Fierce Fragile Hearts (Beautiful Broken Things, #2)

by Sara Barnard

I have lost my necklace, and it feels like a sign.

Hello and welcome to 'Sara makes notes on her own book'. I hope you find this interesting! Feel free to add comments or questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Let's start with this opening chapter - it took a LONG time to get right. I think I rewrote it entirely about seven or eight times, trying all sorts of different things. Writing the opening to a sequel that is also a standalone when there's a new perspective and it's been two years in book-time is TOUGH. I needed to connect with new and old readers, introduce Suzanne, give some of her backstory, not bore the reader, give a sense of the rest of the book, set up a story... it was a lot. But we got there in the end!

‘Come on,’ Caddy says, waving the bottle a little and nudging the box with her foot. ‘See what we brought you, Suze.’ ‘Is it furniture?’ I ask, and Rosie laughs. ‘No,’ Caddy says. ‘There are fairy lights in there, though.’

My favourite scenes to write are always the ones with the three girls together. I love them so much that they are often too long – I forget about plot and just let them be together – and I have to trim them down when it comes to edits. This one, their first scene together, was chunkier the first time around. Some dialogue was cut, a few little jokes and quips.

He and Caddy met, improbably enough, on a bus, a few months after I left Brighton. When she first told me this story, I flat-out didn’t believe her, because Caddy’s not the kind of person to chat with a stranger on a bus, let alone flirt with them. ‘

Fun fact! In the very first draft of Beautiful Broken Things, Caddy and Kel meeting on the bus was the final scene.

It’s not that I don’t want to live. I just wish I was living a life that . . . isn’t this.

Loneliness does funny things to time. It gives it width as well as length; makes it cavernous.

Sarah got the cat, a chocolate point Siamese she named Henry Gale, not long after I moved out.

Naming fictional pets is one of the no-downsides highlights of being an author. Bonus points for you if you get the reference.

what you have to understand is, relationships aren’t a shield against loneliness. Not romantic ones, that is.

‘She’s got a lot going on,’ she’s saying as I walk in, and I wonder immediately who she’s talking about, and can’t help but assume it’s me.

It's not. One of the things I love about first person POV – especially when that person is Suzanne – is offering brazenly self-centred readings of other people's words and actions without any recourse for correction, because that's life, isn't it? We so often don't know when we're wrong.

Dilys has taken my hand, which would be weird if I hadn’t just spilled my heart out to her. ‘It’s very easy to be cruel,’ she says (which surprises me, because I was just expecting her to say something nice, like ‘You’re not a show-off’). ‘Especially to a child who is vulnerable and seeking approval or love. When you remember these things, and the terrible things that were said or done to you, you must think: How easy it is to hurt a child. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Before, I was new to them, shiny and unpredictable. I was a spark. Now I am the old friend, the one they are leaving behind.

I try not to laugh, because there’s too much history and context to explain in one conversation. ‘

Said context and history can be read in the excellent YA novel, Beautiful Broken Things, available from all good retailers.

He doesn’t move in to kiss or touch me, just swings himself so we are side by side and starts walking towards the pier.

Off-page reveal for those who have read the whole book: by this point, a certain someone (*cough* Kel *cough*) has told Matt not to go there with Suzanne, and said why. He's on his very best, chaste behaviour, because it can't happen. Except it's Matt and Suze, so... well, you know what happens. (I'm sorry, I love them.)

There’s a full-on jazz band playing inside my chest. My heart is a tambourine. I want to step back into the moment, already passed, and stay there.

I like him. He likes me. And I like that that’s enough.

The end of this chapter makes me feel a little sad, because it's the last time in the book she gets to just be happy before life (i.e., me) starts throwing various trauma obstacles at her, and the next chapter is so sad. (Sorry.)

I lean over and turn the radio off with one simple click. Silence. Breathe. I reach up and tighten my ponytail, feeling the strands of my hair under my fingers. I think: Blonde. I touch my bracelet. Silver. My apron. Green.

Grounding techniques like this can be helpful in the event of anxiety attacks, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks etc.

The worst thing is the things people say about Colin Ryeland. The various journalists have talked to next-door neighbours, colleagues, friends. I always thought of him as a decent, hard-working man. Devoted to his family. This is just such a sad story, for everyone involved. I can’t help feeling that there must be some mistake. Anyone who knows Colin would tell you, he loves those kids of his. This is such a shock. I’ve always liked Colin and his family. He’s so friendly and generous, always willing to help out if we needed it. I’m so shocked this has happened.

Unfortunately, the terrible reporting that seeks to absolve abusive men after incidents of domestic violence is no fiction.

