Girl Online (31 page)

As the Eurostar train pulls out of Gare du Nord to make its way back to England, I rest my head on Elliot's shoulder and watch Paris disappear through the window. It feels weird to be leaving Noah here, on a journey that started out with us together and is now ending with us . . . broken. I guess TheRealTruth got their way after all: Noah and Penny are no more.

So much promise and anticipation seems to have spiralled into all of this. It's a runaway train I can't control.

Now that I really am on my way home, I can't help but feel a pang of sorrow at the fact that we never had a final hug, one last conversation, or a kiss goodbye. It's almost as if Noah woke up one morning not remembering who I am or that I ever existed.

“What are you thinking about?” Elliot asks. When I don't reply, he takes a guess—and, of course, he knows exactly what the answer is. “Hey, don't worry about it too much. You asked Noah not to contact you. At least he's respecting that.”

I make a non-committal grunt, and wrap my mum's
cardigan tighter round myself. I can't wait to replace this cardigan with a real-life hug from her. I really need it now—and I definitely need to not think about the fact that this train travels through a tunnel beneath a great big channel of water.

The point isn't that I asked Noah not to contact me; the point is that I could be anywhere, with anyone, and he doesn't appear to care. For all he knows, I could be lying in a ditch on the side of a Parisian road. I'm sure Larry told Noah that he dropped me at the station, but Noah could have at least challenged the fact I was leaving or that this was over—anything but this great big nothing.

I keep replaying a moment we shared up at the top of the Waldorf Astoria in New York at Christmas. It was when Noah kissed me for the first time, and I remember thinking that nothing and no one could ever be more perfect. Another memory pops into my head: the first day we spent together, when he completely embraced the spirit of Magical Mystery Day and took me to a secret Italian restaurant where we slurped up spaghetti and laughed about the same things. People say that it's impossible for two people to fall in love so quickly, but the chemistry between us was impossible to ignore. We . . . clicked.

It was never just a casual thing. Of course, I tried my best to
act
casual, but my heart beat at a million miles an hour whenever he walked into the room. I was his Inciting Incident—it was our movie, and we changed our lives forever.

I rewind even further, to when I first saw him in the spotlight onstage, pretending to be a wedding singer. He'd seemed so vulnerable and mysterious. I didn't realize then that he would be this amazing, goofy, romantic, perfect guy.
No
, I
tell myself.
Not perfect. Not perfect at all.
Where did it all go so wrong? How did we let it get to this point? Where did that Noah I first met go? It feels as though on each leg of this tour he has shed something that I loved about him, until all that was left was someone I don't know.

As the train hurtles along and Elliot drops off to sleep, I also think about how this is all my fault. I should have known this would happen. I dived headfirst into this entire thing, thinking it would be like it is in the movies. The rock star gets famous, falls in love with a girl, and they live happily ever after. But this isn't a Hollywood script. This is real life, and
newsflash  
: sometimes real life sucks.

My phone buzzes, snapping me out of my thoughts. It's a text from my mum.

The text makes me smile. My parents don't know all the details yet—but they know me well enough to guess. Initially I tried to get away with simply telling them that the tour wasn't quite what I imagined, but they grilled me like a suspect over Skype.

I got about as far as telling them that things with Noah weren't the best before my bottom lip started to shake. They could see that I wasn't quite up for an in-depth question-and-answer session yet, and any further questioning would have to wait until I was safely back at home.

I love my parents—they're so caring, if maybe sometimes
too
caring. I know what they'll be like: they'll be baking me cookies every morning, noon, and night, taking me out to all my favourite shops, and trying too hard to make me happy. I'm so grateful to Elliot for taking the sting out of that first night by coming to visit me in Paris. I think if I had gone home straightaway I would have been crushed under the weight of my parents' sympathy. There's nothing bad about being loved—my parents just want me to be happy—but sometimes it can be smothering.

At this point, the only smothering I want is from my own duvet. I want to wrap myself in it (even though in the heat of summer my attic room is like a sauna) and bury myself away from the world. To just wallow in the deep pool of my own self-pity. To eat my body weight in ice cream (to counteract the sweltering bedroom, of course) and disappear from real life.

I sigh and tap out a quick reply before we head into the tunnel (which I am NOT thinking about) and I lose signal for a while.

I don't want to taint my favourite season with sadness. They know how much I love Christmas, but right now all I can think of is spending Christmas at Noah's and helping him to decorate the tree with Bella. I flick through my texts and my finger hovers over the conversations with Noah. There is a part of me that really wants to go through them all and relive them. The
I love you
s and the
forever
s and the
Inciting Incident
s, but I don't. Stepping off this train needs to feel like the beginning of something else, not the end.

Noah will be getting ready to pack up and head to Norway right about now, and then he'll be heading off for the World Tour. Our lives feel so different already. Noah has everything in place, but a nagging question still haunts me.

What am I going to do now?

Chapter Forty-Six

News travels fast when it comes to Noah Flynn. As soon as we pull into the station and I
finally
get data on my phone again, I'm bombarded with messages and alerts.

“Wow, Penny, have you seen this?” Elliot holds up his phone, where a popular online magazine is shouting the headline:
NOAH FLYNN IS SINGLE. QUEUE UP, LADIES, YOUR FAVOURITE BROOKLYN BOY IS FINALLY UP FOR GRABS.

I guess the PR machine doesn't waste any time. But
up for grabs  
? Really? Like he's some prize at a local fete? I thought I was starting to get the hang of the media, learning the hard way that they are always trying to grab attention with their completely twisted, magnified, and sometimes blatantly untrue headlines. This time, though, they're right on the money. I guess Noah Flynn
is
single. I just didn't think he'd want to make that so clear, so quickly.

It feels like every person on my contacts list is messaging me with condolences. It's way more than when I got dragged through the mud last time. I guess getting dumped is easier
to empathize with. I scroll through the messages and most of them make me alternate between smiling and cringing.

There's even a message from Pegasus Girl.

To: Girl Online

From: Pegasus Girl

Subject: Noah Stuff

Hey, Penny,

I wanted to email you to say that I'm thinking of you. I'm sorry to hear about you and Noah. I want you to know I'm always here if you ever want a chat. I know it must feel like the whole world is against you at times, but I wanted to reassure you that I absolutely love what you do, and think you're very talented and extremely brave. I would never have been able to jet off on tour, and I bet you never thought you'd be able to either. Anyway, I'm sure he will come to his senses and whisk you off your feet. Don't most guys do that in the end?

PG xx

I smile at her message, but only manage a small one. I don't think Noah is going to come and whisk me off my feet any time soon. More importantly, I don't think I want him to.

I'm still staring at my phone when Elliot plucks it out of my hands. “Pennylicious, your expression has changed so many times while looking at your phone it CANNOT be good for you.”

“You're right,” I say, trying to put on a good face to see my family. “I'm not going to let this get me down.”

As soon as we get through the Eurostar gates at St. Pancras station, I fall into my mum's arms and all my good intentions slip away. I can't help it; the tears stream down my face. Now that I'm officially back on British soil, I have to acknowledge that it's over.

Really and truly over.

Chapter Forty-Seven