Diary of a Grace (5 page)

Toph pushed me down in an empty chair and disappeared. I spun round on the chair a couple of times before I realised that people were staring at me like I really was 12, so I stopped spinning in favour of looking at all the stuff on Toph’s desk. He had a collection of
Star Wars
figures and some cool manga cartoons stuck on the wall and I was just squinting to see what he had in his slightly open drawer, when he came back.

I blushed like I’d been caught doing something wrong and Toph gave me another of those friendly smiles, which were a million times nicer than when he was giving me a look of utter disdain.

‘So you hung up your feathers?’ he asked teasingly.

‘Yeah,’ I said and then when he waited for me to elaborate, I added, ‘I like your desk.’ I am deeply idiotic.

I stood up, nearly knocking over the chair while Toph started going on about something but I wasn’t listening – I wanted to get out of there.

‘I have to go,’ I muttered, tripping over a waste bin and Toph had to grab my arm to stop me from colliding with his printer.

His hand was warm against my skin and I looked at his long tanned fingers curled round my freckled flesh and they looked so
right
there. I must have zoned out because all of a sudden Toph was gently shaking me.

‘Grace, did you hear me? Are you driving down to the cottage with Jesse and Poppy or are you going to get the train with the rest of us?’

So I am in the countryside staying at this stupid cottage with these horrible people. Poppy and Jesse are doing their usual Ways To Make Grace’s Life Hell 12 Step programme and keep calling me ‘Dis-Grace’ though she promised Mum that she would never, ever do it again. Jack and Darby spend all their time swishing saliva back and forth between each other’s mouths, Atsuko’s sucking face with Mort from Jesse and Toph’s band and Toph hangs out with anyone who’s not me. The only good thing is that it’s so hot today that I’m sitting in the middle of a flowery meadow reading Jane Austen (summer homework sucks) and feeling like a girl in a perfume ad. ’Cept without the pretentious voiceover.

So, all that pollen and
Pride and Prejudice
-ing made me feel sleepy and then I woke up with a start. There was a shadow looming over me where the sun should be.

‘Didn’t mean to wake you up,’ Toph said and then threw himself down next to me and stretched out like we were sunbathing buddies.

‘I was dozing,’ I muttered and sat up to rummage in my bag for my SPF50 sunblock so I didn’t have to make stilted conversation.

Toph had already picked up my Jane Austen and was leafing through it. ‘I always thought Lydia was the coolest Bennet sister,’ he remarked. ‘She was like a Regency wild child.’

‘Elizabeth is much cooler,’ I protested, lying down again because it was too hot not to. ‘She’s all bonnet and attitude and “you suck, Mr Darcy”.’

Toph laughed. ‘You realise we’re having an actual conversation about literature,’ he murmured lazily.

‘Like that would ever happen,’ I sniffed absently and Toph laughed again. He rolled onto his side and inched closer towards me so I could see the little bridge of freckles across his nose and a speck of glitter at the corner of his mouth. It was very distracting.

‘You’re a hard girl to have a conversation with,’ Toph said. ‘Unless you’re, y’know, upset or drunk.’

I could feel a monstrous blush heating up my skin. ‘I don’t drink any more.’

‘Good,’ said Toph firmly.

Then he didn’t say anything for a while and I must have dozed off again because the next thing I remember is this soft stroking against my cheek.

‘Grace. Grace!’ I groaned and tried to brush the thing on my face away and then I realised it was Toph’s fingers. He was leaning over me with a smile on his face. ‘You need to put some more sunblock on,’ he pointed out.

I must have still been dopey with sleep because I pressed a finger to that annoying piece of glitter.

And Toph must have been high from the pollen fumes or something because he turned his head so he could capture my fingertip between his teeth and nibble it gently.

And we both must have gone slightly mad because he was suddenly swooping down and I was arching up and our lips collided somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know how long I lay there in Toph’s arms as he did things to my mouth that I don’t even have words to describe. Even now, a few hours later, I have complete sense memory of the way his hands fluttered in my hair and the smell of soap and sunblock and the starbursts in front of my eyes and the taste of him. Toph tasted like butterscotch.

Eventually Toph managed to stop. I don’t know how because I’d suddenly decided what to do with the rest of my life and it involved kissing Toph.

‘You still need to put some sunblock on,’ he reminded me and then spent the next two minutes smoothing it onto my face while I stared at him in wonderment.

‘You’re strange,’ I said at last and it didn’t come out right but Toph smiled.

‘You’re stranger,’ he insisted. ‘This… us… is… I wasn’t expecting this.’

‘But…’ I prompted ’cause whole sentences have never been my strong point and it was easier to get Toph to speak than work out how I felt.

‘But I’m glad it did and maybe we should get to know each other better,’ he decided. ‘Go out when we’re back in Manchester.’

‘On a date?’ I blurted out.

‘Yes, on a date!’

‘OK.’

‘Hey, what happened to us being able to have a conversation?’ Toph wanted to know but it was better to kiss than to talk and when I wound my arms round his neck, he seemed to agree.

No, it couldn’t have happened. I must have been dreaming.

* * *

So, there you have it: after Edie and Dylan came Grace and Toph. But this is where the story finishes, because the Diary of a Crush column – where my characters found their voices long before the books were published – was axed and a few months later
J17
magazine folded.

But, dear reader, you now have every bit of
Diary of a Crush
that there is to have.

And now I must definitively write:

THE END

Sarra Manning