There’s a whisper from my rational brain, There are people who will help you, but I ignore it.

"My rational brain" = you, the reader.

‘You have to let people love you.’

‘Suzie,’ she says, and she sighs. ‘I worry sometimes about how much you’ve let this affect you.’

Suzanne's mother says several awful things in this chapter but this is such an insidiously cruel thing to say to your child who has survived abuse at the hands of your own husband I can't quite believe I wrote it. (But I did, and it's important, because it's this side of domestic violence that people don't tend to see or hear about. Wounds from emotional abuse go so, so deep.)

‘Maybe you should, though,’ I say. ‘Here, like . . .’ I put on a voice, an exaggerated Caddy. ‘Oh my God, Suze, you’re the worst. I listen to all your crappy problems, all the time, and the one time I tell you something about my life, you don’t even listen.’

If you've listened to the audiobook of FFH, you'll know that this is right up there with the best moments in the entire book. Charlie Sanderson doing Suzanne mimicking Caddy is pure gold.

‘Any friend can make you laugh. Best friends make you cry.’

Time passes, the world gets fuzzier. I can’t quite tell if I’m awake or not. I have a vague sense that someone is whispering nearby, and then the door closes. The lamp switches off. I mumble, ‘Caddy?’ ‘Hi,’ she whispers. She pulls the covers back and slides down beside me. ‘Go to sleep, it’s super-late.’ Her breathing is faster than normal, and I can feel her heart beating. Her arms close around my back in a quick, tight hug. ‘Sorry.’ I am at that almost-drunk point of nearly-asleep, which is why the words come out when her arms release me. ‘Don’t let go.’ There’s a pause, just long enough for sleep to take me over. She says something I don’t hear, and then her arms are back around me, secure and safe, as I fall asleep.

This chapter, where Suzanne visits Caddy at university and the strain in their relationship really starts to show, is the first thing I wrote of what would become FFH. It was so clear to me from start to finish; how hard it is for them both to adjust their friendship to how much Caddy has changed since they were first friends. Going to uni is such a huge thing, and it does change relationships, even really strong ones. I'm always interested to hear people's views on Caddy in this book, and especially this section, because for me, I have a lot of sympathy for her. She's trying to assert herself in a friendship where her acquiescence has always been taken for granted, where the other person - whom she loves so dearly - is such an emotional steamroller. It's a hard thing to do, and though she doesn't always make the best choices, I don't think she's always, necessarily, wrong.

Oh God, life is so hard. It’s so hard. Is it this hard for everyone?

Not that it’s a competition, but my stuff is so much worse than his, and I can tell by his face that Kel must have left out a lot but he’s trying not to react too obviously. I keep my voice light as I run through my story as quickly as I can – violent stepdad, left home at fifteen, lived in Brighton with Sarah, it went badly, tried to kill myself (again), got professional help, foster care – and when I finish he’s looking at me like I’m a glass vase that just smashed on the floor.

One of the biggest challenges writing this book as a standalone that is also a sequel to an existing book was deciding how much space to dedicate to Suzanne's past. It's such an essential part of the story but there was a danger of repeating too much of what was in BBT and making this story feel like a repeat of it. I rewrote this scene several times, and it turned out to be the place where I did the most of the revealing. Having Matt know some of it - through Kel - was also a handy way of avoiding the too-much-detail trap. I tried to imagine what kind of questions readers from BBT would have from only knowing what Caddy knew then and put as much of that in as I could before the scene started to drag. I know every detail of Suzanne's backstory (most of which never made it into BBT or FFH) so I find it very difficult to see the woods from the trees in putting it on page - I assume the reader knows too much, or not enough. My editor was the essential guiding voice in striking the right balance. At least, I hope it was the right balance...!

I hug him back. ‘You’re not actually Welsh, remember. You just live here.’ He grins. ‘Rwy’n dy garu di.’ ‘What?!’ ‘Come on,’ he says, slinging an arm around my neck. ‘I’ll get us Thai food on the way home.’

Rwy'n dy garu di = I love you.

‘And when he used to build us those forts in the living room and we’d play pirates? You were Captain Zanne? Remember you used to wear that bandana? He got you that little telescope?’ Oh, God. My heart gives a painful lurch. Captain Zanne. I’d forgotten all about that. ‘Shiver me timbers!’ Dad used to yell, lifting me up on to his shoulders. ‘There be treasure, Cap’n Zanne!’

In the times I've read through FFH since I wrote it, for editing and promo and now this, it's this bit that makes my heart ache the most. For me, this is the saddest part of the whole book; the profound loss that underpins child abuse and domestic violence. This flash of ordinary, of what could have been, is so painful.

