Читать книгу You Let Me In - Lucy Clarke - Страница 18

Elle’s second mistake came later.

Glancing up, she checked the librarian was still focused on unstacking her book trolley, then continued deconstructing a Crunchie, biting off the top layer of chocolate before sucking the honeycomb until it turned sticky in her mouth.

Her housemate, Louise, who was sitting opposite, was whispering her plan to spray-paint a roll of bubble wrap and fashion it into a dress for that evening’s space-age party.

Louise halted mid-sentence, her eyes fixing on something beyond Elle’s shoulder.

‘There he goes.’

Elle removed the Crunchie from her mouth, twisting in her seat.

Luke Linden was crossing the library with long, easy strides, a newspaper tucked underarm. A ripple of attention followed him. At a table to the left of theirs, a group of students waved him over. He paused mid-step to listen to a question, nodding lightly. He delivered his answer into the hushed silence and then, a moment later, continued.

As he passed the table where Elle sat, his gaze lifted, met hers. He smiled, his mouth curling to one side. Then he moved on, disappeared.

Placing her elbows on the table, Louise whispered, ‘I’m going to have to do an MA, just so I can look at him for one more year.’

‘Take a photo. Less debt.’

‘You can’t tell me you’re not in love with him.’

‘I’m not in love with him.’

‘But you’d sleep with him in a heartbeat, yes?’

She shrugged.

‘You would, of course you would!’

Later, Elle would wonder about what she’d said next. Whether she’d meant it, how it changed things. She would want to go back, edit the memory. Rewrite that tiny detail in her story, because – although it was only a sentence – it would become pivotal.

It would become the hook from which she would hang.

But in that moment, Elle was just a teenage girl, hair to her waist, skin unlined, still bright with the promise of how her life was about to flower.

Elle held Louise’s gaze as she finally answered, ‘Yes, I absolutely would. In fact,’ she added, her mouth spreading into a grin, ‘maybe I will.’