Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 143633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 718(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143633 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 718(@200wpm)___ 575(@250wpm)___ 479(@300wpm)
I met Lola in the library at lunchtime, and I didn’t even bother taking my novel out, just as she didn’t bother with her laptop. It was all about us, and the chatter.
“Peter’s really keen to meet up,” she told me again. “He thinks dinner sounds great.”
“Fab. Are you happy to come to ours, then?”
The terms ours was becoming so much more natural.
“Yeah, whenever you want.”
“Saturday night?”
She nodded. “Sounds great.”
In the meantime, we had plenty of time to spend together.
Our lunchtime of chatter turned into another session of sitting on the college wall when lessons were done, and our conversation topics turned from daily life to our pasts. Lola had a mum who was the opposite to mine in a lot of ways. She was bossy, and shouted at every opportunity about how everyone else was an idiot, including the guys she was seeing then ditching at every opportunity. It sounded like she had an over inflated ego, whereas my mum doubted herself through every single breath she took.
“She screeched down the whole street when she found out and chucked me out. I didn’t even have a bag for my clothes, she just chucked them into the road,” she said. “Luckily Pete really did have his door open, otherwise I’d have been pretty much fucked with nowhere to go.”
“She hasn’t spoken to you since?”
“No, she’s too fucked off. Still says I’m a fucking idiot every chance she gets, no matter how long me and Pete are together, but I’m lucky. She says a lot worse about him.” She paused, looking at me as though she was about to share a secret. I didn’t push her, just waited. “I’m pretty sure she had her eye on him herself on the run up to us getting together. He’d always been great to her, and he’s hot. I think she was pretty sure he’d be her next conquest.”
It touched a little close to home, so I shared the parallel. I’d already told Lola how Julian had saved us from Scottie, but some parts of the tale were still in the dark.
“My mum definitely wanted Julian. After he stormed in and saved her, she got trashed and went up to his place with a bottle of wine, but he didn’t let her in.”
Lola’s mouth dropped. “Shit. She must have been gutted. My mum didn’t have to handle the knockback of putting herself out there, at least.”
“Yeah. She was. It was sad, because I thought he’d make an awesome partner for her. She deserves one. He could have made a fab stepdad.”
“But you got him instead.”
I still felt a flash of guilt at that.
“Yeah. He wanted me, not her.”
“Just as well, or you’d have been crazy in love with your daddy by now. Talk about daddy issues.” She had a point there. “Your mum won’t speak to you now? At all?”
“No. Says she can’t accept it. That he’s disgusting. Probably doesn’t help that she’s got everyone around her saying the same thing.”
“Yeah, welcome to my world. Hopefully they’ll be able to turn it around and speak to us again one day, right? I miss Mum. Really, really bad. Even her bitchy shouting.”
I knew the pain in her voice. It gave me a pang of my own. I missed my mum like absolute hell, and I was worried about her. I could feel the fears creeping in a little more every second, about her self-esteem, about Scottie, about how she’d cope for money. About everything. I only hoped Trisha would step up to really support her for once.
“I don’t think my mum will ever be able to handle me and Julian being together,” I said. “I just can’t see it. She was so upset when I saw her the other day.”
“It’s early days for you, I guess.”
“Yours has been holding off for over a year, right?”
She shrugged. “I’m still classing that as early days. I’ll never be able to let go of the hope, you know? Some of my cousins are kind of ok with Pete now, but they’re just kids. They don’t scream how fucked up we are down the street.”
I wondered then if Julian still had hope about his own family, deep down. He’d lost a lot more than we had. He’d lost everything, with no hope of crossing paths with his family, so far away, especially since they didn’t even know where he was. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to keep it together, but then remembered he hadn’t. He’d had the stash of overdose pills and goodbye letters ready to go.
Thank fuck I’d saved him on some level, just as he’d saved me.
Lola lit up a cigarette, checking up and down the empty street. The other students were all long gone.
“Come on, then. Spill. How hot is Julian in the bedroom? You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”