Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss Read online

  ‘You look good but we’re only going to the pub,’ he spluttered as my mother glared at him.

  ‘Well, I think Edith looks beautiful,’ she began with a decidedly crisp edge to her voice.

  I pulled Dylan doorwards. ‘Don’t wait up for me,’ I hissed at her.

  After much lying and tugging on his arm, I managed to get Dylan to the bar even though he was hell bent on holing up in the old man’s pub at the top of my road and playing pool.

  I think he began to twig that something was going on when I practically had to have a full-blown hissy fit to get him on the bus into town. I’m actually pretty lousy at keeping secrets and so when Dylan started interrogating me within an inch of my tender, young life about where I was dragging him off to, I had to resort to silence. And staring stonily out of the window, while Dylan tried to cajole me into spilling. ‘C’mon, Eeds,’ he said in a voice all dark and treacly. ‘You going to tell me what you’re up to?’

  When he resorted to tickling, which is so not funny especially as it makes me feel like I’m going to wet myself, I had to get up, climb over his legs and go and sit somewhere else until he promised to behave. I think he’d pretty much guessed by the time we got to the bar and he saw the sign that said, ‘Closed for a private party’, garnished with a handful of fancy balloons. He wagged a reproachful finger at me as he pulled open the door so Italian Tony could envelop him in a big, sweaty bear hug.

  ‘You think we let you go without saying goodbye?’ he bellowed in Dylan’s ear and then Anna, our boss, was getting in on the act and kissing him.

  ‘If you weren’t leaving, I’d have had to sack you,’ she laughed, as I pouted and wished she’d get her ex-boss hands off of my current boyfriend.

  Poppy saw my mardy expression and rolled her eyes at me and I’d just taken a step towards her and the bottle of wine she was brandishing in my direction when Dylan snaked his arm round my waist and pulled me against him.

  ‘I’m going to kill you for this,’ he threatened but I was glad to see that he was smiling. ‘You little minx.’

  It was such a good night. There was cake (not made by Dylan, thank the Lord) and dancing and everyone that I loved was there. Nat, Darby, Atsuko, Poppy, the boys from Rhythm Records and Shona and Paul. And Dylan would catch my eye and look at me as if I was the most beautiful girl in the bar. Which I wasn’t but it was very nice of him to think so. The whole party was turning into one of those perfect moments that you want to put in a box and only take out when you’re feeling down. A memory that smelt like Poppy’s rose perfume and sounded like Dylan giggling as he read all the rude messages on his card and looked like the tiny cascades of lights that sparkled off our glasses. I wanted it never to end. Any of it. But of course, it did – at just about the moment when I came out of the loos and started heading towards the bar and I was shoved out of the way by a girl with long, red hair who flung her arms round Dylan’s neck and announced loudly, ‘I’m back for the new term, honey. And I’ve decided to forgive you.’

  It was Veronique.

  I have to stop for a bit now while I wait for the feelings of rage, anger and wrath to shift down to more manageable levels.

  23rd September (later)

  I’m still very uncalm.

  23rd September (even later)

  Yeah! So where was I? Veronique! Back like a skanky apparition from beyond the grave.

  To be fair, Dylan looked horrified when she suddenly tried to wrap herself around him like some poisonous trailing vine. He pushed her slowly but firmly off and said something to her that I was too far away to hear. Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. She pursed her mouth, put her hands on her hips and tossed her stupid hair back and forth.

  ‘Where did Cruella park her broomstick?’ asked my gay best friend, Nat, as he poured some more wine into my glass.

  I narrowed my eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ I bit out. ‘But I’m going to make sure she hops back on it.’

  But Nat grabbed me by my arm before I could go over and do anything stupid, like hitting her, or screaming obscenities at the top of my voice.

  ‘Nuh-huh, sweetie,’ he cautioned me. ‘You don’t go into the ring until you’re tagged.’

  I had to watch her simpering at Dylan but whatever he was saying to her didn’t seem to go down very well. She’d now progressed to some hardcore eye-rolling, while Dylan looked like he’d gone into ‘try to reason with the idiot child’ mode and then his face suddenly changed – when Dylan gets mad his face closes off. It’s weird. Like all his features shut down, until all there is is this blank mask that you can’t penetrate.

  He was pretty much doing that now.

  Then she started jabbing her finger into his chest and I had a brief flash of déjà vu to that scene where she tried to beat him up on our way to the festival.

