Eva Carter - How To Save a Life (extract 1)

Location: Hove Lawns, by Hove Plinth

Transcript: 31 December 1999. Kerry. Six minutes. I have six minutes left to be kissed. Three hundred and sixty seconds and counting, if I don’t want to end another year – let’s face it, an entire millennium – as the only seventeen-year-old girl in Brighton who has never snogged another human being. Most of the girls in the sixth form have gone all the way. You can tell from the way they move: dancing wildly on the shingle, wearing heels that keep sinking into the gaps between the pebbles, unsteady and sexy and— ‘Which do you think will implode first, the National Grid or air traffic control?’ Tim says, passing me the can of Diamond White. When I raise it to my lips, all that’s left is apple froth. I look up at the sky. ‘You probably shouldn’t be quite so excited about the idea of Armageddon.’ ‘Makes me feel quite reckless, being on the brink of disaster.’ Reckless isn’t Tim’s style, but his eyes are bright: I can see the beach fires the hippies have lit reflected in them. Except it’s not just the flames. There’s something else in his face, an intensity . . . Oh shit. He’s going to try to kiss me. He mustn’t. I move backwards, out of reach, and I break eye-contact, staring resolutely over Tim’s shoulder to where Joel and his mates are having a knockabout on the Lawns, lit by the Victorian lamps that line the Prom. The frost has set the earth like concrete, but the boys don’t seem to notice. They’re too busy trying to outrun Joel, even though they know they never will. He moves twice as fast as the others, the football always at his feet. He was in the same class as Tim and me, until he got signed for a football apprenticeship by the Dolphins FC. He’s one in a million. Everyone either wants to be him or be with him, me included. At the edge of my vision, Joel is running. And then he’s not. He doesn’t trip, or throw out an arm to right himself or break his fall. Instead, he drops, face down, legs outstretched. The boy who fell to earth. The others play on. I wait for Joel to get up. What’s he playing at? He’s not a joker the way Ant is, and I can’t believe he’s risked injury by falling so clumsily. Joel was the only one of the cool kids never to smoke or drink. Even tonight he’s stuck to orange juice . . . Ant pivots back, calling out, ‘Come on, Joel, you knob,’ and when he reaches his best friend, he nudges him with his big black shoe. Once. Twice. The third time is more of a kick. Joel doesn’t move. Certainty strikes me like lightning. He’s in trouble. I drop the can of cider – and though I fully intend to walk towards Joel, my legs have other ideas. Even as I run across the Lawns, I’m cursing myself for being so obvious, but I cannot stop. After keeping my crush secret for nearly seven years, I’m about to blow it, at three bloody minutes to midnight.