Short Story: My Ice Cream Hearts

I’m sick of it. Absolutely sick to my back teeth of it. He’s like a pestering little dog obsessed with wanting my attention. I get it, I really do. I get how he’s feeling. He’s just found me – his long-lost sister that he never knew he had. He wants to get to know me. But why me? Why would he want to get to know me? I’m broken. I’m twisted. There’s nothing in here to get to know. Nothing worth knowing because it’s all wrong. Dead and wrong.

So I’ll just sit here eating this ice cream. This lovely, mint ice cream. It reminds me of the summers I spent with Craig, bunking off school and buying ice cream with what change we could cobble together from Mrs. Knight’s Sweetshop. She never told anyone that we were bunking off. She covered for us. I remember crying when Mrs. Knight died.

It makes me laugh actually. When Mrs. Knight died her shop was taken over by Mrs. Day. We laughed about it for ages.

Oh, here he comes again.

“You alright, Lilly?” I hear him say. I can barely hear him over how good my head is telling me this ice cream tastes.

I look up at him. His fringe is flopping down over his forehead again and I smile. He’s quite attractive really. Handsome. He’d make quite a good boyfriend to someone if he actually worked himself out. I laugh as his hair flops down over his right eye.

“Nice to see you laugh,” he said.

“Bugger off,” I say, licking the spoon.

I’m sat cross-legged in the TARDIS kitchen, a room bigger than my house in West Pilton. It’s filled with all manner of cooking implements. I’ve counted fifteen microwaves, ten cookers and a giant popcorn machine. It’s like Willy Wonka on a smaller scale. I wonder if the Doctor is Willy Wonka. Maybe he’s James Bond as well…

“No need to be like that,” says by pain-in-the-arse brother.

He goes to sit down beside me.

“Don’t bother,” I say, pointing my spoon at him. I don’t need it.

“Sorry,” he says. God he sounds so scared of offending me all the time. Jesus.

“Don’t worry,” I say, scooping out another dollop of cool ice cream. I try to shove too much in my mouth at once and it dribbles down my chin. I laugh as I wipe it up with the back of my hand. I’ve never eaten so much ice cream before.

“Nice to see you enjoying it,” he says, ripping me from my ice cream fuelled dream.

“There’s plenty of tubs in there. Don’t throw up though,” I say, pointing towards the huge, ten-foot by five-foot silver and black freezer.

“My favourite’s rum and raisin.”

“Might have known,” I say. “You’re a bit of an odd collection of items, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, pulling up a stool from beside a large pine table and sitting on it.

“Look at you. You don’t know where to put yourself.”

“I’m just…figuring you out.”

“Don’t,” I say, licking my spoon and then digging in for more. “There’s no bloody point. I can’t work myself out so how do you know that you can work me out?”

“I thought I was getting through back at the caravan site. Maybe you should…” he trailed off.

“What?” I ask, my mouth full of ice cream, a frown on my face. If he’s about to say what I think he’s about to say I might just frakking scream.

“Maybe it might be wise…I mean, the Doctor thought…”

I laugh at him and throw my head back before returning my concentration to the ice cream.

“Maybe your real family may be able to help you.”

“You mean my floppy haired brother, psychotic father and wet mother? Why not throw the weird, adopted uncle in for good measure. Have I forgotten anyone? Oh yes, your own father. How screwed up can one family be?”

“It’s better than what you had,” he says. I notice a twinge of frustration in his voice. “We can all be a family.”

I laugh again.

He gets mad and stands up, towering over me. For a moment I’m reminded of my other brother back in Edinburgh when he would go off on one and beat me up. Then I realize Caleb isn’t like that. He’s just a wet blanket really.

“It’s not such a bad thing, is it?” he asks, shrinking back into himself again.

“It’s a frigging terrible idea,” I say, scooping out a huge, huge amount of ice cream.

“Why?”

“What’s the point? What’s the point in any of it?” I can feel the tears welling up again. The Doctor at first thought my mood swings were part of the process of my body changing to Gallifreyan, but I don’t know now. I just think I’m screwed in the head. And I’m getting worse.

“Because we can help mother. We can save her from the Master. Father too.”

“Help mother. Help father,” I mock, making a silly-looking sad face. I don’t want to do this, but he’s doing my sodding head in.

“Please, Lilly. You can be Illithia at last.”

“I’m not Illithia!” I shout, my face almost cracking under the anger. I can feel my heart pounding. I don’t even know why I’m so angry. I’m gripping the spoon, the handle turned towards him. I want to strike with it.

“I just wish I’d die. I just wish they’d die,” I hiss, hardly able to breathe.

“Lilly…”

I suddenly freeze and look down at the spoon dripping with the gooey green ice cream. “Have your ice cream, Caleb!”

I flick the remains of it at his stupid, grinning face. It splatters in his eye and in his hair. He doesn’t know what to do. He sits there, his face dripping with melted ice cream looking in shock.

I should be embarrassed. I should be ashamed. I’m not. I burst out laughing, throw the half-empty tub to the floor and run for the exit.

And I run and run and run. I can hear him shouting after me as I blindly fly through the corridors of the TARDIS.

And I start crying. I wonder if anything – or anyone – will ever help me to understand this. I wonder if anyone will ever melt my hearts.



The End