looking genuinely ticked off as she broke the news on my doorstep.

‘I know,’ I said, letting the door swing open. Lou closed it, waggled her fingers at my sister, and followed me upstairs to my room. ‘I got the text from Saph not long ago. I was going to come and tell you.’

Lou was wearing her acoustic on her back; a shiny white thing with a glossy finish, like something Dolly Parton would play. It wasn’t so rock ‘n’ roll, but it was eclectic and it was very Lou.

She finger–picked nonchalantly, cross–legged on my carpet. Fragments of Siouxsie and James Hetfield lay scattered about her, where I still hadn’t bothered to sweep them up. My brainstorm loomed above us, asking questions I didn’t want to face. It was mid–August now, and despite my job at Sammy’s and the access course I attended with Saph, I still hadn’t sorted a place to live.

Because you STILL haven’t made your mind up about anything yet.

As if deliberately disturbing the evil little voice in my mind, Lou said, ‘So you’re going to university through clearing, huh?’

I threw myself back on the bed. ‘Apparently,’ I said, exhausted already. It felt like I’d had this conversation a thousand times already, and I supposed I had. Just in my head.

‘You don’t sound so sure,’ Lou sang. I threw a teddy at her and narrowly missed. ‘Oi! I’m just calling it how I see it.’

‘Well don’t. I want to live in my own little dream–world for a while. I mean Christ, Lou, when did life get so serious?’

‘It got serious?’

Lou looked genuinely perplexed. Then again, nothing ever bothered her, as if even a cage of hungry lions with a distinct taste for ‘Lou burgers’ couldn’t make her pulse race. She’d go with it, like being gobbled up was a riot.

‘All right, Dolly,’ I said in reference to the guitar, making her smirk. ‘How come you’re so free and easy?’

‘Probably all that studying I don’t do,’ she teased. Lou knew I’d been stuck doing IT skills for the last fortnight between shifts at Sammy’s. My heart wasn’t in it at all, and that was putting it diplomatically.

‘No, really,’ I said, levelling with her. ‘I just feel like I’m biding time for the next disaster. How are you so...just...not worried?’

Lou took out her phone. ‘This,’ she said, flipping it to face me.

It was an e–pamphlet for a cycling trip around the south of France. I gingerly took the phone from Lou’s hand and cradled it, flipping through the pictures. They were all of young people riding bicycles in the sunshine, having cook–outs beside rivers and camping under the stars with steaming cups of coffee.

Something stirred in my tummy. I hadn’t felt it in a long while, not since me and Chris started going out.

‘What do you think about that, eh? Imagine it. Croissants at dawn. Long winding dirt paths surrounded by fields and fields of wheat or sunflowers. I could get a job in a boulangerie or a chocolatiers, and sip wine under the stars.

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