Diary of a Crush: French Kiss (8 page)

‘I went to the festival and I took articles of clothing belonging to Louis Walsh, brine shrimp, a chemistry textbook, damp-proofing, an egg casserole, a full-scale, working model of a sewage station and a erm, Greek salad.’

‘Time out,’ called Dylan suddenly. ‘How come all the stuff you’re taking to this hypothetical festival is food?’

Ha! I was so going to win! Talk about a transparent stalling manoeuvre. ‘Firstly, there’s nothing in the rules about what kind of stuff I can take to the festival and secondly, if you don’t have your go in the next ten seconds, you’re out.’

‘All right, but I think we should play a different game now,’ Dylan announced with a glint in his eye.

I stiffened suspiciously. ‘What kind of game?’

‘Who would you rather?’

‘No way!’ I spluttered.

‘Oh, come on, I’ll start. Who would you rather, the ugliest one out of One Direction or Brooklyn Beckham?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘God, Dylan, how young do you think I am? Aren’t they both, like, twelve?’

‘You’ve got to choose,’ Dylan insisted, curling his tongue up between his front teeth in a way which made my insides
ache
.

‘OK, One Direction boy, I guess. At least he’s probably past the age of consent,’ I finally decided. ‘Who would you rather, Cheryl Cole or the posh one out of the Saturdays?’

‘Cheryl, definitely,’ said Dylan instantly. ‘She’s going through stuff and I’d like to help her out with that.’

‘Whatever, Mr Perv. Why are you smiling like that?’

Dylan was grinning in a cat that got the cream kind of way. ‘Oh, I’ve just thought of a really good one for you. Who would you rather, Josh or… me?’

I could feel myself going bright red. ‘That’s not fair!’ It was a whole world of not fair, to be more accurate.

‘Just answer the question, missy,’ Dylan drawled.

‘If I answer that, then you have to tell me who you’d rather, me or Mia?’

It was Dylan’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘OK, you’ve made your point, I guess. Let’s pretend I never asked you that question.’

‘So you’d rather kiss Mia?’ I couldn’t believe that we’d got into this don’t-go-there topic of conversation. And I couldn’t believe that my voice was saying things even when I was telling it to shut up.

‘I never said that!’ protested Dylan.

I tried to shift my legs off him, but he suddenly grabbed hold of one of my calves.

‘Let go of my leg,’ I hissed.

‘No! Just calm down,’ he whispered fiercely.

‘I am sodding calm,’ I practically screamed at him. ‘Just tell me who was a better kisser, me or Mia?’

‘Well, I’m not snogging Mia, am I?’ Dylan said cryptically.

‘You’re not snogging me either,’ I reminded him with a slight wobble to my voice.

‘I could if I wanted to,’ Dylan bit out. ‘But there is the little problem of your devoted boyfriend… OK, if you’re so keen on the truth, Edie, who kisses
you
better, Josh or me? Do you cling to him every time he kisses you? Do you go all soft and shaky when he touches you? ’Cause you do with me.’

It was as if Dylan had been reading this diary. I felt like he’d cut me open and was looking directly at my heart. I stared out of the window at the French countryside rolling by. Why did I let Dylan break me into tiny pieces just so that he’d have something to do? I could feel one of his fingers tracing little circles on my thigh. I slapped his hand away.

‘You know he doesn’t,’ I managed to choke out. ‘He’s nice and he’s really into me, but he’s not you.’

I couldn’t look at Dylan but I could feel his eyes boring into me. ‘So why are you going out with him?’

‘It seemed like a good idea,’ I said in a tiny little croak. ‘I thought if I went out with him, I’d stop wanting to go out with you. But it hasn’t worked. And now he keeps telling me that he’s madly in love with me and I feel like a complete bitch. It’s all your fault.’

I found the courage to glance up and collided with a look from Dylan that made my stomach flip over.

‘So…?’ he prompted.

‘So, I guess I should stop lying to Josh and dump him. And tell you that I, um, that if you just want a no-strings relationship with me, I reckon I could handle it.’

Dylan was very still, statue still, his whole body tense like he was about to spring up and get as far away from me as humanly possible. ‘And what do you mean by a no-strings relationship exactly?’

‘I don’t know. That we see each other but you, I mean,
we
could see other people. And I wouldn’t be all heavy and possessive. I s’pose I could live with that.’

