Rewrite the Stars. Emma Heatherington

Charlie, between you and me,’ he said. ‘I know some people who aren’t a million miles away right now who would die to have just an ounce of the talent you have. You can’t just hide these songs away or ignore this gift you have. You must send your songs out to some record companies. Believe me, you’d be signed up in seconds.’

      Record companies? I’d never even thought of doing such a thing, yet I felt a wave of imagination flood my mind. I laughed out loud at the idea.

      ‘You mean, do this for a living?’ I asked him. ‘Write songs? As a job?’

      I laughed again, but he nodded as if it was just as simple as that.

      ‘As a career,’ he emphasized. ‘Long term. Go to London, Charlie! Go to New York City or somewhere else in the States like Texas or Nashville. They’d eat you up out there, I just know it. Music and lyrics are in your blood, I’m telling you. I have total faith in you. Your songs are totally mesmerizing. You are mesmerizing.’

      The room spun a bit and I felt a hot flush overcome me as I imagined little old me in a big city, far away from Ireland and all that I’d known all my life. In my mind, for just a second, I saw myself sitting at a big window seat in a new city, looking out on a mix of sunshine and flashes of colour and sounds I’d never seen or heard before. The very thought made me both dizzy and excited. A rush filled me from head to toe as I imagined someone singing my songs, my actual words to a packed auditorium with a drummer like Tom Farley thumping out the beat and—

      ‘OK, meeting time!’ announced Matthew, bursting my bubble entirely with his bellowing voice as he returned into the living room. ‘And someone called Lexi is here?’

      His voice drew my eyes in the direction of the door where I saw the most beautiful, exotic creature – small, pale, oriental and gothic – and Tom’s eyes diverted briefly from mine for the first time since he’d got here.

      My afternoon of heaven was just about to turn into an evening of hell as reality punched me right in the heart.

      ‘Honey!’ said Lexi in a raspy, posh Dublin accent. ‘Sorry I’m late, babe, but I couldn’t find this house for ages! You should have told me it was the one with the letter box hanging off … Students!’

      She made a face that on anyone else would have looked very unattractive, but she still managed to look like a supermodel compared to me, who looked like I was chewing a wasp at the shock of her arrival. My mouth dropped open as she breezed right past me, then wrapped her arms around Tom and kissed him full on the mouth in front of us, giving me just enough time to quickly pick up my guitar and make my swift exit before my brother, complete with smug face, could say ‘I told you so.’

      ‘Charlie!’ Tom called after me, pushing his girlfriend off his face as gently as he could.

      I tried not to look at them again and, when I did, regretted it instantly as I saw her whisper into his ear, almost eating it at the same time. She threw her black, shiny bobbed hair back, showing off a tattoo of Asian text on her long, slender neck, and I touched my own neck which felt boring and bare in comparison.

      ‘My name’s Charlotte,’ I said to him, hearing my voice quiver. ‘Not Charlie!’ He caught my eye and I felt my lip wobble, then stomped upstairs with my guitar in my hand, my stupid lyrics in my head, my pride trailing on the floor and tears bursting from my eyes.

      ‘Write a song about it, sister!’ I heard Matthew shout to me when they all finally left after what seemed like hours later. ‘And don’t worry, Charlotte. Everyone who meets Tom Farley falls in love with him. In fact, I might even love him a little bit myself.’

      ‘Oh, give it a rest, Matthew!’ I shouted, kicking my bedroom door closed.

      If he was trying to make me feel better, it wasn’t working. I’d fallen for Tom, hook, line and sinker, not knowing he’d a girlfriend all along. How could I be so stupid and assuming? How could two people have such magic, like he said, yet one of them just walk away and be in the arms of another? I couldn’t understand it. I was young and naïve and didn’t know life could present you with someone so perfect one minute, and then shove you off in a different direction the next.

      I tried to shake away his memory, but I couldn’t and, although I didn’t see Tom Farley except from a safe distance when he was behind a drum kit at his gigs, he never really did leave my mind from that day on.

      Morning, noon and night I dreamed of him and even though it’s a bit clichéd and predictable, I did put him in a song, just as my brother advised me to. Well, I put him in about twenty songs if I’m being perfectly honest.

      I was twenty-two years and nine months old when I first fell in love with Tom Farley, and I was exactly the same age when he first broke my heart.

      Life, for all of us, was never going to be the same again.

       Chapter One

      Dublin, December 2015

      Today is my last day of term at St Patrick’s National School, meaning it’s officially the season to be jolly, and jolly I am.

      I’ve tinsel round my neck, a Santa hat on my head and I’m celebrating at a local watering hole with some of my favourite people in the world. Life is good.

      ‘I’ll be right back,’ I say to the gorgeous guy at the bar who is buying me a drink.

      My sister Emily is very uncharacteristically dancing on a wobbly table held up only by her brand-new husband Kevin, my roommate Kirsty is snogging a random stranger in a booth and the Black Eyed Peas tell me that tonight’s going to be a really good night. So, with all looking pretty in my humble little world and just enough time to do so before the bar closes, I steal away out the back of the pub for a sneaky cigarette. I don’t normally smoke, but slipping off like this all by myself to do something I know I shouldn’t is as rebellious as my life gets these days.

      Pip’s Bar, on a side street near the house that Kirsty and I share in north Dublin, is the type of place you normally wouldn’t drink out of the glass, only the bottle. But with a blanket of snow thick on the ground and the option to skate home and avoid taxis, it’s becoming more and more fun as the beer goes down.

      ‘Wooo hoo!’ I sing out loud, dancing as I reach for the cigarette in my purse, ignoring a leering look from some dodgy old guy playing a poker machine by the back door.

      Being a teacher is fun and fulfilling but on nights like this when school’s out for Christmas, there’s nothing I love more than to cut loose and just be Charlotte Taylor who loves to sing at the top of her voice, instead of ‘Miss Taylor’ who sometimes has to shout at the top of her voice when my seven-year-old pupils get rowdy.

      ‘Toilets are dat way, me lady,’ says the man at the poker machine in a thick Dublin accent and I hold up my cigarette to show him that tonight I’m a nicotine addict who doesn’t care that it’s minus seventeen or so outside. I push the heavy grey ‘Emergency’ back door open and then shiver in the chill that greets me, asking myself if leaving the heat and the prospect of a snog with gorgeous Jimmy or John or whoever his name was, who I just left holding a beer for me, is really worth it.

      The door slams closed behind me and I realize that I’m locked out but I’m in no mood to panic. Mr Poker Player will hopefully come to my rescue if I bang loud enough once I’m done.

      I can still hear the music from inside, I’m more than a little bit tipsy and I’ve decided that this Christmas is going to be the best one ever, so I keep dancing like there’s no one watching. And there is no one watching.

      It’s almost midnight in a little yard out the back of Pip’s where no one my age ever goes unless they’ve no choice, which is the case for us tonight. I search my pockets for a lighter.

      ‘Ah man, now you’ve just locked us both out! Do you know how long I’ve been waiting out here for someone to open that damn