Читать книгу Model Misfit - Holly Smale, Холли Смейл - Страница 11

Reasons Not to Think About Nick

1 He told me not to.

on’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds.

I mean, in some ways it’s exactly as bad as it sounds. Four months after our first kiss, Nick told me we shouldn’t see each other any more and then he abruptly disappeared from my life. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. Not a text. Not a phone call or a voicemail. Not an email. Not a tweet or a Facebook message. Not even a fax (even though I’m not sure who faxes these days, but the option is still sort of there, isn’t it?).

But it’s totally OK. You don’t spend nearly sixteen years reading novels about love and scanning poetry about love and listening to songs about love and watching films about love without coming away with a pretty good idea of how love stories go.

Everybody knows the dramatic ups and downs are what make the difference between a real love story – the kind that people make into films – and a boring one that nobody bothers writing or singing about.

Would Pride and Prejudice be popular if Darcy and Lizzy hooked up at the first ball?

Would Wuthering Heights be a classic if Cathy chose Heathcliff?

Would Romeo and Juliet be studied in school if they dated for a few years and then got married and moved to the suburbs of Mantua?

Exactly.

So even if your love story involves somebody dumping you and moving back to Australia, as Shakespeare said you just have to refuse to “admit impediments”, and then they’ll come back to you. Everybody knows that.

And, yes, it’s been more than two months so it’s taking Nick a little bit longer than it probably should, but he must be on his way.

All I have to do is wait.

In the meantime, I’m trying not to think about him. I don’t think about his coffee-coloured skin, or his big black lion curls, or his green smell, or his eyes that slant up at the corners. I don’t think about the tilt of his nose, or the wideness of his smile, or the way he used to rub his thumb across my knuckle when we were holding hands and tap the end of my nose after I sneezed (which was very unhygienic, but for some gross and deeply disturbing reason I liked it).

I don’t think about how he makes me feel like a lightning bug: as if part of me is full of fire, and the other part of me can fly.

I don’t think about how I’d be with him all the time, if I possibly could.

And I absolutely never think about the fact that I’m not really enjoying this bit of my love story, and that I’d have much preferred the boring kind where Nick stayed and everything carried on exactly as it was before.

Even if it broke all the rules of romance straight down the middle.

The driver clears his throat.

“In love, Goldilocks?” He winks at me in the rear-view mirror, waving his hand in my direction. “That explains a lot.”

I look in surprise at the anatomically correct heart I’ve been sketching on the window, and then blush and wipe it away. Subtle, Harriet.

“Nope,” I say as nonchalantly as I can. “I’m just … prepping for next year’s biology module.”

“Course you are.” The driver grins. “Anyway, thought you was in an ’urry? Some kind of exam?” He nods. “You got four minutes left.”

I blink a few times. The car has stopped and we’re sitting directly outside my school. I hadn’t even noticed we’d stopped moving.

“But …” I say as I scrabble in my satchel for my purse, “how is that even physically possible?”

The driver shrugs. “I’m magic, ain’t I,” he states matter-of-factly. “Like that fat dude in ’Arry Potter.”

I glance up. He certainly looks … other-worldly. Ephemeral. Slightly over-blessed with body hair.

“And I went well over the speed limit,” he adds brightly. “That’s eighty quid, love. Magic is pricy these days. Now get a hop on, you got three minutes left.”