Girl Online (32 page)

Things go from bad to worse in the week that follows. I spend way too much time sitting on my window seat, head pressed against the glass, wrapped up in my duvet. If someone took a photograph of me during this week, they'd have to call it
Portrait of an Impossibly Sad Girl.

As promised, the twins come over for a horror-movie marathon, but I'm so spaced out that I don't even jump during
Paranormal Activity.
That is
not
normal activity for me—I'm usually the one clutching the arm of the sofa until my knuckles go white, and screaming down the house at every appearance of a ghost. Even the wind rattling at the window freaks me out.

I don't hear from Noah either. Despite telling myself I don't want to, I keep looking online to check he isn't signed in on Skype. I follow his tweets, Instagram, and other social-media posts like one of his obsessive fans. Elliot comes over after he's finished at
CHIC
every day. My Internet stalking has become so bad that he makes me log how many hours I spend each day checking up on Noah online.

The day I log almost ten hours is a bad day.

I find myself wanting to see Noah go into meltdown mode, for him to write something moody on Twitter, to see that he's struggling to cope without me. In reality, though, I know he is incredibly private about that kind of stuff, so there aren't any personal updates anywhere. Instead, there are endless posts about his tour dates, and the occasional thank-you to his fans for continuing to support him as he embarks on the World Tour.

Sometimes I wish I could be more like Elliot. His way of making himself feel better about breaking up with Alex is just to blank him out completely—delete his number, block him on social media, avoid the vintage store—then carry on as normal. But it's almost impossible for me to do that. Whenever I leave my room, I seem to hear “Autumn Girl” on the radio in the car or in the supermarket. It's as if now that I'm not with Noah I'm surrounded by him more than ever.

That's why, even though it's now been over a week since we got back from Paris, I've retreated to my little window seat. I know I'm wasting the last few weeks of summer freedom by being a walking zombie. I know I can't turn off every radio on the planet while I try to get over Noah. I know I shouldn't be refreshing his Twitter feed every thirty seconds. But, without Elliot to distract me during the day, there is nothing except the occasional squawk of seagulls or Dad shouting at the football to pull me out of this mind-numbed state.

Whose fault is that, Penny? You were the one who decided to trail around after your boyfriend instead of pursuing your own passions.

I hate my inner voice sometimes.

When going through the highs and lows of a breakup, it's all too easy to become modern-day Sherlock Holmes. Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat—it's so easy these days to see what people are up to, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. There are impulsive moments when you want to sit and read through everything until you find some incriminating evidence to suggest your ex has moved on and doesn't care about you anymore. But, in reality, can we really judge these things by a 140-character sentence?

I have to admit, it's hard. You want to know, but you also don't. It could crush you into a million tiny pieces. Obsessing over someone is unhealthy, we all know this. Obsessing over someone who is an up-and-coming international rock god is an emotional roller coaster, because I'm not Brooklyn Boy's only stalker: there are hundreds of Tumblrs and fan sites doing that for me. I could know his every move if I wanted to . . .

There have been some dark days when I've lost myself down the rabbit hole. I even started following Brooklyn Boy's friend's Twitter feed, which is just a steady stream of prank videos and the occasional pseudo-motivational tweet, like
LIVE HARD, DIE YOUNG
, almost always in shouty capital letters. That was a new low for me.

I've found that the best way to stop obsessing is to turn off every radio in sight, refuse to enter a car unless whoever's driving puts on a cheery CD, and avoid the Internet as much as possible.

In reality, I can't tell you how to stop obsessing over someone, because it's one of those things that only
you
can do, and only when the moment is right. All I can say is be strong and fight the twitching urges to refresh everything all day, every day.

Girl Offline . . . never going online xxx

Chapter Forty-Eight

I banish my laptop to the bottom of my laundry basket to stop myself from looking at it, and decide to distract myself by finally unpacking. My suitcase has been sitting unopened in the corner of my room. I'm too afraid of the memories I might have tucked in the case alongside my socks and underwear. With a deep breath, I unzip the case and open it up—but then I get a blast of unmistakable aftershave: Noah's. I push the case away from me like it's on fire. Absolutely everything reminds me of him. Perhaps a brain transplant at this point would help?

I sigh and look out of the window. At least I have a great view from my window seat over the other pastel-coloured terraced houses; in the distance, I can just about see the whitecaps of the waves. Ordinarily, I might have picked up my camera to take a shot, but not today.

“All right, Pen?” Tom appears in my bedroom doorway, making me jump. I was so engrossed in my own pity party that I didn't even hear the creak of the third-from-top stair that normally alerts me to anyone coming up to my room.

Tom comes in, wading through the dirty laundry sprawled all over the floor, and perches on the end of my bed.

“Hey. What's up?” I slide off the window seat and sit down next to him.

“Your floordrobe is looking a little unorganized . . .” He kicks up a pair of crumpled jeans.

