Читать книгу All That Glitters - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 11

nyway.

While I’m stuffing my mismatched shoes in my satchel and shuffling home in my not-a-whole-lot-better socks, I may as well update you on what’s been happening since I returned from New York, right?

That’s what you want to know.

Exactly what I’ve been doing with myself since I split up with Nick Hidaka – Lion Boy, ex-supermodel and love of my life – on Brooklyn Bridge just over three weeks ago, and flew home without him.

So here it is:

Nothing.

Not literally, obviously, or I’d be dead.

Over the last three weeks I have breathed approximately 466,662 times and processed 4,200 litres of blood with my kidneys. I have produced thirty-seven litres of saliva and 9,450 litres of carbon dioxide.

I’ve had eighteen showers, four baths, brushed my teeth forty-two times, eaten sixty-seven meals and consumed more chocolate bars than I can be bothered to count (and that’s really saying something).

But that’s about it.

Other than basic survival – and packing up the house in Greenway while we waited two weeks for our flight back to England – almost the only thing I’ve done voluntarily is read. With my curtains shut and my bedroom door closed, I’ve devoured words like never before: buried myself in books and submerged myself in stories.

I’ve read during breakfast and lunch and dinner; until the sun’s come up and gone down and come up again.

And not just fact books.

I’ve fought dragons, attended balls and chased a whale. I’ve won wars, lost court cases, travelled India, ridden broomsticks and stranded myself on numerous islands.

I’ve died a dozen times.

Because here’s the thing about a book: when you pick up a story, you put down your own.

For a few precious moments, you become somebody else. Their memories become your memories; your thoughts turn into theirs. Until, page by page, line by line, you disappear completely.

So until today – until my new beginning – that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Because I thought maybe if I could just bury myself deep enough, for long enough, I could shut the world out and myself out with it.

And then I wouldn’t have to think about how the last time I saw Nick is the last time I’ll see him, and the last time I kissed him is the last time I’ll kiss him. About how life keeps going on as it always has.

Or how my heart can beat 100,000 times a day.

Even when it’s broken.