What was I saying? I couldn’t live with that. Just ’cause I wanted to be with Dylan didn’t mean that I was happy to be some mimsy little creature that let him get up to all kinds with all kinds of other girls just because his kisses turned me inside out. And because he made me feel like the Edie I wanted to be, instead of the Edie that I was. It still wasn’t a fair deal.

Dylan wasn’t saying anything. I nudged him with my foot.

‘Jeez, Dylan, you have to say something.’

He took one of my hands and clutched my fingers really tightly. ‘You wouldn’t really be happy in a relationship like that,’ he said softly. ‘You know you wouldn’t. I don’t know what to say. I’ve been thinking about you and me a lot. But I don’t know…’

I waited, with my heart in my mouth and on my sleeve and just about everywhere else, for him to finish the sentence, but he squeezed my hand, let it go and straightened up.

‘This is just too heavy. C’mon, let’s play the alphabet game again. I went to the festival and I took an antique dinner service dating from the early 1800s…’

What a long strange trip it was going to be.

I must have fallen asleep at some stage because when I woke up, I realised I was all over Dylan like a bad case of nits. Even worse, my mouth had dropped open and I’d left a damp patch on the shoulder of his jacket. I didn’t even want to think about the possibility of him seeing me dribble. I looked at my watch. It was seven-thirty. We’d been travelling for twelve hours!

I stole a glance at Dylan, but he seemed to be asleep. His eyelashes (oh, why do I always end up transfixed by his eyelashes?) were fluttering gently against his cheeks and his pout of a mouth was relaxed. Even though the coach had slowed down as it wended its way through the narrow Paris streets, Dylan carried on sleeping. Cautiously, so as not to wake him up, I reached towards the floor where my bag was and rummaged inside it until my hand closed around the camera I’d stashed in there. I don’t know why, I just wanted a picture of Dylan looking vulnerable. It would make me feel better when I was feeling all down about us not being together. Like, he was just a bog-standard boy or something. I prayed that Dylan wouldn’t wake up as I held down the flash and aimed the camera at him.

CLICK! as I pressed the shutter, the flash went off and Dylan came to with a start. I hid the camera down by my side and tried to look dead casual, though I had the feeling that I failed quite spectacularly.

‘What was that?’ he enquired sleepily.

I feigned wide-eyed innocence. ‘What was what?’

Dylan rubbed his face sleepily. ‘That flash of light. Was it lightning?’ He leaned against me to peer out of the window, which was just enough touch to keep me going for well into the next century. ‘Uh, it’s not even raining.’

‘You must have been dreaming,’ I shrugged, as if the conversation wasn’t interesting me in the slightest.

‘Nah, there was definitely a light.’

I was saved from having to answer as the coach finally came to a halt.

‘Oooh, we’ve reached the hotel,’ I cried like it was the most exciting thing that had ever happened. ‘Great!’

Dylan collapsed back in his seat. ‘I’m shattered,’ he grumbled. ‘We’ve been on this bloody coach for, like, ever. And I’m starving. I hope we get to eat soon.’

That’s so typical of boys. Dylan and I had shared such an intense time today what with all the face touching on the ferry and that downright horrible conversation about kissing, but now all he seemed to care about was shovelling food into his stomach. I couldn’t help looking up to the heavens and sighing.

‘What’s up with you?’ Dylan demanded as he tried to stand up. There were too many people blocking the aisle so he gave up and sat back down next to me.

‘Nothing.’ What was the use of trying to explain anything to Dylan? He was determined to be denial boy. He was the king of denial. All he wanted to do was pretend that stuff between us was all right when actually it was pretty much screwed up.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dylan pulling a face at me for being moody but instead of saying anything, he stood up again and managed, this time, to get in the aisle and pull our bags down from the overhead locker. I stood up and surreptitiously shoved the camera back into my vintage Christian Dior shoulder bag, which I got for a steal on eBay and loved, possibly even more than Dylan.

It took ages to get everyone’s suitcases out of the coach’s boot and sign in at the hotel reception desk. Hôtel Du Lac (literally translated as Hotel Of The Lake, as if there would be a lake in the middle of Paris) was cool in a really old and crumbling kind of way. With its faded cabbage rose wallpaper and over-stuffed red velvet chairs, it looked like it had last been re-decorated sometime in the 1920s. I sat in one of the chairs while Shona went to get our key from Madame La Réceptionniste who looked like she’d been left over from the 1920s too.

‘You coming, Eeds?’ Shona was standing over me, brandishing the key. I picked up my bags and suitcase and followed her over to the stairs.