It’s a party trick I’ve been able to pull off since I was fifteen, a sure-fire way to impress people, if that’s what I’m going for. The ultimate cool-girl trick. But tonight, for the first time ever, I fail. And I fail hard. The first bottle cap lifts between my teeth as normal, but the second wrenches, the bottleneck jerks in my mouth, and suddenly there’s glass and blood and— Ow! Shit. Ow!

This happened, very memorably, at a student party at my then-boyfriend's house in our second year of uni. I wrote this specific scene – of all the characters to give this particular mistake to, it had to be Suze – and then crafted the rest of the chapter around it.

Matt, who’d relaxed slightly at the word ‘brother’, tenses again. ‘Fighting about what?’ His forehead crinkles slightly and he glances around me. ‘Did you spill vodka in here?’ ‘She threw it, actually,’ Brian says. ‘The bottle, that is. At me.’ ‘I didn’t throw it at you,’ I say. The viciousness in my voice surprises me. ‘It didn’t even touch you.’ ‘Will you just calm down?’ Brian’s starting to lose his composure, I can tell. Matt’s appearance has completely thrown him, and it’s like he doesn’t know how to deal with me any more. ‘Why does she need to calm down?’ Matt asks. ‘What did you do?’

Sometimes, for big emotional scenes like this entire chapter - the fight between Brian and Suze after she finds out about his betrayal - I write it from multiple perspectives, just to ensure I'm hitting every note from every angle, rather than missing another character's emotion because I'm not in their head. Of course these extra scenes never see the light of day, but they're very helpful for writing. This whole chapter also exists from both Brian's and Matt's POV. I always think of that specifically on this exact bit of the scene, when Brian is trying to gauge exactly who Matt is, and if he'll be on his side at her expense, and Matt shuts it down immediately. Suze is oblivious to the subtext of this interaction, and it would probably take one or two extra readings for readers to pick up on it. But it's there!

I just feel . . . heartbroken. That’s what it is. For him and me and the lives our parents gave us both and what it’s turned us into.

The crux of it - the long-term emotional cost of domestic violence.

‘“Time in a Bottle”,’ he says. ‘Jim Croce. Don’t worry. It’s not serenading if I’m not singing.’

If you don't know this song, have a listen. One of the most beautiful songs ever written.

This is probably the first time Caddy has ever felt like this, that dizzying thrill of standing on the edge of sensible, but I know it well.

This is another example of why it was so fun to play with perspective in the shift from Caddy in BBT to Suze in FFH. Suze is making such an assumption here, because of course Caddy *has* felt that 'dizzying thrill' - she talks about it explicitly in BBT, in relation to Suze herself. But Suzanne doesn't know that, because how could she, and she assumes Caddy has never felt it because of how she sees Caddy, which is the good, solid, dependable, sensible one. Her failure to adjust her view of Caddy is one of the biggest underlying problems in their relationship. (Caddy doesn't cover herself in glory in this book, but Suze is by no means blameless.) Did I write this exact line for that very reason? Why yes, yes I did.

I close my eyes, smiling as he puts his arms around me, then open them to see Caddy staring directly at me. There’s a look on her face I’ve never seen before. Owen’s hand slides up the light fabric of my top, his fingers grazing my stomach. I hear his voice in my ear: ‘Turn back around.’ Caddy is still looking at me. I turn, keeping my body close to him, my hips turned into his, both of us still in motion. His mouth finds mine, as I knew it would, as I’d wanted. We kiss as we dance.

Several reviewers mentioned wanting to "shake" Suzanne and say "NO, DON'T DO THAT!" in this book, and I think it must be this moment. Is it this moment? "SUZE, NO."

‘You—’ Caddy begins. Slowly, with purpose. ‘Um,’ Rosie pipes up. ‘Cads?’ ‘Go ahead,’ I say. ‘Say it.’ ‘No, don’t say it,’ Rosie says,

Fun fact! In the first draft, Caddy went ahead and said it. But she was reading a little too harsh, so I took the line out. You'll just have to imagine whatever it was that was meant to come after "You"!

‘You,’ she manages. She actually points at me. ‘You need to sort your fucking life out.’ I do the worst thing. I laugh. ‘Suze,’ Rosie hisses, looking anguished.

This really is the worst thing she could have done at this point, and whenever I read it I wince.

He looks so hurt. And sad. I suddenly hate myself so much I want to crawl out of my own skin, sink into the floor, disappear forever. So much of me wants to say, Stop, no, I take it back, but the rest of me is fighting, fighting, fighting. And all that battle inside me is exploding out in these horrible words to this boy who’s been nothing but good to me. I am the worst person. I am cruel and empty and cold.