  ‘I can’t just stand here!’ I squawked at Nat who had a death grip on my shoulders. ‘She’s giving him a really hard ti—’

  Just as I was trying to finish the sentence, I saw the curving arc made by Veronique’s hand as she sent it crashing against Dylan’s face.

  ‘Fuck!’ I wrenched myself out of Nat’s hold and stormed over to Dylan, my feet skidding on the wet floor and almost knocking Shona flying.

  ‘Edie!’ I could dimly hear her calling to me but I didn’t have time to stick around, I just wanted to see if Dylan was OK.

  Veronique had gone back to poking his chest. ‘It’s not over until I bloody well say it is,’ she was screaming at him as I tugged myself away from Shona and Nat who were both trying to grab on to whatever bit of me they could get hold of.

  ‘Dylan!’ Oh God, finally! I shunted Veronique out of the way with my entire body and flung myself at him. ‘Are you all right? Did she hurt you?’ Then I was clutching at him, running my hands up his chest so I could stroke his reddened cheek gently with the back of my hand.

  ‘I give you a whole month to miss me and you and this bitch are still together?’

  Dylan’s face was still all tight and closed but he squeezed my hand.

  I swivelled round and fixed Veronique with a glare. ‘If you don’t piss off right now, I’m going to—’

  ‘Edie…’ Dylan said warningly. ‘Just leave it.’

  Veronique put her hands on her hips and gave me a sweet smile. ‘Oh, what are you going to do, dearie? Take away my TV privileges?’

  I didn’t actually know what I was going to do. The last time I saw Veronique she’d almost managed to scalp me but that kind of seemed like an irrelevant detail. She’d gatecrashed D’s leaving do and hit him and she was evil and had to be stopped.

  ‘Last time we had a fight, I pushed you into a pit full of poo,’ I growled at her. ‘You really don’t want to stick round and find out what I do for an encore.’ I sounded scary. Really scary. Possibly deranged too.

  Veronique tried to smirk but gave it up as a bad job. ‘You two losers deserve each other,’ she snarled before disappearing in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Except actually she used the door.

  Dylan pretended everything was OK after that but it so wasn’t. Everyone kept asking him if he was all right and I think he was embarrassed that the cheek-smacking had happened in full view of all his friends who’d then witnessed his wimpy girlfriend see off his evil ex-girlfriend while he’d stood there.

  So he did what boys do in those sorts of situations and got absolutely hammered.

  Urgh! Anna drove us back to my place because Dylan couldn’t find his keys and he threw up all over our garden path.

  I was hoping that maybe it would rain in the night so my parents wouldn’t find out. I managed to get inside and stagger to the kitchen with Dylan draped over me like a boy-shaped, beer-stinking blanket in the vain hope I could pour tons of black coffee down his throat and sober him up.

  I was filling up the kettle while Dylan pressed himself against me and started licking my neck like an over-eager puppy when my dad came downstairs.

  ‘Edith! What have we told you about curfews?’ he
started to say but was interrupted by Dylan leaning past me and puking up in the sink.

  Then there was lots of shouting and Dettol. More shouting. Dylan slumping over the kitchen table. A bit more shouting. Dylan being banished from the house forever. And then more and more shouting.

  And then some extra shouting just for luck.

  You know, this is all Veronique’s fault.

  27th September

  My mum is still not talking to me! It’s not like I was drunk and then sick over every available surface. I’ve tried to explain what happened like a million times but she just keeps going on about how Dylan is a bad influence and then remembering that she’s not speaking to me.

  So I go out a lot. I go to work and then I go and see Dylan or I crash at Poppy’s or Shona’s (but mostly at Dylan’s) and then she gets mad that I’m treating the house like a hotel. But if it was a hotel then I might get breakfast made for me and not have to do my own laundry. Also, I’d have Belgian chocolates put on my pillow every evening.

  And Dylan’s being weird and has been ever since Veronique-gate and I can’t help but replay what happened the first time we started dating and how quickly it all descended into not dating. I couldn’t bear it if that happened again but he’s so hard to talk to sometimes.

  We haven’t really talked about him and Veronique. It’s pretty obvious that she used to scream and beat him up at regular intervals (Shona’s been a bit more forthcoming on the subject) and I think he sees it as a massive loss of face. Which it isn’t. I’d be more worried if he used to scream and hit her back.

  It’s just I thought Dylan was over his intimacy issues (and why yes, I do sound like a really crap US Movie Of The Week) but he’s gone all closed-off and ‘don’t want to talk about it’ again.

  Just when everything had been getting so good.

  29th September

  Oh no! I’ve just had a text message from Dylan saying that we have to talk. I’m not getting happy feelings about this.

