Diary of a Crush: French Kiss (9 page)

‘You don’t have the guts, geek girl,’ she taunted.

At that moment I was mad enough to do anything. So I grabbed her bag, opened the window and flung it out.

‘You little bitch!’ screamed Mia, who’d come out of the bathroom just in time to see her possessions sailing through the air.

The next minute she’d launched herself at me.

It was
on
. Mia was hitting and scratching me. I was whacking her back and Shona was somewhere in the middle of us, trying to break up the fight but just getting Mia’s fists in her face.

‘What the hell is going on in here?’ shouted a voice from the doorway. It was Tania.

Mia and I stopped clawing at each other.

‘It was her!’ we both said.

‘Shona, what’s going on?’ bellowed Tania, her face all blotchy and shiny.

Shona wound a finger through her hair. ‘Mia was being a Grade One bitch,’ she explained helpfully.

Mia chose that moment to burst into loud sobs. It was obvious that she was a great fat faker, but it was also obvious that she had a huge red mark on her cheek where I’d belted her.

‘They ganged up on me, Tania,’ Mia wept. ‘They don’t want to share a room with me because I’m going out with Shona’s ex-boyfriend.’

‘Huh! Not even,’ I burst out. ‘She, I mean, Mia, said…’ I tailed off. When you’re trying to explain to like, a grown-up why you’ve been fighting you just end up sounding like a petty five-year-old. Anyway, I’d already had one run-in with Tania today.

Then Mia played her joker. ‘Edie threw all my stuff out the window,’ she announced in a tiny, teary voice.

If there’s one thing worse than being bored and depressed, it’s being bored and depressed
and
on your own in a foreign hotel. After Mia had grassed on me, Tania gave me this huge lecture about how it had been a really bad idea to let sixteen-year-old A-level students go on a trip with a bunch of nineteen-year-old Foundation Art bods (completely ignoring the fact that Mia was doing A-levels too) and grounded me! Oh, and she’d made me run all the way down the stairs to retrieve Mia’s bag before it got run over.

I whinged about how hungry I was and then refused the plate of cheese sandwiches that Tania said I could order from the housekeeper. I hate cheese. I hoped the guilt of leaving me hungry and on my own would make Tania choke on her stupid tofu-burger.

I lay on the bed, half watching this French game show which involved the contestants taking their clothes off. They’re very open-minded about that kind of thing on the Continent, but mostly I sulked. OK, I shouldn’t have let Mia get to me, but how did she always manage to hit my weak spots? Dylan, Josh and even my breast-size (or complete lack thereof). All the stuff that I’m self-conscious about, Mia went for. She must take lessons on being a bitch, no-one could be born like that.

After Tania had finished reading me the riot act and Mia had sauntered out of the room to meet Paul, Shona had sat on the bed with her arms round me while I cried.

‘It’s all right, sweetie,’ Shona had said comfortingly. And because she’d dropped her usual too cool for school act and didn’t come out with any smart remarks, I’d just cried harder.

‘It’s not fair,’ I spluttered.

‘What’s up?’ Oh God, it would have to be Dylan. Our door was still wide open and Dylan was standing in the doorway. ‘It sounded like World War Three was going on in here.’

‘Just leave it, Dylan,’ said Shona. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’

But he didn’t budge. ‘You coming to dinner too, Edie?’ he asked.

‘Oh, just piss off,’ I snarled at him, much to his and Shona’s shock.

Dylan gave me a really dirty look and walked away.

‘That was way harsh,’ commented Shona.

I bit my lip. ‘I never swear,’ I sobbed. ‘Brilliant. Now Dylan hates me.’

‘He doesn’t hate you,’ said Shona with a sigh. ‘Look, everyone’s out of sorts. It’s been a really long day. Do you want me to stay with you?’

I shook my head and insisted that she go with the others, so I could wallow in self-pity like it would be out of fashion by tomorrow.

So, now I was on my own and after I’d spent a bit of time re-living that terrible moment when I’d sworn at Dylan and he’d flung me the filthiest look ever, I concentrated on Mia and how to get my revenge. I couldn’t think of any really spectacular act of retribution to avenge me and Shona, but I did spit in her moisturiser and it made me feel a teensy bit better.

A couple of hours had passed and I couldn’t sleep. Even though I didn’t want to face Mia, I was half hoping that everyone would come back soon. I was so bored. I was mindlessly channel hopping when my phone rang. It was Shona.

