Beautiful Broken Things (Beautiful Broken Things, #1)

by Sara Barnard

Hello and welcome to a special edition of 'Sara makes notes on her own book'! It's special because BBT was my debut, and this month – February 2021 – marks five years since publication. It feels like a very long time since I wrote this book, and the world feels like a different place than it was then. I write this still in Lockdown 3, and I'm feeling speculative. This feels like a nice way for me to mark this small five year milestone. So, whether you are a new reader, or someone who read this book back in the heady days of 2016 and barely remembers what happens – hello! I'm so grateful to you for being here. Thank you. Feel free to leave any comments or questions, and I'll try my best to answer them.

For Lora, my very best.

I wrote the first version of what would one day become Beautiful Broken Things when I was 13. The first person to read it was my best friend, Lora. I'd give her chapters as I wrote them and then the two of us would discuss the book after school in the Asda cafe. I told her that if the book ever got published (the DREAM), I'd dedicate it to her. It's still one of the coolest things I could ever have imagined that I was able to keep that promise.

I thought it was the start to a love story. Finally.

I love this opening line. It didn't come immediately, but when it did I knew it was the right one. It sets up so much of what is the heart of the book. (Though I maintain that it IS a love story, just perhaps not the kind Caddy had imagined! Platonic love stories are absolutely a thing, and we need more of them.)

13.19: Nikki has clocked that Suzanne is cool. She tried to get her to sit with her at lunch. 13.25: Successfully? 13.27: No. Suzanne said she was good with me. Nikki said, you must have noticed she’s a loser by now. Sz was like, wtf? and Nikki goes ‘SERIOUSLY. I’m SAVING YOU.’ 13.28: Bitch!!! Are you OK? 13.29. No. I’m crying in the toilets.

Reading this now I'm struck by the image of Suzanne left sitting by herself in the canteen, no Rosie or Nikki, bewildered and alone.

I tried to remind myself of this later that evening, when I clicked on to Facebook and rolled my finger over my laptop’s touchpad to look at my feed. I let my eyes follow the updates without really taking them in until they snagged on one. Rosie Caron and Suzanne Watts are now friends.

Five years on and this book is already so out of date *wails existentially*

She looked confused. Obviously the idea that someone wouldn’t jump at the chance to go to a party full of strangers was alien to her. We were clearly never going to be friends.

Spoilers: they're going to be best friends.

How could anyone who’d been in any way traumatized be so bright and cheerful? I watched her face as she turned to Maya, lifting her hands to illustrate some new joke she was making, scanning for hints. But there was nothing. Just her, all smirks and eye rolls and wisecracks. The picture of ordinary happiness.

This is it. The last moment Suzanne gets to just be Suzanne, before her traumas are laid bare to her friends and you, the reader. It's all downhill from here. Sorry, Suze.

‘People are always so fucking sorry.’

Fun fact! This is the first 'fucking' of the book, in case you were looking for a clear marker of the tonal shift that takes place during this scene for the book as a whole. The whole my-best-friend-has-a-new-best-friend-oh-no is just a misdirect, and it pivots *here*.

Caddy Oliver and Suzanne Watts are now friends.

<3

She’d spent the time in Cardiff, visiting her brother, Brian. I had no idea if the timing of the trip was a coincidence, or if she’d panicked after telling Rosie the truth and taken the opportunity to leave.

The timing of the trip was not a coincidence.

I tried to imagine myself at a student party, surrounded by twenty-year-olds. Drunk twenty-year-olds. Just the thought was enough to make my stomach seize with anxiety.

Reading this post-Fierce Fragile Hearts always makes me smile.

Suzanne’s room was much smaller than I’d expected, with a sloping ceiling and hanging fairy lights that made the whole room feel more like a fort. Almost every inch of the walls was covered not just with photos, like in my room, but with posters and magazine clippings and postcards and scraps of newspaper. Post-it notes were stuck haphazardly over the cracks between the paraphernalia, and when I looked closely I saw they each contained scribbles in Suzanne’s handwriting. Poetry, maybe? Song lyrics?

I love Suzanne's room. I could see it so clearly when I wrote this, and reading it brings it right back.

Seeing me looking, Suzanne shrugged and said, ‘Always leave an exit clear.’ I couldn’t tell if she was kidding.

She wasn't kidding.

I saw Suzanne’s whole body tense up further, her elbows crushing against her ears. Her hand seemed to spasm slightly and without thinking I reached up and took hold of it. Her fingers clamped down around mine almost instantly, squeezing tight. I heard her exhale a shaky, gasping breath.

I'm struck by how much of Suzanne and Caddy's entire friendship was borne in this moment. (This is after they see Suzanne's stepdad at the cinema, and she has a panic attack on the bench outside.)

‘Caddy and a sunflower.’

Could have been the title of the book, really.

Mum continued where she’d left off. ‘I hope she’s getting regular counselling.’ She adjusted her seat and tapped her keys gently against the steering wheel. She looked at me. ‘Is she getting regular counselling?’

