Irresistible (18 page)

I click back onto my wall and start deleting the statuses and links to the blog. But then I notice some notifications popping up. A screenshot of my wall and the link to the blog have been posted on all my friends’ walls.

I don’t really process what’s going on. It’s like I’m drifting through different scenes with the sound turned down. I’ve got missed calls from Radleigh, but I don’t call back. I can’t face work, I think.

But the thought of Radleigh, of Jamie and Cleo hidden away and protected, stirs something.

Soon I’m marching along the river. I don’t know what I’m going to do or say. But I want them to feel … something.

It’s like time skips forward. I’m standing right outside the castle. Staring up and scanning the windows. I think I’m looking for a sign that anything has changed here. That the lives of the people who live here have been affected in any way. I think I see faces at one of the windows, but when I try to look again, the windows flash back sunlight at me.

“Mia.” There’s a note of surprise in Julia’s voice. “Did you not get my message?”

I shake my head. I’m still trying to look at the windows, but I hear something about going to her office and follow her inside.

On her desk is a printout of the blog.

A short, humiliating conversation follows. I look past Julia and out the window behind her. Jamie doesn’t appear at it this time.

I walk back out past the receptionist. I think she
tsk
ed at me.

They’re standing at the top of the steps at the front of the house, outside the huge front doors. Jamie, Cleo, and Dezzie.

I stare at them. My face is ghostly white and my hair wild, but I don’t care. At least I feel something. Cleo’s expression is shining. Triumphant. But Jamie’s …

He looks guilty.

I turn my back on them, but feel their eyes boring into me. I hear footsteps, but I don’t look back. They quicken, and a few dislodged pieces of gravel bounce past me. I’m nearly at the end of the central path when Jamie skids into view. He stands there blocking my way.

“Mia, wait.” He’s grinning, but his eyebrows are arched together in a worried frown.

I look at him dully. I still feel numb. “What?”

“I didn’t …”

“You didn’t what? Pretend your sister was sick?”

His mouth twitches. Nothing comes out.

“Send that picture of us to Cleo?”

No answer.

“Say you loved me so you could sleep with me?”

His eyes meet mine then. Like he’s reaching out or trying to send a message. But still he can’t speak.

“Well done.” My voice is coming out monotone. “You win.”

I push past him. I’m hit with the smell of damp earth as I start down the path away from the grounds and into the nature preserve Dan took me to. I breathe in deeply and savor it. It smells real. I start walking more quickly, because I think that real feelings are starting to break through the numbness.

I just want to escape. For some reason I’m reminded of when Gabi and I were younger and we used to play a game where you knock on people’s doors and run away. One time Gabi got chased up a tree by a woman with a broom. Since then she’s always maintained that going up a tree is the best thing to do when in danger, leading to the unfortunate
Hunger Games
incident when she stood up in the cinema, pointed at the screen, and shouted, “SEE?”

I’m deep into the nature preserve now. Jamie didn’t follow me. I walk toward a big tree and consider climbing up it for a while. I’d rather there was a woman with a broom chasing me than have this horrible feeling all around me.

I stand with my back against the tree, slide down, and sit there.

Uneven bits of tree bark are digging into my back. I don’t move, though. I’ve been sitting in the same position with my eyes fixed on my phone screen since I texted Dan to meet.

The snap of a twig makes me look up, and I can see a distant figure with hands in his pockets and wearing a rugby shirt. He’s got his head down.

I narrow my eyes, as if I’ll be able to tell from here what he’s thinking. If he knows. Dan doesn’t have a Facebook page.

I get to my feet and he sees me. His head goes down again, but he changes direction toward me.

I watch his sneakers scuffing the ground as he walks. I realize that they’re only a few yards away and they’ve stopped. He’s standing there in front of me while I stare at his feet. I wonder how long I can do this before I have to look at him.

Probably not much longer.

His face is stony. No dimples. His head is tilted back, waiting for an explanation.

I run over my lines. I was going to start with, “I never meant to hurt you.” Or was it, “All I can say is I’m sorry”? “Sorry is all that I can say”? All of them start morphing into bad boy-band lyrics in my head, and with all the wild panic in there, there’s a sudden danger I might start singing.