This is another scene where perspective is key. Suze is so awful in this scene - bitchy and manipulative - but because you're inside her head, you understand why (I hope!). But if this scene was from Matt's perspective, even though he's trying so hard to be understanding (so hard!), I'm not sure she'd get much sympathy. Imagine every argument you've ever had, and apply the same principle.

I want to say something cool and ironic about being an unsocial smoker, but I can’t think of the right thing.

It was me. I couldn't think of the right thing, and I was on a deadline.

Jade smiles a little, more to herself than to me. ‘Listen,’ she says, reaching for the ketchup and knocking a splodge of red sauce on to one of the buns. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever been to Brighton. I’ve come here with my girlfriend, who’s pretty great, you already know, and I’m meeting her mum, and her best friends, and I’m seeing where she grew up. This is all kind of a big deal, you know? So, I mean this in a nice way, but I really don’t care about whatever drama is going on between you and Caddy and whoever that guy was. Like, I literally don’t care. Why would I?’ She’s looking at me like she’s expecting me to tell her, and I can feel my face starting to turn red. ‘Don’t you think it’s kind of self-centred to think I would?’

I know I've talked about perspective a lot, but this is the only time I actually put it on the page, in the mouth of a character. "Yes, you're the protagonist of your story, but you're just a bit part in mine." (Also, I love Jade. I wish I could have given you more of her.)

On Thursday I carry my guitar on my back and get the bus to the care home to see Dilys. I’ve got a small pot of daffodils in my hand, yellow and bright. I’ve decided that I’m not going to bring any of it up with her, I’m just going to play the Joni Mitchell song I’ve been practising – ‘River’ – and read the last chapter of The Little Prince. I’m hoping she might let me keep the book when we’re finished, because I like it a lot more than I thought I would, and I kind of want to read it again. There’s a bit about a fox that makes me think of Caddy and me, and I want to show it to her when we’re friends again. This is what I’m thinking about when I wave at Ines on reception on my way into the building and head down the hall towards Dilys’s room. The fox and the wheat fields.

The scene that follows is the one I get the most messages about, and all I can say is I'm sorry, and I cried, too.

used to walk him for Dilys.

(Clarence.) This is a lie. Did you catch it? She's a very easy liar - it's effortless.

‘It’s what Dilys would want.’

But this is the truth.

‘She trusted me.’

And so is this.

All of these people loved Dilys. She mattered to all these people. To me. The version I knew was just one tiny part of her, one colour in the kaleidoscope. That could make me feel distant from her, but it doesn’t. I’m glad I got the piece I did, and I hope she was glad, too, to know this version of me, the one that only really existed for her.

‘Why’s there a dog?’ Matt asks.

This is my Caddy-and-Suze song from BBT. "And they said you were the crooked kind And that you'd never have no worth But you were always gold to me"

‘Suze!’ She practically shouts this down the phone. ‘For fuck’s actual sake.’ OK, yeah. She really is mad. ‘I don’t hate you. You know I don’t hate you. You did something that you knew would upset me and I got upset. And now you’re playing your Suze card to guilt me into not being angry. That’s not OK.’

Accurate.

Love might burn the brightest fires, but fires burn out. Friendship is warm and steady; constant. It keeps me alive.

I made a choice, didn’t I? I’m not ready for a relationship. And if I’m not ready for that, I’m definitely not ready for a probably-not-a-good-idea-but-let’s-be-friends-with-benefits-anyway complicated living arrangement. I’d love to live with Matt, that’s the truth. We could talk about music, and he could teach me to get better at the guitar, and we’d go to gigs together and just . . . hang out, like all the great times we have done over the last few months. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I’m not exactly known for my self-control, and it doesn’t seem like he is, either.

Growth!

There have been so many times in my life that I’d thought I was starting again, whether I wanted to or not. I thought that was what I had to do to finally get a chance to make things right. But that’s not how it works, I get that now. Recovering isn’t about fresh starts, or new beginnings. It’s about the constant as well as the change. You build a foundation in layers, and that’s what makes it strong. Maybe sometimes it means taking a step back, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes you have to take a step back to get a better view of where you’re going. I will never be better, because better is not a thing. I will always just be me, and maybe that’s OK. Maybe that’s even great. I am sitting in my garden with my dog on my lap, an arrow on my back that will always point up, and I am surrounded by people who love me.

Of all the chapters in all the books I've written, this epilogue is what I am most proud of. These paragraphs in particular. I wouldn't change a word.

Yeah. I’m doing just fine.

<3