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  “Sorry,” he said at last, shoving his untouched plate away. “I’m going to take another crack at the essay. I think there’s some theory brewing in my head that I want to get down.”

  “Oh . . . okay. Um, do you want . . . I could go, if you like,” I heard myself say. He could hardly bring himself to look at me. Might as well swap the awkward silence here for the awkward silence at home.

  “No, Isabel. God, no.” Smith leaned across the table so he could cup my chin. “Just give me two hours and then you’ll have my undivided attention for the rest of the night, I swear.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I protested as he pressed his thumb against my quivering bottom lip for a fraction of a second.

  “It’s just, well, I thought I’d see you tomorrow. I didn’t realize that you were planning to crash here tonight as well,” he said at last, and if he hadn’t still been holding my chin I’d have banged my head against the table. Repeatedly. I thought he’d be pleased that we’d get to spend more time together, and instead he was acting like I was the pushiest girl in southeast England. Point of fact, I was the pushiest girl in southeast England.

  I must have looked like a puppy with a sore paw because he gave me an anxious look and opened his mouth to make me feel a million times worse. I clamped my hand over his mouth, gently, so I didn’t cut off his air supply.

  “No, it’s fine. I can go. Really. No trauma,” I assured him, aiming for perky and ending up somewhere around petulant.

  Smith jerked his head back from my sweaty palm. “Is, Is,” he said gently, brushing the back of his hand along my hot cheek. “I’m really glad you’re here and I’m just annoyed that I spent all day faffing about when I should have been working. It’s not you, okay?”

  It not being about me was another dent to my ego, but I managed to muster up a smile and let him disappear to do battle with the forces of philosophy. I restored the kitchen back to a far better state than I’d found it and then claimed the carpet in the lounge for Britain. Underneath all that cigarette ash and newspapers, it turned out to be a rather bilious green color. I hauled out two bin bags full of debris, vacuumed, polished, and, at one point, got down on my hands and knees to scrub at the skirting before I decided that Smith’s two hours were up. Anyway, I was completely out of dusters.

  Smith was lying on the bed, blowing smoke rings up at the ceiling when I poked my head around the door. I could see the computer screen glowing in his little study as I inched toward him.

  “I might just as well give up now,” he announced suddenly. “Just drop out and spare everyone the inevitable.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked him with a lot less exasperation than I’d show anyone else.

  “I’m stupid,” he sighed. “I don’t know my Heidegger from my Derrida. It’s like that episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets an F, but with lots of dead Frenchmen in it.”

  My entire life has been punctuated by students having these kinds of crises—usually when they were due to hand in an essay that was already three weeks late. We’d had so many dinners ruined because Dad was on the phone talking some brainiac down from the ledge because he couldn’t get a handle on James Joyce’s Ulysses. Usually Dad just barked at them to pull themselves together, but if they were his little protégés, he’d do much the same as I was doing now. I got Smith to read through his essay and let him figure out the problem for himself. Though I sincerely hoped that Dad didn’t do it with as much head stroking.

  By the time Smith had finished typing up his conclusion while I looked up words in the thesaurus for him, the downward droop of his features had been replaced by a look of utter adoration.

  “I bet this all seems really dumb to you.” Smith shifted me on his lap so he could press controls. “You’re a secret geek, aren’t you?”

  “There’s, like, a formula to it. You just need to get into the rhythm and throw in a few really long words. Doesn’t make me a geek, you know!” I huffed.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Smith protested, pushing me off his lap so he could shuffle me over to the bed and pull me down on that. I was his personal lump of Play-Doh. “You’re pretty cool, Is.”

  After the worst beginning to a weekend ever, I was starting to remember why I liked Smith so much. I rolled over onto my side so we were eyeball to eyeball, and I could see the minute green flecks amid the startling blue of his eyes. “I didn’t have any friends until I started senior school,” I confessed, because there were some things I could still be honest about. “I was really quiet and smaller than everyone else in my class, and I read loads of books and had the shit kicked out of me every day.”

  Smith pressed a kiss to my forehead. “What happened?”

  “I got over it,” I said flatly, running my hands under his T-shirt because I could. “And then I was really popular at senior school, but I wasn’t really popular, I just had this whole power thing going for me. Like, in Mean Girls. I was the mean girl prototype.”

  “You’re not as mean as you think you are,” he said, tangling his legs with mine. “You’re really, really not. I’d go so far as to say you were kinda sweet, if I didn’t think you’d hit me.”

  “I’m not sweet,” I growled. “In what alternate universe am I freaking sweet?”

  “Well, maybe not sweet,” he conceded, kissing the scowl off my face. “Somewhere between a sweet girl and a mean girl. Unless you’re going to give me the mean girl manifesto again.”

  “Well, I’m kinda getting over that, too.” And I wished I were. Wished there was a reset button on my life that I could press and have the last four years wiped away so I could start again.

  “You’re getting over a lot of things, Isabel,” Smith said, and he smiled, even though I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, which was probably why he rolled over so I was left looking at the back of his head.

