The Manifesto on How to be Interesting (28 page)

It was everything Bree dreamed a kiss could be. It was a kiss that would be etched onto each of their memories for all time. A kiss to relive in boring periods of their future lives. One of those rare moments where every single other thing in life relinquishes its importance and becomes backing vocals. When they were finally done, they lay in each other's arms, stunned by the magnitude of how brilliant it was. Logan's face glowed as he nestled Bree's head into him and stroked her hair and face, like he couldn't believe his luck that he got to touch her.

Some people spend their whole lives hoping they'll be looked at the way he's looking at me right now.

Nothing had ever really felt good before. Her whole existence until that moment had been grey after grey after grey with the odd moment of black chucked in. Today – now – she'd finally met white. The colour of light and brightness and hope and redemption and purity and…and… oh, screw the descriptions, she wanted to kiss him again. So she did.

Eventually, exhausted, they broke apart and reallocated their time to just staring at each other in wonder.

Logan was tracing his fingers across her face again, drinking in every bit of her.

“Hey, you,” she said shyly.

He grinned lazily. “Hey, yourself.”

“Do you really love me?” It really couldn't hurt to hear it again. Multiple times. Preferably on a loop over and over.

“Yes, Bree. I love you. For so long.”

Her smile matched his.

“You do realize you've not said it back, don't you?” he half-joked and, at that moment, she saw the insecure boy he once was. And probably always would be, a little bit.

“I haven't?”

“No.”

“I thought it kind of went without saying.”

“You've still not said it.”

She sat up a bit straighter and readied herself. She'd never said those words to anyone; they were utterly alien to her. She'd read them a million times in text, seen them printed in black ink, or announced by actors on the telly. She'd heard people around her saying them – Jassmine, occasionally Hugo when he wanted Jassmine to stop being mad at him, her dad that one time he drank too much at Christmas. But her own mouth had never formed that particular string of shapes. She had never clicked her tongue off the roof of her mouth for the “l” of love and then followed it up by pursing her lips for the “you”.

She spoke uncertainly. “I love you too, Logan.”

His already-broad grin stretched across every part of his face. “That wasn't so hard.”

She wanted to say it again. “I love you.”

He threw back his head laughing. “It's great, isn't it?”

And then – as always – a dark thought came along to gatecrash the party.
This isn't the first time he's said those words
…

And then the dark thought rang up all its dodgy mates and told them to come along and smash stuff up…
He probably says it all the time to his wife
.

And then reality turned up in a police car and told everyone at the party to clean up and go home.

Bree untangled herself from him. “Logan, what are we doing?”

He noticed the change of tone in her voice; she could tell by the way his face tightened. He knew her so well, this gorgeous man. “What do you mean?”

She didn't want to state the obvious but now was the time. How could she not ruin this? It was only the most perfect thing that had ever happened to her. She wouldn't be Bree if she didn't vandalize it.

“You're my teacher.”

The words fell like cluster bombs, their gravity pushing their bodies apart.

“I know that, Bree,” he said quietly.

“You're married.”

“That I am.”

She only had one word left. “How?”

“How what? What are you asking? How is this going to work?”

She nodded, too scared of what the next five minutes would bring.

Logan sighed and used his hands to push himself up against the side of the photocopier.

“This is serious, Bree, what we've just done. I could lose my job. Jeez – if I slept with you, I could go to prison.”

Bad words, bad words, bad words.

“But do you not think I've already thought of all this? That I haven't gone over it and over it, all the reasons I shouldn't love you, all the reasons I need to stay away, why I shouldn't go there. Do you not realize how much those thoughts plague me every bloody day?” He sighed again and looked exhausted. “I can't not kiss you though, Bree. I can't not love you. It would be like telling myself not to breathe. And I'm not sure how we're going to do this, how it's going to work, how we can work out being together…”

She stopped him by putting her finger over his lips and making a hushing sound. She'd seen someone doing it in the movies once. Logan ceased talking.

Bree didn't need to speak or hear any more words. For once, her favourite things were completely unwanted.

She leaned over and kissed him again until time lost all meaning and there was only feeling and sensing and love and light and love and light and love.

That night's blog was a short one.

I kissed him. I love him. He loves me. I kissed him. I love him. He loves me. I kissed him. I love him. He loves me.

She typed it again and again, and each time she smiled from a deep place inside of her that she never knew existed.

There were some noteworthy aspects to being in love. And Bree wouldn't have been Bree if she hadn't taken the time to note them down.

Note them down and publish them online…

Things that are awesome about being in love

Everything is happy

Not the most eloquent of sentences, she knew, but it was the simplest way to describe it. That ever-elusive state – happiness – now followed her wherever she went, whatever she was doing. It was like her heart had turned to gold and thumped molten glowing goodness through her veins.

Smiling was easy. Effortless.

In fact, it was harder not to smile. She didn't walk, she floated. Life's tediums – Jassmine crying in the loos about Hugo again, getting an A− in her Latin coursework, the guilt she felt whenever she ignored Holdo in the corridor – didn't affect her at all. Well, maybe a bit, but then
LOGAN
would pop into her brain and she was off again, listing all the things she loved about him to herself. Just the mere whisper of a thought of him made everything and everyone good.

I…like myself

Self-esteem. Bree had it in spades when it came to her intelligence. But when it came to other parts of herself – appearance, character, humour – she'd always ticked the
self-loathing
box.

In truth, in her entire life up until last week, she'd hated who she was. Why else would she have scratched open her skin as punishment for the simple crime of being Bree? And yet now she was beginning to realize she wasn't that bad after all. Logan saw things in her she'd never seen. He complimented her on stuff she didn't know you could get complimented on.