‘Edie, c’est moi!’ said Shona. ‘We’re on our way home. Do you want anything from Maccy D’s?’

I nearly started crying again. Shona could be so sweet. ‘Yeah. I want Chicken McNuggets without sauce, and fries and a chocolate milkshake. I’m
so
hungry.’

‘Well, you’d have hated dinner anyway.’ Shona sounded as if she was smiling. ‘Tania made us go to a wholefood vegetarian restaurant. Hang on. Oh, Dylan wants to know if you want a McFlurry as well?’

I held the receiver away from my ear for a second.

‘Is Dylan there with you?’ I couldn’t help asking.

‘Yup, but he’s just about to go on a mercy dash to McDonald’s for you,’ Shona said, before lowering her voice. ‘He had a go at Tania in front of everyone for sending you to bed without any dinner.’

‘So he’s forgiven me for swearing at him?’ I was almost giddy with hope.

‘Oh you’ve got me to thank for that,’ said Shona breezily. ‘I explained to him about young girls and their hormones.’

‘Gee, Shona, you’re a real pal,’ I said sarcastically.

‘Less of the lip, young lady. Anyway, gotta go, see you in about ten minutes.’

Isn’t that always the way? Just when you think that life sucks with added bits of sucking, the boy of your dreams is fighting your battles for you and buying you McFlurries. And I couldn’t help but hope that maybe there was a very, very slim chance that Dylan and I could…

I’d slept like the dead. Even though Shona took up most of the bed and tried to steal the blankets, I’d fallen asleep the minute my head had touched the rather lumpy pillow. I was just glad that Mia hadn’t won the battle of the beds, because if we’d been in that single one, Shona would have had me on the floor. She sure takes up a lot of room when she’s asleep. I was woken up from a strange dream about kissing Tom Hardy while we were both trapped in a mineshaft by the bleeping of my travel clock.

‘Turn it off,’ whimpered Shona, burrowing deeper under the bedclothes.

I nudged her with my foot. Repeatedly. In a very annoying way. ‘It’s eight o’clock, I don’t want to miss breakfast.’

Shona made an unimpressed grunting noise and snatched the covers away from me so I had no choice but to actually get up. Mia was still asleep. She hadn’t come back with Shona but must have crept into the room after we’d crashed out.

By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Shona was up and rummaging through my suitcase.

‘Did you pack the dress with the cherries on it?’ she asked. I loved seeing Shona first thing in the morning. Her usually poker straight black hair was sticking up and she was wearing pink pyjamas with rabbits on them. If anyone saw her, her icy cool image would be shot to smithereens.

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I think I stuck to a muted colour palette.’

I started drying my hair and hoped that the noise would wake up Mia but she was still out for the count. Shona disappeared into the bathroom and I dithered about what to wear.

I’m not one of those sad girls who always dresses to attract boys, but knowing that I was going to spend the whole day in close proximity to Dylan made it hard to decide on the right outfit. In the end, I chose my new Nordic-style sweater dress which I loved with a fiery passion, black woolly tights and a skinny, striped scarf. It was a pretty stylin’ ensemble, even if I do say it myself.

‘Nice outfit,’ commented Shona. ‘Did you pack your black skinny jeans?’

Shona, on the other hand, takes ages getting dressed.

‘I’m not going to spend half an hour watching you try on all my clothes,’ I told her with a smile. ‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Save me a croissant,’ she said as she started burrowing once more in my suitcase.

As I skipped down the spiral staircase, I felt much happier. I was in Paris! My parents were miles away and Dylan was being an absolute sweetheart. He wouldn’t even let me pay for the McDonald’s last night and when I’d tried to apologise for swearing at him, he’d been his most charming.

‘Oh, forget it, Edie,’ he’d said lightly. ‘It’s not the first time someone’s sworn at me.’

‘Yeah, and it probably won’t be the last,’ Shona had added caustically before shutting the door in his face, as I all but dived headfirst into my Chicken McNuggets.

I walked across the hotel foyer and was trying to remember where the dining room was when I realised that Tania was bearing down on me.

I’d decided last night that I’d really got off on the wrong foot with her and that I should try and behave when she was around. But I still thought that she should wear a bra.

‘Hi Tania,’ I said politely. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about yesterday.’