This conversation makes Caddy very uncomfortable, because of how she wants to see Suzanne. But this is a pretty important point that Caddy remains unwilling to hear, let alone understand: Suzanne needed to be talking to a trauma-informed therapist. Sometimes, even good intentions and the best of friends just aren't enough. Sometimes, you need help, and that's OK.

‘My priority is you,’ Mum said. ‘I worry about what effect this will have on you. People in pain can be very self-destructive. And sometimes they pull in the people who are close to them, often without realizing.’

What subtle foreshadowing this is, well done, me.

‘I’ll be sure to be on the lookout for destruction,’ I said,

Narrator: she was not.

I opened the window and she crawled through it, pausing to take off her shoes before sliding down on to my bed.

This is one of my favourite tiny character moments for Suzanne. I love that she thinks to take off her shoes.

We headed out of my room together and down the hall to the stairs. I could hear Sarah’s voice more clearly as we started down them, her words suddenly decipherable. I tried to get into the kitchen as fast as possible to stop her saying anything bad about Suzanne, but we ended up walking through the door just as she said, ‘The problem is, I thought she’d be grateful. But she’s such hard work.’

Yowch. (This *is* what people in the role of 'rescuer', like Sarah, so often think, though, which is why this line is here. They think things will be easy, they expect gratitude. This is why problems so often persist, or are perpetuated, once the 'danger' has passed.) (This kind of thing is primarily why I wanted to write the 'after' story of Suzanne's experience rather than the 'during'. I wanted to shine a light on what comes next, and why it isn't as straightforward as people may assume.)

is a good lesson to learn now, when it’s happening to someone else: letting go is just as important as holding on, sometimes.

‘But people we love come and go, Caddy. That doesn’t mean we loved them any less at the time.’

It was closing in on 10 p.m. when I forced myself to click on Suzanne’s chat icon on Facebook. Caddy Oliver Hey Suzanne Watts Hey! :)

I swear, when I wrote this, people had conversations on Facebook messenger.

Caddy Oliver And don’t be upset that Rosie and I talked about you a bit on the phone. That happens, right? I’m sure you and Roz talk about me when I’m not around. Suzanne Watts Well, maybe we would if there was anything to say.

So harsh. SO HARSH.

There’s something uniquely upsetting about having your deepest insecurities not just laid bare by a friend but thrown in your face.

‘I know I’m hard work,’ Suzanne said softly. ‘You are hard work,’ I agreed, rolling my eyes.

Sometimes – a lot of the time – in fiction, you have to have the protagonist say the wrong thing without consequence, because that happens in life. There's no narrator to break the fourth wall and signal to the audience, "THIS IS THE WRONG THING TO SAY!" So Caddy says this and never hears that what she *should have* said is, "No, you're not hard work, you're hurting, and I'm here. You're not a burden." But she didn't know she needed to say that, and Suzanne didn't know it either, because she was *expecting* to hear "You are hard work." This is such a sad moment reading it over, made all the worse because Caddy never realises her mistake, and never knows how deeply Suzanne takes this into her heart.

She backed away a few more steps, lifting her hand in a wave. ‘Buonanotte, my friend.’ Her hand lifted further into a mock salute. Her shoulders were slightly hunched, a grin was on her face and she looked as far away from a troublemaker as it was possible to be.

I could – and still can – see this moment so clearly in my head.

Nothing strengthens a friendship like an argument survived.

‘Well, you shouldn’t be,’ Dad said, his voice picking up. ‘Not if it means doing things like this. If she wants to turn up drunk or high or who knows what else at all hours, that’s her problem. Not yours.’ ‘High?’ I said, confused. ‘When was she high?’ ‘John,’ Mum said pointedly. I caught the look she gave him, and it occurred to me for the first time that maybe Sarah really was telling her things about Suzanne that I didn’t even know. The thought threw me, so I pushed it away.

So much of what was really going on with Suzanne could only be shown to the reader through the smallest of hints, like this. This was necessary because the story is being told through Caddy's eyes, and she's so oblivious – and Suzanne is *so* careful with what she lets her see and know – that finding little moments to reveal things to the reader was one of the hardest things to do. During the editing process, getting the balance right between the reality of Suzanne's life at this time and what Caddy would have seen and understood was one of the main things we worked on. Here's the background to this hint: Suzanne did indeed 'turn up high' back home at Sarah's flat in the early hours of the morning, so out of it that Sarah, worried, called Caddy's parents for help, because Caddy's father is an A&E doctor. Though he did help, of course, that event formed a lot of the foundation for why he was so (seemingly) irrationally against Caddy's friendship with Suzanne, and why her parents were so worried.

‘She’s not toxic,’ I said. ‘She’s just sad.’

I've had entire conversations about just this sentence.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Caddy,’ Rosie interrupted, her voice suddenly snide. ‘You’re seriously trying to say you thought I’d be so wrapped up in Liam that I’d be fine with you disappearing with Suze, when you were supposed to be staying at my house? When Mum came to pick us up she was like, “Where are the girls?” And I had to say, “They left without me.”’