  “I’m not getting over you, though,” I whispered, and I snuggled myself against the tense line of his back and curled my hand over his heart.

  Let'sGetLost

  Let's Get Lost

  18

  Being stuck in the back of a van and feeling every single pothole and bump on the highway jarring against my spine was an occurrence that I never wanted to repeat. Even if I had to walk back to Brighton.

  Jane acting like, well, like she was in a really cool band who were going to London to play a gig, didn’t improve matters. She commandeered the CD player with a mix she’d made of the worst songs to ever get to number one. Then throw in the official entourage, all wearing these stupid DIY “I’m with the band” T-shirts, talking about people I didn’t know and places I’d never been, and Smith was, like, their vice chairman or something.

  He’d been all sweetness and light when we woke up this morning. Didn’t get snarky about the way I’d fallen asleep before we could have sex or that I drooled on his shoulder all night, but the minute his friends had entered the equation, I might just as well have not existed. He was so predictable sometimes.

  I clung to the speaker I was sitting on for dear life as Jane’s boyfriend kept changing lanes. If I said that I needed a wee, maybe I could hitch a lift back to Brighton at the first service station we came to.

  “Why are you pouting?” Smith hissed at me from the other side of the van. I was forced to adjust my bottom lip as all eyes turned to me.

  “I’m not pouting,” I hissed back, trying to tamp down the screech in my voice. “I’m just thinking about stuff.”

  “We should have made you a T-shirt,” the girl with the most perfect bob in the world suddenly said. “Sorry. But, oh, hey, badges! I’ve got badges.”

  “It’s all right,” I protested, because now everyone was rustling through their pockets and bags trying to rustle up some amazing crafty outfit for me to wear so I didn’t feel left out, and Smith was shaking his head in disbelief.

  Molly craned her neck from the front seat. “There’s T-shirts in a box with the word T-shirts on it,” she supplied helpfully. “The
y’re pink. Really bring out the blue in your eyes, Is.”

  One of the boys was already crawling toward the back of the van and becoming an object of derision as he trod on people’s legs. “Really, I’m living T-shirt-free these days,” I insisted, but he was already thrusting a handful of pink cotton at me.

  “ ’If they can do without you, Duckie, so can I.’ ” I read out the words that were scattered over the black-and-white print of Audrey Hepburn.

  “It’s from My Fair Lady,” Smith explained. “Not that I’m an expert on musicals. It’s the band’s mission statement.”

  “Right . . .” I said doubtfully, but the girl with the most perfect bob in the world ever (I wished I could remember her name), was already squatting down next to me with a clutch of badges.

  “We’ll have you Duckie’d out in no time,” she said. “Which ones do you like best?”

  Ten minutes later, I was kinda proudly wearing the T-shirt over my own long-sleeved top in an Emo style, while Smith pinned badges on me that said things like, “I ♥ reading,” “I am totally awesome,” “Dinosaurs are the new robots,” and “Born to do stuff.”

  There was one badge left, and he opened his palm so I could see it nestling there like a one-inch time bomb. “Real friends don’t lie,” it screamed at me.

  “Where shall I put it?” he asked me casually, and I closed my hand over his.

  “I’m all buttoned out now. You put it on.” I pinned the badge onto his jacket collar and patted it. “There. Fit to have your picture taken.”

  Then he leaned so he could kiss the tip of my nose and squeeze my hand. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispered.

  “Me too.” I nodded. “I mean I’m glad I’m here and I’m glad you’re here and . . . feel free to think of something that will stop me babbling any second now.”

  Smith gave me a wicked grin. “Okay, I can do that.” He turned his head. “Isabel thinks that Death Cab are, and I quote, ‘whiny mope rockers.’ ”

  There was a chorus of disbelief and agonized expressions all around. I punched Smith on the shoulder, but then I wasn’t on the outside looking in anymore, I was right there at the center, clutching Smith’s hand and not minding when I got teased about my musical preferences all the way to London.

  Being with the band was definitely overrated. It mostly involved dragging their amps on stage and being really quiet while they twiddled about with their guitars and did some weird techy shit with the levels. All I know is I had to listen to one song over and over again, even though it sounded the same every time.

  Molly had a minor meltdown because she thought her guitar amp was hissing and then actually stamped her foot and quit the band when everyone else was all like, “Whatever!”

  “Maybe you should be more sympathetic,” I advised Smith, who’d just jumped off the stage so he could have a sip from my bottle of water. “I think she’s really upset.”

  Smith shrugged. “She quits the band once a week on average. It’s just preshow nerves and the fact that she’s a total drama queen.”

  We both looked at Molly who was wringing her hands and saying to the sound guy, “My God, why are you trying to stifle my creativity?” without any noticeable hint of irony.

  “Yeah, you might have a point there,” I agreed.

  “Your diva crown is still very much intact, though,” Smith assured me, patting the top of my head and once again I thrilled to the fact that if he’d been anyone else I’d have bitten his hand off; instead I just flashed my teeth at him.