Tania looked a bit thrown. ‘Well, that’s OK, I’m…’

‘Look I know we didn’t get off to a good start,’ I continued. ‘But I hope we can forget about all that.’

She gave my arm a little squeeze and beamed at me. Sucker!

‘Edie, I’m terribly sorry about last night. I was very pre-menstrual, I should never have stopped you from coming out to dinner,’ she puffed.

In other words, please don’t tell your parents that I tried to starve you.

‘Well, that’s all right,’ I said in a small voice. ‘Though I am really hungry. I couldn’t sleep last night ’cause my tummy kept rumbling.’

That wiped the tree-hugging smile off her face. ‘Well, we need to get some breakfast inside you,’ she decided and frogmarched me off to the dining room.

I was all set to go over to Nat and Trent but Tania had other ideas. She hustled me over to the breakfast buffet and tried to insist that I had a glass of milk because I looked ‘really peaky and young girls need a lot of calcium to make their bones strong’.

‘I only drink milk when it’s got chocolate powder in it,’ I protested. ‘I want white toast with lots of butter, coffee and an apple.’

‘That’s not enough to keep you going,’ Tania said bossily. ‘Do you have an eating disorder? You’re very pasty.’

Oh God, she was a nightmare. I finally managed to persuade her that I wasn’t anorexic or suffering from some fatal strain of anaemia and she let me go. Dylan was already pulling out a chair for me and though I wanted to spend some quality hanging-out time with Nat and Trent, I walked slowly over to the table Dylan was sharing with Simon and Paul.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Simon as I put down my toast.

I rolled my eyes. ‘She’s terrified that I’m going to tell my ’rents that she deprived me of dinner and then she started going on about eating disorders and the four major food groups and how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. What’s up with you?’

There was some major smirking going on between the three of them. It was very annoying.

Paul indicated a big pink envelope. ‘The receptionist asked us to give this to you.’

I opened it and my heart sank. It was a card from Josh wishing me Bonnes Vacances and telling me how much he’d miss me. I’d only been gone for twenty-four hours and I’d texted him last night. I shoved it under the placemat and started buttering my toast.

‘He obviously loves his big romantic gestures then,’ Dylan muttered.

‘It’s a lovely, thoughtful gesture,’ I said stoutly.

Dylan looked sheepish. ‘Ah. Well if that’s how you feel, Edie, what can I say?’

‘How about not saying anything?’ I snapped, but it’s quite hard to pull off icy indignation when you’ve got a mouthful of toast.

Dylan looked at me as if I was a really cryptic crossword clue.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘What?’

‘I just don’t get it,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What satisfaction can you get from stringing him along like this?’

‘What are you talking about?’ I spat out furiously. I was dimly aware of Simon and Paul muttering their goodbyes and getting up hastily.

‘Well, he’s obviously totally crazy about you. I mean, he made sure that card was waiting for you and it’s also obvious that you don’t give a stuff about him.’

I couldn’t believe that Dylan would turn on me like this. OK, Josh was way more into me than I was into him, but Dylan knew why I was going out with Josh. And he knew how bad I felt about it. So why was he trying to make me feel even worse?

I didn’t say any of this to Dylan. He was staring out of the window, the weak morning light hitting his face so he was all planes and angles. He seemed really cold and unapproachable.

I pushed my plate away – I’d suddenly lost my appetite – and scraped my chair back noisily as I stood up. Dylan looked at me questioningly.

‘I don’t have to listen to this, Dylan,’ I bit out. ‘And I don’t know why you’re getting so upset on Josh’s behalf, he’s never bothered you before.’

Dylan reached across the table and gripped my wrist tightly so I couldn’t pull away.

‘You know why he’s bothering me,’ he said and then lowered his voice when he realised that people were turning round to look at us. ‘Sort it out.’

I managed to free my wrist and tried to stalk out of the dining room with some semblance of dignity. I decided to go for a walk. I needed fresh air and I needed some time to try and work out what the hell Dylan was on.

But I’d only been walking for about five seconds when I realised that the Hôtel Du Lac was situated in Pigalle. And that Pigalle is the red-light district of Paris. I was so busy goggling at posters featuring busty women in their smalls and neon signs that promised, ‘Girls, Girls, Girls!’ that, to be honest, I completely forgot about Dylan. Mum and Dad were gonna freak when I told them about this!