Eventually I say, “Thank you for coming,” like I’m about to give a talk or something. I should ask him to switch off his cell phone.

“Max told me,” he says.

“Dan, I didn’t …”

“I know you didn’t write it. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“No, I mean, I didn’t think. I didn’t mean for it …”

“Yeah, you didn’t think. And because you didn’t think, everyone’s laughing at me.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Dan.”

“It’s fine.” He stabs the ground with his toe, sending chunks of dirt up into the air. “I just … I don’t get people who fool around. Maybe I am ‘simpleminded.’ It
is
simple, to me. ‘Do I like her?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do I want to spend more time with her?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do I want to be with her?’ ‘Yes.’ I didn’t realize it was so complicated with you.”

He ruffles his hair and blows out a long breath. “I really liked you.”

The lump in my throat is a huge stone. I feel like I’m going to choke on it.

“I don’t know why I made it complicated,” I manage.

He shrugs. “You like drama?”

I shake my head. But he continues.

“You just wanted to be part of some exciting love story.
Two guys fighting over you. In my head we had a love story, anyway. But I guess you found it too boring.”

“No.” I finally find my voice. “It was too good. I didn’t want to ruin it. You thought I was this perfect person who would never hurt you, and all I could think of was that you wouldn’t think that if you knew what I’m really like.”

Dan nods. “At least that’s honest.” He thinks for a moment and then looks up at me through his hair. “Look, Mia, don’t go along with what people want. You thought I wanted the perfect girlfriend, so you pretended to be it. I bet you pretended with him, too. Do something you actually want to do.”

I fiddle with the sleeves of my top. “It’s hard to work out why you want something. When you invited me to Paris, it felt all … tied up with being your girlfriend. I knew I wanted to go, but I couldn’t figure out why.”

He smiles at the floor. “I thought we’d have an adventure. Simple as that.”

I watch him walk away. Hands in pockets again. But his stride is lighter. I’m jealous that all he has to do is be hurt. Not be hurt, confused, guilty, and a million other things.

I know he’s right. I wanted to please everyone. For them to see me in a certain way. When the whole Kieran thing happened, it was the same. I didn’t want to stand up and tell him what I thought of him. I just wanted the whole thing to stay secret. Saying nothing or letting things happen is always easier.

I sit back down against the tree and rest my forehead on my knees. Tears stream down my face until my eyes are sore and dry and my head is aching.

I lift my head up and sniff miserably.

Even if I can’t work out what I want or why things happen, there’s only one place I need to go.

Gabi is sitting in a ball on the floor of her room. Her chin is thrust forward and her eyes narrow. I know that face. I edge over to her, and a foot is flung out and catches me on the shin.

“Ow!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’m sorry. You liked Dan so much.”

“I do like Dan, but I love you, you stupid bitch.”

I sit down next to her and curl up into a ball too.

“You would have told me not to trust him and that I was being selfish and lots of other stuff that’s true.”

Gabi tilts her head toward me. “I am very wise.”

My eyes fill with tears again, and I try to blink them away. “I’m really sorry, Gabs.” My voice wobbles at the end and I bite my lip.

She throws her arm out and grabs me in what turns out
to be more of a headlock than a hug. Then she kisses me forcefully. On the eye.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. We’ll sort you out.”

There’s a knock on the door, and a millisecond later Gabi’s mom bustles in.

“Mom, it’s pointless to knock if you don’t wait. Mia might have been naked. She’s a slut now.”

“Oh, yes, I read your blog.” Gabi’s mom grins at me. “Very funny, though I’m not sure I really understood it.”

I think of protesting, but really I’d rather it was like this.

“Gabi, there’s a woman on the phone for you. Julie something?”

Gabi goes downstairs to pick up the phone, and her mom turns to me.

“Are you all right, sweetheart? I was worried you girls had fallen out or something.”

“I was … I’ve been a bit stupid. But hopefully she’ll forgive me.”

“‘Course she will—it’s you girls! Come and grab a cup of tea. We’re going through Gabi’s options for college. I’ve marked the ones she might like.” She waves a brochure. Every other page has a Post-it note on it.