  “As long as we’re clear about that.”

  “As crystal,” he said solemnly, before tugging me off the crates I was perched on. “C’mon let’s go and get something to eat.”

  The streets of Camden were thronged with tourists and weekend goths all intent on buying nasty silver jewelry, T-shirts with really unfunny slogans on them, and dope-smoking paraphernalia, which meant that Smith and I had to hold hands really tightly.

  We managed not to fight at all. Even after it started drizzling in this relentless way, and I vetoed the first five cafés we found on hygiene grounds and refused to let Smith buy a crêpe from a stall because the man in charge of the hot plate looked like he didn’t wash his hands after he peed.

  Eventually we found a little Thai restaurant, bagged the last table, and sat huddled in the corner, bumping knees as we drank green tea and looked at the menu.

  “I’m having Disco Duck,” I announced decisively. “Mainly because it’s called Disco Duck, or Ped Ron, as it’s known in Thailand.”

  “I wanted that! God, can’t believe you’re bogarting the Disco Duck.”

  My eyes scanned down the menu. “Have the Weeping Tiger, if you want the whole comedy food experience, and I’m going to have the spinach with ginger and garlic. Unless my mouth feels like it’s about to burst into flames, then there’s really no point in having Thai.”

  “We’ll share.” Smith gave me a heavy-lidded look. “Then we’ll both taste of garlic.”

  And it seemed like we’d reached that stage where even having shared stinky breath was romantic—and Smith was fumbling one-handed with his chopsticks so he could stroke my leg with his free hand. Everything was perfect until I had to chug back two glasses of water when the spinach set my mouth ablaze.

  “You can’t handle the hot, little girl,” he admonished me, stroking my cheek as I stuck my tongue out and tried to see if it was blistered.

  “Hey, I’ve been eating spicy food ever since I went on to solids,” I said, taking little ladylike sips of the water he’d just poured me.

  Smith raised an eyebrow skeptically. “That’s pretty hard-core for a baby.”

  “Yeah, well, my mum didn’t believe in fussy eating, so she made me eat whatever her and Dad were having. He says that I used to demand pickle on my egg soldiers as soon as I learned to talk.”

  “You never talk about your mum,” Smith said, so casually that I knew he’d been dying to bring up the subject forever.

  It was like having my body submerged in ice. Goose bumps popped out all over my arms, and I shifted my leg away from his stroking fingers. “There’s nothing to talk about.” I couldn’t have made it plainer that the topic was closed with a DO NOT DISTURB sign pinned on the door for good measure.

  “I get that, I really do,” Smith said, but he obviously didn’t because why was he still talking? “But if you did want to bring it up at some unspecified time in the future, then you know where I am.”

  Right then, all I wanted to do was to kick the chair out from under me and get far, far away from the understanding look in his eyes. I took a couple of deep breaths and forced myself to look. “ ’Kay,” I mumbled. “That’s good to know.”

  “Cool. Do you want to get some coffee or shall we head back?” Smith said, his hand back on my knee. And I could pretend that everything was all right in the world.

  It wasn’t until halfway through Duckie’s set that I realized actually everything was all right in the world.

  I’d been canoodling with Smith in a corner before the band came on, tasting limes and green tea on his tongue as he kissed me, before we got distracted by a surf-tastic version of The OC theme tune, which made us look up to see the girl with the most perfect bob in the world bearing down on us.

  “Down the front!” she squealed by way of greeting, grabbing our hands and pulling us through the crowd in time to see Jane cartwheel on stage (show off, much?) and Molly place her Ruby Gloom lucky mascot on one of the speakers.

  The lights dimmed as Molly started picking out a delicate tune on her guitar, then the drums came in and they were whooshing into one of the songs Smith had downloaded for me, all disco beats and “yeah, yeah, yeahs” on the chorus. Most times when I’d been to see a band (well, apart from the Spice Girls at Brighton Centre, which I’ve tried to write out of my personal history), I stood at the back and bitched about what people were wearing, but that wasn’t going to be an option here.

  Instead, I took the bottl
e of beer that one of Smith’s friends passed to me and then sloshed most of the contents away as I jumped about and tried not to fall over when the crowd surged forward. It was so much fun!

  Duckie didn’t have a slow setting. Each song got faster and faster until it seemed like the entire audience were verging on mass hysteria. Molly stood there in the center of the stage, poised like she was the queen of everything, and I guess she was in a way. Like, she had all this power to make people happy because when she played her songs, she took them to a better place.

  Then, between songs, she looked down into the mess below her, caught my eye, and waved. “This is our last song, ‘Boy Meets Girl,’ and it’s for Isabel and Smith, who are causing havoc in the pit. . . .”

  There was this sudden ungodly whooping noise, which was Smith thundering toward me so he could pick me up and whirl me around until some guy who was much bigger and uglier than us threatened to punch him if we didn’t stop.