It was strange she thought, existing without love. She seen love everywhere, it was packaged up and sold to you in movies, on tv, in trite hallmark cards, yes, she thought she could recognise love. Put love in a police line-up and she would recognise the glow it created in the people it consumed, the children, adults, the good, the bad, the successful and the wasters but she'd never felt that warmth. For as long as Amanda could remember it seemed just out of reach as if it was encased in a glass box put high on the shelve next to the other precious times in her parents' home, so beautiful but so foreign.
She supposed she must be loved somehow, logically, she supposed that Melissa must love her somewhere deep down, because Amanda loves her sister deeply and she's sure that it cannot be one sided. But Melissa was young she hadn't let learned like Amanda had that no matter how you tried you could not gain their parents approval, this forced them apart. Melissa grew frustrated at her older sisters' malaise, at her propensity to cause trouble, her late-night antics and days wasted. It only occurs to Melissa decades later that these are not her words, that they were given to her, forced upon her and expected to be gospel, like everything else her parents did.
Her parents are capable of love and somehow that makes it worse. They love each other intensely, selfishly, two capable narcissists so wrapped up in one another they ran out of love for their children. You see they're charming, they can flash a smile and make small talk with their respectable neighbours in their respectable area, on their way to their successful careers and no one is any the wiser. They fool everyone with their nice house, expensive car, and postcard perfect family. It is only when the doors are closed and the curtains drawn that the flaws show so clearly. So caught up in themselves and each other, jealousy fuelled by whisky rages between them, words and insults fly almost as quickly as the dishes and ornaments. Amanda used to listen to them, the insults traded, the whisper campaigns they would employ against one another using their eldest child as messenger. She must have been about 12 when she realised, she was just a device in what they saw as their great romance. So, she stopped, she stopped trying to be their golden girl, she grew bitter and resentful she raged against their neglect. She supposes when she is older and wiser that this was simply another tactic to gain their love, another one which didn't work. Amanda loses her family, her aunts whisper at family functions as she's sneaking vodka into her drink, her cousins avoid her and her grandparents scold her ungratefulness for everything her parents have given her. It's almost impressive, she thinks that her parents managed to sell the story quite so well. That it was their rebellious eldest daughter and not themselves at fault, that her family bought this story over the black eyes and disappearing crockery. Amanda realises then that people don't really want the truth, they simply want the story that quells their fears, she remembers this.
Amanda finds herself isolated, the black sheep of the family. She'll never admit it, teenage bravado prevents her but it hurts, every whisper, every accusing glace. She knows they're all talking about her, 'that girl that's went off the rails' but she numbs hurt with the cheapest vodka she can acquire. Amanda find's she likes the boozy haze, she prefers it when everything is not so clean cut but softens around the edges, she likes the warm glow as she sways to the music in every house party she goes too. She thinks this must be at least a little what love feels like, to feel warm from the inside. It is at one of these parties when she's incredibly drunk that the boy with the ridiculous hair puts his arm around her, she remembers teasing him about it, her mouth struggling to shape the words as she tells him, his bleach blonde quiff makes him look like a Mr Whippy. He laughs away the insult and pulls her closer. Amanda realises when she's in his arms that no one has held her in years, she's listened to the enough boys panting in her ear at these parties, pressed against someone's parents' bed, their bathroom sinks and even once a linen cupboard to know that sex makes her feel momentarily better. Makes her feel desired, wanted, needed something she's never felt before. She knows she's making a name for herself, the girls whisper and the boys stand too close. But this boy is different, he holds her tighter, speaks to her likes the riotous teenage party is not happening around them, and when he kisses her, he doesn't try to lead her upstairs, he asks her to see him tomorrow, she finds herself, against all better judgement nodding her agreement.
His name is Harvey she remembers how he murmured it into her ear as they melted into the couch at the party. She finds out as he grabs her hand and leads her towards the arcade that he had been wanting to talk to her for a while now, building up the courage with every party he was at. She asks why he was there and they have a mutual connection, the pudgy boy she sits next to in history, Adam Fleet he's sweet, always keen to talk to her and as it turns out one of Harvey's best friends. They laugh together, spending all day playing the latest most futuristic games Hodderston has to offer. When they leave, he pulls her close protecting her from the wind chill and walks her home, as she closes the door to her house, she still feels that warm glow from his presence.
So, they become a thing, she spends her days sheltering from her life in his arms, the months spent waking up in his bed means sneaking back into her own becomes a finely tuned skill. She hides him from her parents, desperate not to let them tarnish her one happiness. But he has his own problems, a father all too happy to swig a bottle and swing a punch. It becomes a common occurrence for Amanda to see the bruises and cuts as she kisses her way across his body trying to mask the pain will pleasure. His father finds them one night, writhing beneath the covers. He taunts his son about his "little whore" laughing at idea that someone could ever love his worthless boy. Then he turns to Amanda eyes racking her figure disguised by the sheets hungrily then he winks and simply walks away. She's never seen Harvey look so small before his head is down, he bears to resemblance to the tall, smiling, cocky boy who she's spent her days with before, he yells at her to leave, screaming that he doesn't want her to see him like this, so weak and broken, she tries to tell him that she is too, but he is too proud to believe her.
