A Hope Christmas Love Story

Mel

First day of Year 13 and I feel faintly sick. By rights, I shouldn’t be here. I should be heading off to uni with all my friends. Instead I’m a year behind them, taking my A2s at Shrewsbury College where I know plenty of people, but no one really knows me. Or could possibly understand how different my life is from theirs. I probably should have come clean about Lou Lou from day one, but I can’t explain it, I just wanted a bit of my life to be like everyone else’s – to pretend that I was a normal teenager doing normal teenage things. And now it’s too late to tell anyone. No one here knows I’m a single mum, with a twenty-month daughter. Or how much pressure I’m under to get things right. Thanks Andy Pilsdon, for screwing up my life …

Will

First day of 6

form college, and I feel sick. By rights, I shouldn’t be here. I should be setting off to uni with all my mates. Instead I’m resitting Year 13 in a college in Shrewsbury where I know no one, and no one knows me. That last bit is a bonus.

But the rank feeling of failure follows me. It should have been so different. Predicted A*s and A’s after AS Levels, it all went to pot from day one. A whole year spent listening to Mum and Dad tearing themselves apart and ignoring Izzy and me in the meantime. A whole year spent of nights up until all hours searching for Izzy when she’d gone off god knows where. No wonder I didn’t get the grades.

So now I have to sit the damned things again. And I’m really feeling the pressure. Thanks Mum and Dad for spectacularly screwing up my life …

First Day (#ue955a23e-bc15-503a-ab1c-de1d0b0f7c00)

Will

I’m queuing up to register for my English A Level class when I first see her. Like me, she was on her own, which seemed surprising. She was so lovely: pretty with long dark hair and gorgeous blue eyes. I couldn’t believe she didn’t have hordes of guys wandering after her. There was a slightly haunted air about her, she seemed kind of waif like and all I wanted to do was go and put my arms around her straight away. Which was ridiculous. I’d not even spoken to her.

“Welcome back, Melanie,” I heard our tutor say. “And well done again on those great results.”

Melanie. The name suited her.

She blushed at the compliment and scuttled away as fast as she could. I wanted to say hi, introduce myself, but something about her manner made me think she wasn’t too keen on casual conversation, as she raced away, head down towards the library.

I didn’t see her again for the rest of the day.

Mel

Second day of term and already the summer feels far away. I’m missing Lou Lou badly and wondering just how I’m going to cope next year when I’m at uni. If I get there of course.

All everyone is talking about is how important this year is, and how little time we’ve got. And I have less time than most. How many of my fellow students have to get home in time to pick their daughter up from nursery, feed her, bathe her, and put her to bed before starting their studying?

Over the summer she’s got into bad habits as well. I recently got rid of the cot, and she’s having far too much fun running around her bedroom to actually go to sleep. Why would she want to do that? I’m already fretting about how I’m going to get any work done. Mum and Dad are great but I can’t always impose on them. Lou Lou’s my responsibility. And much as I love her, sometimes it feels really unfair …

Chapter One (#ue955a23e-bc15-503a-ab1c-de1d0b0f7c00)

I’m walking to English and a guy I haven’t seen before stops me in the corridor and asks where our class is.

“It’s Melanie isn’t it?” he says, looking a little nervous and flicking his fair hair out of his deep brown eyes. It’s a fatal combination.

I clock that he’s good looking, but squash that thought instantly. After Andy, who got me pregnant and dumped me pretty quickly, I’m taking no chances. Lou Lou and I can survive perfectly well on our own. I can’t afford any more setbacks. When our future is secure, then I can maybe think about a relationship again. Not now though. Life is far too complicated.

“How do you know my name?” I ask a bit more belligerently than I intend to. I normally put out so many negative signals, boys have worked out that I’m a no go area. I’m nervous that this one doesn’t seem to know that.

“Stood behind you in the queue to register on the first day,” he says cheerfully and his grin does funny things to my stomach. Oh stop it, Mel, don’t go all weak at the knees because some random guy has a cheeky grin. “It’s not a crime knowing your name is it?”

“No, I suppose it isn’t,” I say reluctantly.

He does have a nice smile, and I like the way his eyes dance as he speaks. Suddenly feeling a little confused and overwhelmed, I point him in the direction of our class, before fleeing to the loos to compose myself before facing him in English. This will never do. I’m completely entranced by a total stranger and I don’t even know his name.

***

I’ve made progress; I actually spoke to Melanie today. Even if it was only to ask where our English class was. Seems like this is quite a traditional college, and I’m one of the few guys doing English, and History, though it seems about equal in Law.