Then I stopped.

‘What floor are we on again?’ I asked.

‘Do you want the bad news or the really bad news?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’re on the fifth floor and… there’s no lift,’ she told me with a roll of her eyes.

‘Great. What a perfect end to a hideous day.’

‘I hear you,’ Shona said with feeling.

We started climbing up the very steep, very twisty spiral staircase. ‘I’m starving. I’ve had almost nothing to eat today,’ I said before I ran out of breath somewhere between the first and second floor.

By the time we reached the fifth floor I was mentally cursing whatever imp of stupidity had forced me to bring a suitcase, a large holdall and a shoulder bag. I never could travel light.

We staggered down a dimly-lit corridor until we came to room 507. Shona was just putting her key in the lock and I was muttering something about how today couldn’t get any worse, when the door suddenly swung open to reveal Paul and Mia locked in a clinch on the bed.

‘Seems like you spoke too soon,’ hissed Shona between gritted teeth. She kicked the door so it crashed against the wall loudly. Mia and Paul looked up. Mia had this horrible sly smile on her face as if she’d known that Shona and I had been standing in the doorway watching. Paul, at least, had the grace to look ashamed.

‘Hi, Shona,’ he mumbled, scrambling to his feet.

Shona looked at him as if he was a slug that had just crawled out of her salad.

Paul carried on looking at her, almost as if there were things he wanted to say but didn’t know how to say them. But Shona stood there, staring at the ceiling. I knew why. I knew that if she spoke to him, she’d burst into tears. I’ve been there.

I so wasn’t in the mood for all this drama. I dropped my bags on the floor and looked pointedly at Paul and then the door.

‘You’re not sharing with us are you, Paul?’ I asked him. I tried to smile to show that I didn’t hate him. I mean, Paul had always been really sweet to me before he started going out with Mia. He ran a hand through his hair. ‘Nah, I’m in with Dylan and Simon across the corridor. I was just, um, giving Mia a hand with her stuff.’

Mia stretched luxuriously on the bed. ‘Thanks sweetie. I guess you’d better go. I’ll see you in the lobby in five, OK?’

Now that he’d been officially dismissed, Paul couldn’t get out of the door fast enough.

I looked around the room. It was ginormous. I could have fitted my bedroom into it four times over. There was a huge double bed and a single bed plus all this odd, mismatched furniture as well as a telly that should have been in a museum. Mia and Shona were trying to out-stare each other but not saying a word, so I wandered into the en-suite bathroom.

‘Oh my God, there’s a bidet in there,’ I wittered as I came out of the bathroom but Shona and Mia weren’t listening. They were too busy arguing.

‘… No way. There’s two of us, you can’t expect Edie and I to share a single bed,’ Shona was shouting.

Mia smiled that cat-like smile of hers and raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, if you wanted to bag the double bed you should have been a little quicker, shouldn’t you? But that’s always been your problem hasn’t it, Shona? You don’t know what you want until someone else has it.’

Shona was trying desperately to hang on to her temper. ‘I suppose you mean Paul?’ she bit out.

‘Now why would I talk about
my
boyfriend with you?’ enquired Mia nastily.

I was so fed up. It had been such a long day and I didn’t have the energy to deal with Mia.

‘God, Mia, why do you always have to be such a bitch?’ I asked wearily. It was a mistake. Mia turned on me, her pale blue eyes flashing.

‘You can shut up, Edie,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t know about anything. You think because Dylan snogs you a couple of times, you’re having the romance of the century.’

‘No I don’t,’ I protested, but I didn’t sound very convincing.

‘Yeah, you do,’ said Mia spitefully. ‘If you think he’d ever go out with a stupid, flat-chested geek like you…’

‘Oh, do shut up, Mia.’ Shona rolled her eyes.

But Mia wouldn’t shut up. ‘I mean, Dylan isn’t like your dweeby boyfriend Josh. He wants a girl who’s into more than just holding hands, if you catch my drift.’

I pounced at Mia, who gave a little scream and ran towards the bathroom. Before I could reach her and strangle her – anything to shut her up – she’d slammed the bathroom door.

‘Just calm down, Eeds,’ warned Shona, putting a hand on my arm.

I shrugged it off. ‘I won’t calm down,’ I shrieked, bursting into tears. ‘If you don’t come out, Mia, your stuff’s going out the window,’ I yelled, kicking the bathroom door.