Hold Your Breath by Caroline Green Page A

go with?’ said Mum, her voice glass-bright.
    Tara sighed as she filled a glass of water from the tap. Her parents were obsessed with her making friends since they’d moved here. They couldn’t seem to understand that their
constant questions about school and who she sat next to and what ‘the other girls’ were like only served to make the feeling of having failed ten times worse.
    ‘I went on my own, Mum,’ said Tara wearily and walked towards the doorway.
    ‘Tabs?’
    She turned back. Mum was holding a wooden spoon in the air like she was conducting an orchestra with it. Her hair was even wilder than usual from the steamy kitchen air. Tara felt a rush of
love, despite her irritation.
    ‘What?’ she said softly.
    ‘You deserve better than Jay,’ she said. ‘You’ll look back and wonder what you saw in the little creep one day. Don’t sell yourself short. Any boy should thank his
lucky stars to have someone like you.’
    Tara blinked, surprised. Mum obviously knew that Jay had been on her mind a lot. But in fact, Jay Burns hadn’t entered her thoughts for hours now.
    ‘Yeah,’ she said with a smile, ‘too right.’
    Later, Mum had gone off to her monthly book group meeting and Dad was working late again. Tara curled up on the big chair with her laptop. Beck was having one of his
ridiculously long showers. Mum always said he was way worse than any girl with his ‘ablutions’. When he came out it took hours for the steam and aftershave smell to melt away.
    Tara was looking at Google images of The Tin Gods, particularly Adam Stone. Most of the images were old, showing the bass guitarist in his early twenties, when he’d been thin and
moody-looking, with a mop of fair curls. A recent image from a fund-raising gig for the charity Water Aid showed a portly, balding man with a ruddy face, and a glamorous, bony woman with a frosty
smile on his arm. He had exactly the same shape eyes as Melodie.
    Tara was almost disappointed by the realisation that Will had been right about Melodie’s dad. She’d half hoped this had been a misguided fantasy. That way, it would be easier to
ignore his obvious worries. For a moment she imagined what it must feel like to lose your mum when you were a baby and to know your dad didn’t want you. A pang of sadness tugged her heart.
Then she remembered how horrible Melodie was. Having bad things happen to you was no excuse for treating people like dirt. Tara had experienced bad things too, after all.
    She sat back, the laptop balancing on the arm of the chair, and stared into the middle distance. It was odd that Melodie would leave her purse behind, though. But if something had happened,
wouldn’t it have been reported by now?
    Tara was still deep in thought when Beck came into the room, a big towel wrapped round his waist, steam wafting around him, and his hair hedgehogged into spikes.
    ‘Ah, crap,’ he said and slapped his hand against the table. ‘Left my phone at work, didn’t I?’
    ‘No, you didn’t,’ said Tara, distractedly. ‘It’s slipped down behind your bed. One of Sara’s earrings is there too.’ Sara was Beck’s current
girlfriend. The picture was as clear as if it had appeared on their new HDTV. And then it was gone.
    Tara twiddled a strand of hair around her finger in a black spiral, debating whether she really was going to do what she’d promised Will. It took her a few seconds to register the change
in the room. There was a weird stillness, but something unspoken charged the air. She looked up, her stomach swooping as she clocked the expression on her brother’s face. He was staring at
her, a wary half-smile on his lips.
    He hurried out of the room. Tara heard him going into his bedroom and the scrape of the bed being shifted against the wooden floorboards.
    Oh no,
she thought.
Stupid, stupid Tara
.
Why did I have to open my mouth?
    Beck came back into the room holding his iPhone. He had a glass drop earring in the other hand. He looked