“They all sound so interesting,” she says as we head downstairs. “What are you taking?”

I stop, and for a moment can’t even remember which options I picked.

“His—”

“Oh, your mom said you were doing something exciting—a trip to Paris? Who’s the lucky fella? This one I’ve been hearing about from Gabi?”

Before I get a chance to answer, Gabi bursts into the kitchen waving her arms.

“O. M. F. G!”

The confirmation e-mail comes through.

THANK YOU FOR CLAIMING YOUR PRIZE.

Two tickets to Paris, including train, a fancy hotel opposite the Gare du Nord, a three-course dinner on the first night, and a bottle of champagne on arrival. All I have to do is arrange the dates.

I print it and fold it inside the card I made. It has a black-and-white picture of the Eiffel Tower on it and a heart drawn on crepe paper. I hope it doesn’t look too childish. I write the name on the envelope and go downstairs.

Mom’s in her office staring with extreme concentration at her computer. She must be having trouble with a design for work. I walk around behind her. She’s playing solitaire.

“Mom?”

She yelps and clicks back onto InDesign. She moves a logo on what looks like a brochure a few fractions of an inch to the left. “Hello!”

I fiddle with the doorknob and take a deep breath.

What’s the worst that can happen? She can say no.

I’ve got to try, though. Do something I want to do.

“I’ve had this idea …”

The conversation I’d been dreading for months went quite well. The college part was fine. And the going away part. I didn’t mention the skydiving.

When I left, she gave me a bear hug. I asked what that was for and she said, “Just have a nice day.”

It was the same when I came home the day that the blog went up. Mom’s on Facebook, so she’d already seen it. She grabbed me in a hug and muttered, “The little shit.”

After a while I said, “Mom, you’re squashing my nose,” but she didn’t let go. Not for a long time.

My phone buzzes again. I go to pick it up.

“Mia,” says Jeff. “Stalin!”

“It might be important.” I click on the picture. “She’s holding up a snail.”

“Pardon?”

I hold the phone out to him. Gabi is holding a snail and making the same “argh” face that she was in the picture of her in front of the Eiffel Tower, outside Notre Dame, in the aquarium, and in the Louvre next to lots of works of art that I am not sure she was allowed to take pictures of.

“Mia. Stalin,” Jeff repeats, although I see him fighting off a smile.

I tap a few words on my laptop. One of them is “the.”

Gabi and I both changed from school to college to do our A-levels. I’m taking history, French, Spanish, and photography. I still remember Jeff drooling into his
Shredded Wheat with joy when I asked him to help me with my enrollment form and saw I was doing history. He also instigated “study Sundays,” where I sit with him in his study for a few hours doing schoolwork while he plans lessons. It’s not actually as awful as I pretend it is, which is why I’m sitting in here in the middle of midterm break writing an essay.

I had to start Spanish from scratch, but I think it’s going okay. It all feels like it’s going somewhere. I want to be able to go to countries and speak to people, not do what Mom does and just speak English at them with a foreign accent.

Jeff is writing a to-do list on his notepad. All the things we need to figure out for the Adventure of a Lifetime in December. Gabi and I are going to New Zealand, where Gabi’s cousin lives, staying with her and going on an adventure bus tour. As long as we save up the money in time.

Gabi will be fine, with her new role waitressing at Radleigh Castle “with a view toward becoming involved in events management.” She asked me if I minded her doing it, but I obviously wasn’t going to stand in the way of Gabi and her perfect job. I’m not sure whether Julia realizes that Gabi sees it as “one step away from planning celebrity parties.”

I’ve got a Saturday job at the bookshop. Luckily, when Julia fired me, she said that “to save mutual embarrassment” my reason for leaving would officially be because the late nights would interfere with schoolwork now that classes were about to start. I wouldn’t have enjoyed having to explain in a future interview that I left my last job for inappropriate behavior with the boss’s son.

That immediately brings up a mental image of just how inappropriate that behavior was. Jamie above me, our faces close and lips almost touching. My fingers digging into his back.