“Yeah, I know, it's a bit of a mess. I just . . .
urgh
. I don't feel motivated to do anything. Today is the first day I've brushed my hair this week. I don't even remember when I last washed it.”

Tom grimaces slightly as I attempt to run my fingers through my knotty hair.

“Penny, you might not want to hear this, but you need to: you have to snap out of this funk you're in. No one is worth this, and I hate seeing you this way.”

I look at Tom, almost expecting him to laugh or say he's joking or do something that's not so serious, but he doesn't. “It's like you've come back from this tour a different person. You need to find
you
again. I mean, do you even know where your camera is?”

“Of course I do!” I protest. “It's . . .” But then I look around my room, and I can't see my camera.

“Of course you don't, because I stole it to see if you'd notice. You didn't.” He takes it from behind his back, putting it in the space between us. It sits there, taunting me.

Remember when you used to like to use me?
it says.
Remember how many pictures of Noah you took with me?
I almost want to throw up. I push the camera lens away.

“Keep it. I don't want it.”

“What? Why? Is it because of Noah?”

I roll my eyes at him. “You're a mind reader.”

He picks up the camera and places it firmly on my lap, wrapping my fingers round it. “You're a Porter, and Porters don't give up on their passions. They keep going until they succeed. Apart from the time Dad tried to learn to dive—that didn't actually go down so well . . .” He lets out a little laugh. “If you're going to waste away the rest of the summer, at least do it while doing something you love.”

I feel my whole body seize up. Tom's words chip away at the wall I was happily building in my head to help myself get over Noah; the wall that I am now realizing I began building on the very first day of the tour, when everything started going wrong.

I don't like crying in front of Tom. He's strong and caring, but very practical, and deep down I wish I could be more like him. He sees the world very differently to me, and it's so refreshing to hear him say these things.

“So? What do you think?”

I put the camera back down on the bed, prompting Tom to sigh. Then I look around my room and spot the magazine clipping I taped up on my wall—the one that labels me “girlfriend of Noah Flynn.” Once upon a time, that clipping made me proud. Now it makes me feel a little angry.

Tom's right: I'm losing myself in all this. I am allowing myself to feel completely inferior but, actually, I also have things I'm good at. I take down the clipping and stare at it for few moments before scrunching it up in my hand and dropping it in my bin. I sit back down on the bed in silence.

Tom leans over and wraps his arm round me, giving me a squeeze. “Welcome back, Penny. The world is waiting for you.”

“Thanks, Tom. You're the best.”

As Tom leaves I hear my phone go off on my bedside table. I'm hoping it's Elliot on the train from London with a humorous rundown of his day.

I put down the phone and rush over to my laptop, digging it out of my laundry basket. I pull up my email and, sure enough, there's a message from Leah.

As I'm reading it, my mouth steadily drops open.

From: Leah Brown

To: Penny Porter

Subject: HUGE NEWS

Dear Penny,

I was really hoping that I'd get to ask you this in person, but, since that's not possible anymore, email will have to do! This is all TOTALLY confidential, obviously, so please don't let anyone know except your immediate family.

I didn't get to tell you about my new album, but I've decided to call it Life in Disguise. I've been writing a lot of songs about how, in order to deal with fame, I've had to disguise so many things—my love life, my friends, and sometimes even my identity.

We shot the album cover with François-Pierre Nouveau, but I wasn't happy with any of the pictures he took. They just all looked too staged. I want this to be natural. Light. Real.

So I had my design team mock up a cover using your photograph—the one you took of me in Rome, while I was in disguise. Do you remember? I absolutely love the picture; it is so perfect.

And it's even more perfect on the front of my album cover.

Why not take a look for yourself?

Do you think I could use it? I've attached a contract—it contains details of the fee and royalties and other things. I can put you in touch with a lawyer if you want to get someone to look it over. Then, if you're happy with everything, you can send me the high-res image and this can happen!

I really hope you agree that it looks perfect. You're an amazing photographer, Penny!

I miss seeing your face on tour already. You can bet that as soon as I'm back in the UK I'll be down in Brighton to visit you—and I won't accept no for an answer!

Your friend,

Leah xx

My hand is shaking as I click on the attachment and open it.

There it is. My photograph of Leah, on her album cover. ON HER ALBUM COVER. They've cropped the top corner so you can't tell that it was taken in Rome—and, even
though she looks so different with her cropped bob and bright lipstick, there's an aura round her that is distinctly
Leah.
Down at the bottom of the cover are the words
LIFE IN DISGUISE
in neat type, and Leah's distinctive signature, with a heart on top of the
a
.

This is real.

Tom's words echo in my brain:
Do something you love.
Photography is my passion. I can follow this dream.

I grab my phone and reply to Leah with a big string of emoticons that are barely able to describe the combination of excitement, honour, and amazement I feel.