Better Left Buried Read Free

have my heart set on going to the Royal Music School, which has the best reputation and the most intensive vocal course. But everything depends on my audition – flunk that and it’s game over.
    At least Lizzie has options.
    I suck in my lips and try to pick something less touchy. “So, how about your big day? You thought any more about what you want to do?”
    Lizzie stops leafing through the magazine, her face blank.
    â€œYour eighteenth,” I remind her. “It’s only three weeks off.”
    â€œI dunno,” she mutters. “Nothing much.”
    â€œA party?”
    Lizzie shakes her head. “Too much hassle.”
    I frown. Too much hassle? This time last year Lizzie was planning the biggest bash ever for her eighteenth. Christ, at one point she wanted a whole crowd of us to go to Ibiza – her, me, Tanya, Zoë, Roo and Tabitha.
    What happened to that Ibiza plan? I wonder. Lizzie just stopped mentioning it. I assumed it was because of me, because of what happened with Max.
    But now I’m not so sure.
    â€œSo what do you want to do then?” I persist, refusing to let the matter drop.
    Lizzie lifts her mouth in a kind of shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t really given it a lot of thought. Not much, probably.”
    â€œCome on,” I say, perplexed. “You can’t be serious. It’s your eighteenth, for god’s sake. You can’t just do nothing .”
    Lizzie shrugs again, a proper one this time, using her shoulders. “I can’t think of much I want to do.” She keeps her eyes fixed on her magazine, ignoring me.
    What’s got into her? I ask myself for the thousandth time. It’s as if she’s slipped away into some parallel universe, leaving the husk of my best friend. I mean, Lizzie was the original party animal, always the last girl standing wherever we went. The kind who was never short of an excuse to go out.
    And as the oldest in our college year, Lizzie’s the first to hit eighteen at the beginning of September. Everyone’s expecting her to kick off our final year with a bang.
    â€œOkay, you’re right.” She sighs and drops the magazine on the bed. “Maybe I should do something. Roo and Zoë keep on at me too. It’s just that I don’t feel like some mad celebration, that’s all. Perhaps we could all go somewhere for a day? I could do with a break from this place.”
    â€œWhere do you fancy?”
    Lizzie thinks for a minute or two. “How about the beach or something? I haven’t seen the sea in ages.”
    The beach. My mind flashes to that trip to Camber Sands when I was ten. “Coming to get you!” Max running towards me, grinning, a lump of seaweed in his hands, waving it in my face. Me trying to kick back at him as he laughs and dodges away.
    â€œWe could get the train down to Brighton,” Lizzie suggests, her tone brighter. “The four of us. Go round the shops. Chloe Miller said there’s some amazing little boutiques in the lanes off the seafront.”
    â€œGreat.” I push Max out my head and focus on my friend. “Sounds like a plan.”
    She seems genuinely into the idea. For a moment it’s like having the old Lizzie back. The old Lizzie who was always up for everything.
    â€œRight.” She gazes back at me for a few seconds, as if she can’t think of anything more to say. I realize I can’t either and feel another pang of unease. Best friends since primary school and now we’re having awkward silences?
    â€œHey, I forgot to mention,” I say, anxious to fill the gap, “something really weird happened to me on the way back from my singing lesson.”
    â€œWhat?” Lizzie draws her knees up to her chest, hugging them with her arms. Finally giving me her full attention.
    I tell her what happened a few days ago. “It was freaky. He just stared at me, then turned round and walked the other