Melanie disappears to the loo, so I enter the classroom alone. None of the girls pay me any attention and the dozen or so guys in the class all seem to know each other well and are sitting together. So I end up at the back of the class with two other newbies, one of whom is clearly gay and dressed up in such flamboyant clothes he’s clearly waiting for a reaction, which I don’t give him. The other has his head down in a copy of The Catcher in the Rye, which isn’t even on the syllabus. He grunts at me; clearly he’s making a different kind of statement.

Melanie slips in just before the lesson starts and sits at the front on her own. She seems to be alone a lot, though I have noticed her sometimes with a group of girls in the common room.

I can’t take my eyes off her. She is quietly enthusiastic and answers questions intelligently. I’ve barely known her a week and I think I’m half in love.

I’m determined to speak to her at the end of class, but she seems like a woman on a mission and vanishes before I can say a word. There’s something about her that intrigues me. I have to find out more …

Chapter Two (#ue955a23e-bc15-503a-ab1c-de1d0b0f7c00)

“Mum, you are still ok to pick Lou Lou up from nursery aren’t you?” I shout as I come down the stairs, my little girl squirming in my arms. She’s clinging to me, and holding on determinedly to Bunny, a scrubby rabbit she insists on sleeping with. I can never get it away from her to put in the wash, so poor Bunny is quite filthy. I love the feeling of her against me, the warmth of her breath against my neck, the way she puts her hands round me so trustingly. However difficult my life is sometimes, I’d never be without her.

Mum had said she was picking Lou Lou up for me, but my granny has come to stay unexpectedly, and I know she’s very stressed.

“I already said, didn’t I?” Mum says in exasperated tones I know well, giving Lou Lou a tickle under the chin.

“I know,” I say, “I just don’t want to be a nuisance, what with Gran and everything.”

Mum’s so busy. She’s working on a new TV series, as well as coping with Gran and my brothers and sisters; I hate putting her under more pressure.

“You’re not,” says Mum giving me a hug, “you know I’m always happy to help.”

“Gaga,” says Lou Lou holding out her arms to Mum.

“You really are the best,” I say.

“I know,” Mum says, rolling her eyes. “Now have you had breakfast? I know Lou Lou has.”

“Yes, yes, don’t fuss,” I say, though I haven’t. I never have time in the morning, and Mum has enough to do kicking my lazy siblings into touch to get them ready for school, so I look after Lou Lou despite her offers of help. And it’s always such a battle. Lou Lou wants to play first thing, and if I have time, I play too. It’s my favourite part of the day, and I always feel mean on nursery mornings, taking her out of her nice cosy bed, getting her dressed and ready by 7.30, so I can drop her off at nursery by 8. But college starts for me at 8.30 and it’s a half hour drive down winding country lanes. I’m always just managing to screech in on time. I’m sure everyone thinks I’m a ditzy airhead who can’t get out of bed in the morning. If only they knew …

I kiss Mum goodbye, give my little sister Ruby a quick hug (my other sister Paige and my brother James still haven’t emerged from their bedrooms), have my normal battle to get Lou Lou into her coat and shoes, and head for the door.

Then the morning takes a turn for the worse. I realise within seconds of leaving that my petrol gauge is low, so I take a quick detour to fill up, which means I arrive in the mid drop-off rush at nursery, so it takes longer than usual to get Lou Lou settled. By the time she’s prepared to let me go it’s gone 8.10 and even if I put my foot on it, I’m going to be late.

After a frustratingly slow drive, stuck behind a tractor nearly all the way to Shrewsbury, I scream into the college car park at 8.35, grab my bags and leg it to the office to report in late as I’ve missed registration. Our first lesson starts at 8.45, so with any luck I might just make it. I have English first lesson and Tom, my tutor, has been giving me a hard time this year ever since I told him I wasn’t going to sit Oxbridge. I’d love to sit Oxbridge, but it’s not practical, and of course Tom has no idea why. So instead I’m applying to Birmingham to do a Media Studies course, so I can continue to live at home. It’s not what I would have planned, but nothing since Lou Lou came along is.

Whenever Tom makes sarky remarks about me being late, it’s always on the tip of my tongue to say it doesn’t seem to be affecting my grades, but I hate drawing attention to myself, so I never do.

I’m in such a hurry, I don’t see someone else bowling in the opposite direction towards me till it’s too late. We collide, I go flying and so does he. I look up groggily to see Will staring into my face.

***

I hadn’t seen Melanie till the last minute. I’d been late leaving because Izzy, my sixteen-year-old sister was being stroppy. She didn’t want to go to school again, so I’d physically had to make her, shouting at her all the way.