This final detail makes me feel so bad for Rosie every time.

‘Sure,’ she said, long and sarcastic. ‘Just like you didn’t leave with her last night because you wanted to be the rescuer? Just like she doesn’t only like you because you put up with her shit without telling her to get the fuck over it?’

Rosie is both astute and cynical. She's not exactly wrong here, but it's a very cold way of looking at the genuine friendship between Caddy and Suzanne.

‘You don’t know her,’ Rosie said, her voice hard. ‘I can tell you think you do. But you don’t. You only see her when she’s putting on a face.’

She's also both right and wrong here. Caddy doesn't see the Suzanne that Rosie sees, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, and it doesn't mean it's not real. I think of it a little like, Rosie sees Suzanne as she is, and Caddy sees her as who she wants to be. Both are important, and it's why the friendship between all three girls matters so much. The story wouldn't work with just two.

She glanced at Toby, who smirked at her. ‘God, what am I doing here?’ ‘Chilling out and having fun,’ Toby said. This time he put both arms around her, hugging her from behind like a bear, his chin on the top of her head. ‘With your friends.’

I love Toby. I wish there was more room for him on the page in this book.

Mum and Dad – It’s me! Just to let you know I came by with a friend, so if you see anything out of place, that’s why. Hope you had a good anniversary weekend. Lots of love, Suzie xx

People have asked me why Suzanne left this note for her parents, when it would have made more sense for her to keep the Reading visit a secret, and the answer is that she is utterly desperate, beyond all logic, for their attention and love. In this case, it's really as simple as that. She wanted them to know she was there, and she wanted them to care.

listening to an album called August and Everything After twice through.

One of the best albums of all time.

I know what it’s like to feel like you’ve lost control of your life. And I know you. Helping someone who feels like that isn’t in saying yes, Caddy. It’s in saying no.’

Truth.

Part of me understood what she meant, but the other part, the obstinate part, was sure she was wrong. If I had said no, what difference would it have made? Suzanne would surely have gone to Reading with or without me.

Nope. Without a playmate (and audience), Suzanne wouldn't have gone to Reading. Caddy vastly underestimates how important she is to Suzanne at this point.

I saw the reluctant smile break out on Tarin’s face. ‘Of course I still love you, you minge. Here.’ She angled her wrist and tossed the origami bird towards me. It landed, small and delicate, safe in my lap.

Amusing email exchange: trying with my editor to find an American-friendly alternative to 'minge' for the US edition of BBT, Fragile Like Us. Being published in America is a dream, but it's a wrench losing beloved Britishisms in translation!

‘I’m just saying that sadness isn’t beautiful. And if it looks that way, it’s a lie.’

‘You must be able to, because there were skylights up there in the pictures,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have skylights if you can’t access them.’

Chekhov's skylights.

one night, it was just too much. I overheard my dad say to my mum, “One day she’ll move out and we can have our lives back.” Like it was all me. Like I was the problem, like I’d ruined his life.

Of course Suzanne would assume this was about her, under the circumstances, but actually – and she'll never know this – her dad wasn't talking about her when he said this, he was talking about Sarah, who was living with the family at the time.

‘Nothing.’ Suzanne let out a long sigh then, straightening her shoulders and tilting her head back. She closed her eyes for what felt like too long, then opened them again, smiling determinedly at me. ‘Anyway. I brought you something.’ She reached into her pocket and pulled out a necklace, which she held out to me. When I took it, I realized what it was. ‘Oh no, I can’t have this.’ I tried to push it back into her hands, but she held them clenched against her chest. ‘It’s yours.’

Writing this scene, I was of course so aware of what was really going on, and how important it was to balance the scene between the reality of why Suzanne was there and what Caddy thought was happening (drug-addled and post-trauma as she is). As a writer, the temptation is to try to be too clever, to foreshadow too hard or put big neon signs around the hints, but I wanted to be true to Caddy's perspective and not do that. I do always wonder with this scene in particular at what point, if any, the reader catches on to what Caddy hasn't realised, or if they don't have the revelation until she does. I think this moment is probably the strongest clue. That and Suzanne saying, "I came to say goodbye."

What do you say to someone who’s so depressed they’re suicidal?’ ‘Tell them you love them,’ Tarin said, like it was nothing. Like it was everything. ‘Be supportive. Look, what you need to understand is, you won’t be able to single-handedly stop her wishing she was dead, if that’s even what she still thinks, which I doubt. What you can do, as her friend, is make sure she knows you’re glad she’s not.

‘I love you,’ I choked out. ‘And I –’ I stopped, trying to find the words that could explain to her how much she meant to me, how she’d brought sparks and surprise and light and layers to my life, how every broken bone and all the tears had been worth it, for her. ‘You’re just the best . . . my best . . .’

Definitely a love story.

‘I’ll say my best friend gave it to me.’

Last lines are so important. I'm very proud of this one.

To anyone who is suffering, whether this is due to experiences similar to Suzanne’s or to something entirely different, hold on. Better days will come. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who are waiting to love you.

<3