Like: “That's what I love about you, Bree. You're so dry in everything you say. It's a gift.”

Really? Terminal cynicism can be a gift? Not just a defence mechanism?

Or: “The way you roll your eyes, it just kills me.”

Apparently rolling your eyes could be sexy. Rather than nasty.

And: “You're a much kinder person than you give yourself credit for,” Logan told her one evening, when she'd revealed her ruthless abandonment of Holdo.

The Bree he saw was so different to the one she knew. But, with a constant supply of complimentary analysis, she was beginning to see the Bree he saw.

Yes – it was awful. Self-esteem shouldn't be an egg that hatches and grows because some guy says he loves you. She was mad at herself for being so ethically floozy. But there's nothing like being loved by someone who chose you entirely of their own free will. Especially when there were so many others out there available for love too. She'd been chosen. Her. And not because she was the last option, like in PE lessons. But because she was her. It was such a comfort. Such a warm, cosy, morally-wrong-but-she-didn't-give-a-flying…comfort.

You live for the moment

Bree had always envied those live-for-the-moment people.

The type of people who saw life as one big adventure after the next, shooting head first into anything exciting that rocked along.

Whereas her life and thoughts revolved around two major narratives:

• Reliving and analysing every single regret of the past, on a loop, until she felt sick with cringing and remorse.
  
• Worrying methodically about the future and every little thing that could potentially go wrong.
  

While she was busy doing that, life passed her by. Moments whizzed past, unnoted. Memories were left unmade. Time was wasted in such a vast way it was practically insulting.

But not now she was with Logan.

For once, “Now” was all that mattered. She stepping-stoned from one “Now” to another, hopping on and off brilliant moments without a care for the last one or the next.

It was probably just as well. The past was just embarrassing. How they'd both behaved was almost funny when they dared talk about it. The future was…not worth thinking about. If she hadn't been so intoxicated on love, she would have been worrying about:

• His wife.
  
• Being found out.
  
• Logan losing his job.
  
• His wife.
  
• How were they ever going to stay together?
  
• Going to university in a year and a half and being away from him.
  
• The age gap.
  
• His wife.
  
• Sleeping with him.
  
• Logan getting arrested and jailed.
  
• The awkwardness of the “how we met” speeches on their wedding day.
  
• His wife.
  

Yet right now, all these were only fleeting thoughts, because she was living, living, living and loving, loving, loving.

Her mum spotted the change first.

“You're different,” she declared one morning. One rare moment when Bree's dad was eating with them too – though he was hidden behind a paper, his hand only emerging to pick up his extra-strong freshly-ground coffee.

It was blunt. But – to be fair – Bree was
humming
as she ate her organic porridge with fresh fruit and honey from next-door's bees. Recently, she just hadn't felt like Pop-Tarts.

She swallowed. “What?”

Her mum crossed her arms. “What's going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You keep…smiling.”

Bree giggled and her mum gasped and pointed.

“See, you just giggled! Since the day you came out of my womb you have never once giggled. Has she, Daniel?”

Her dad lowered the paper enough so she could see the dark workaholic circles under his eyes and stared at her bemusedly.

“No,” he said cautiously, like he wasn't sure if he was being tested or not. “Bree doesn't usually giggle.”

She didn't really know how to respond to that. Yelling
How would you know? You're never here?
didn't seem appropriate.

“What's happened? Have you met someone?” her mum continued.

Hating herself, Bree felt her cheeks grow warm.

“You have? A boy?”

“Mum, leave it,” she warned, though her voice was too full of joy to sound threatening.

Her dad's eyebrows rose above the top of his paper. “I trust this boy isn't a loser,” he said. “You're worth more than that.”

Bree evilled him. “No, Dad, he's not a loser.”
He's just my teacher.

Her mum squealed. “Well, well, well. My little girl…in love.”

“MUM.” Bree sounded scarier this time.

“Okay, okay, don't tell me anything. It will save me dying from shock.”

To her credit, her mum did leave it, and instead started questioning Bree's dad about when he could next take some time off. Although she kept giving Bree little smiles for the rest of breakfast.

Jassmine noticed it next.

“You're being less mean to everyone recently.”

Never one to mince her words, Jassmine. It was one of the things Bree liked about her. Though she was sure Jassmine's respect for words was unintentional.

Bree examined her lipgloss in the mirror. Marvel's newest addition to the range – 4D lipgloss. Her dad had been boring her to tears explaining the formula.

“What you talking about?”

“You. You're being less sarky than normal.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”

They were having a between-lessons make-up reapplication gossip. Usually this happened only twice a day. But, with new products and the upcoming dance to discuss, it'd become a between-every-lesson occurrence.

“You just seem a bit…distracted is all.” Jass wasn't giving up.

“You'd be distracted too if you were spending every spare waking minute individually supergluing cotton-wool balls onto a playsuit.”

Jassmine laughed. “See! That's the first time you've snapped all week. I've missed it.”

Bree blotted and dropped the paper towel in the bin. “You miss me being a bitch? Do you have self-esteem issues?”

“It's just weird… You seem happier.”

“I won't be happy when I'm wearing that sodding sheep costume.”

Jass rifled through Bree's make-up bag and picked out glitter eyeliner. “Why are you doing this to yourself again?”

“Sheep is what I pulled out of the hat.”

“I'm sure you'll make it look good.”

“Says Miss Angel Gabriel, who only has to put a bit of tinsel on top of her head. It'd better not rain though, otherwise the cotton wool is going to absorb all the water and I'll expand horizontally.”

They giggled together, just like friends.

“So why are you so cheerful then, Bree?”