She walks home startled at how quickly her happiness has crumpled, as she enters her house careful to create as little noise as possible, she sees them. Her parents are waiting, it turns out her father drinks in the same pub as Harvey's, and he took great pleasure in describing to the entire pub how he found his son, in bed with a little slut. It doesn't take Amanda's dad long to work out who, or his drinking buddies. She's met with fury, she expects it to be for the deception, maybe for sleeping with Harvey. She doesn't expect the backhand across her face for embarrassing him or the silence afterwards. They don't speak to her after that pretending, she doesn't exist for the rest of the weekend. She eagerly waits for school on Monday, to escape the oppressive silence. She arrived at her first lesson, history met by whispers and sniggering she figures news travels fast. She sits next to Adam and he studiously ignores her, she tries desperately to find out about Harvey as he stares dead ahead, she can't work out why, they were friends weren't they? She tries again, willing him to just tell her something and he does, she sneers at her as he spits out "I guess it is true what they say about you then".
Amanda leaves after the first lesson, buying cheap vodka and willing for the happy glow to return, but it doesn't. The booze makes her feel heavier and her thoughts darker. She stumbles home in the darkness, collapses into bed and sobs for all the love she never had and the happiness that just seemed within reach. Amanda doesn't go back to school again, she doesn't hear from Harvey either. She fills her days with cheap vodka, and her nights with parties and dubious bed fellows. She sees him at a party, he tries to explain that he can't leave his mum and sister with his father and he can't involve her in the mess either. She spits back that he just doesn't want to, and collapses into bed with someone not worth remembering. It's only a matter of time before her behaviour was noticed, it isn't by a teacher or a social worker, but a man in a shiny pinstripe suit and too much aftershave. He offers her an escape, money, a life. He tells her she's already doing it for free why not be paid and adored and away from this claustrophobic town. She agrees, her mind swimming in vodka and so she goes with him to London.
It isn't the same, choice she realises is the most important thing, and now she has no choice, little options, and no useful education. She escapes through hard work and academic success. She was always bright but now she has proof, certificates demonstrate her ability, her strength and her character. She has worked herself out of the underbelly of society and she's determined to prevent anyone else from having to experience what she did. But Amanda can't do this, her name is like a millstone round her neck, forever linked to a lost child and an exploited woman, she has to change.
She moves back to Hodderston, sticks to the outskirts, she needs a witness to her name change, someone who knows her as Amanda and is of good character and no one in London sufficed. She hides in her grotty rented flat, she writes letters to Melissa, asking for a chance promising to disappear after and she receives nothing in return. One day the doorbell of her flat goes, she dreads it being another overly friendly neighbour because running out of excuses to explain why a 19-year-old arrived in the dead of night and never leaves her house. But it isn't there's a man there with the most ridiculous hair she's ever seen. Harvey looks stunned, he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing but silence passes between them. Finally, he pulls her into his arms and begs her forgiveness. She's startled, she tries to explain that he doesn't want her forgiveness not after what she's done, he says that he knows, he reads the papers and he doesn't care. He knows how it feels to be desperate, to be given the opportunity to escape.
He acts are her character reference, he allows Rachel Mason to be born, free of all the baggage Amanda had. They begin a relationship, it takes them nearly a year to be anything close to a normal couple and many more years to feel it. They throw darts at a map to decide where to start out. It lands on Derby so they pack their lives into his beat-up old car and runaway to create their new lives. She feels loved, in their many terrible houses, run down cars, she feels loved as they move up the career ladder and build a future. She finally hears back from Melissa, she escaped their parents too, she found the letters she never received and wants to start again. She's married now, expecting a baby, Rachel will be an aunt, she decides then that her niece or nephew will always be her priority, they'll always know they have someone, they'll never feel like she did.
Rachels life seems to be finally working out, she has a job she loves and excels at, a house to come home to filled with love and laugher, she loves Harvey and he loves her. Finally, all the love she missed as a child seems to have been returned to her ten-fold. They go on holidays, they drink too much wine and dance under the stars barefoot and clumsy, his kisses taste like alcohol and forever, and she kisses her promises back to him. They speak about having children, getting married and then they don't.
His death destroys her, he falls from scaffolding on the construction site he works on. She sobs into his hospital bed, his face bruised and bashed. Holding his hand, she wills the man she loves to come back her, they have so much to do together, they are owed so much more than this sudden stop, and her happiness is finally extinguished. She carries on as best she can, working so that children like herself and Harvey are safe. Then she meets him, they drink whiskey on the office sofa, and when he leaves, she feels the warmth from his presence. This man that holds her close enough that she remembers what it's like to feel warmth on the inside. When they kiss, he relights the happiness she thought was gone. After a life of sorrow, joy and suffering she thinks she deserves the change to grab happiness with both hands, so she does. They fill her house with love, they cook together creating a mess and subpar food and then they cuddle on the sofa. She gets used to the presence of Eddie in her bed night after night, and when he asks her to marry him, she accepts. On the eve of their wedding day, she thinks about her life, her wins, her failures the love she has gained, lost and never had and she decides, Harvey and Amanda would really love Eddie.