  30th September

  Forget what I said. ’Cause everything’s different. In just the best and most beautiful of ways. Mostly. Dylan took me out last night to this little French restaurant and held my hand all the way through dinner. I’m not worried about Veronique any more ’cause instead of doing what I used to do, which was sulk and seethe about stuff, I just came right out with what was bothering me. Like, I was an actual mature person.

  ‘We have to talk about Veronique,’ I insisted as the waiter fussed and faffed about opening our bottle of wine. Dylan pulled a face and wound his napkin round his fingers, but tilted his head to indicate that I could continue, if I wanted. Which I so didn’t, but had to.

  ‘Right,’ I started decisively. ‘You had this relationship with her and I can deal with that but it seems like there was weird stuff going on that you don’t want to talk about. Like, you’re worried I’ll think less of you or something. And I need you to know it won’t happen. I mean, me thinking less of you.’

  It was all a bit garbled and not making much sense. Dylan rubbed his hair and sighed. ‘I can’t talk about this stuff. I just can’t. I screw up every relationship I have, you already know that.’

  But I wasn’t going to let him get away with self-defeatist crap like that. Not when we’d only just got back together.

  I waved my fork warningly at him. ‘God, don’t be such a drama queen! You’re not getting rid of me, Dylan. I’m here for the long haul so, hey, you’d better get used to it.’

  And then it all spilled out, in this long, stream-of-consciousness purge. Dylan’s mushroom crêpes went cold as he vented out all this stuff about how going out with Veronique had been this shame spiral that he couldn’t drag his way out of. And that he’d been stuck in the middle of some emotionless void with a girl who spent most of the time telling him he was a waste of space and that no-one but her would ever want him.

  ‘But you knew that wasn’t true,’ I protested. And I hated that there was a table between us because I wanted to gather Dylan up in my arms and keep him safe so no-one else could hurt him. ‘I wanted you! I never stopped wanting you.’

  He looked like a little boy as he fiddled with his napkin and wouldn’t look me in the eye. Then he said in this choked voice that made my insides hurt: ‘Yeah but the women in my life mostly tell me that I’m a worthless piece of crap.’

  ‘’Cept me,’ I said because he had to know that.

  Dylan looked up and his eyes were glistening and more green than I’d ever seen them, like the tears were just about to spill down his cheeks.

  ‘Yeah, ’cept you.’

  There was this long pause as we gazed at each other. Or I gazed and Dylan fidgeted. He’d torn his napkin to shreds and was now rifling through the little pile of torn up tissue-paper with his fingers.

  Then all of a sudden Dylan looked up, took a deep breath and said, ‘You’ve made me happier than I’ve ever been. Do you really think I’d let Veronique or anyone mess that up? God, I’m in love with you, Edie, how can you not know that?’

  All of the bad stuff just seemed to melt away. It’s not like I’m one of those sappy girls who are only validated by their boyfriends but Dylan’s been this really important part of my life for over two years and this was the first time he’s said he loved me. Well, actually no. He said he loved me before when we were split up but I think it was in the same way he loves Coco Pops. But now’s he’s in love with me, which just seems more passionate and like he’d die for me. Or at least give me the last chip off his plate without putting up too much of a fight about it.

  Of course I had to say something snarky in reply. It was that, or start crying. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone happy before. Can you say responsibility?’ I blurted out and Dylan almost spat his mouthful of green salad on to the tablecloth. Then he sniggered.

  ‘See, anything you say or do Edie, seems kind of adorable these days.’ He frowned. ‘Which pretty much makes me your bitch.’

  ‘If you were my bitch, then I think you’d actually be less with the brooding and more about buying me expensive presents and giving me backrubs and, oooooh!, getting up extra early so you could give me a lift into work and…’

  ‘I’d quit now, while you still have a boyfriend, Eeds.’

  It worked! Dylan wasn’t broody or being all scary depressed any more. His lips were twitching and the corners of his eyes were crinkling up. Though in a very attractive way.

  Then his knees nudged mine under the table and that was all it took to persuade me that we should go home and it would be no big deal to sneak Dylan in to my bedroom.

  It would all have been fine and dandy if my mum hadn’t decided to wake me really early so she could talk about my ‘lifestyle choices’. Oh dear.

  3rd October

  I swear to God, out of me and my mother, I’m the grown-up.

  I sat her down this morning, made her a strong cup of coffee and told her that Dylan and I were having a relationship and there was no need for her to be so bent out of shape about it.

  ‘I appreciate that, Edie, but he’s hurt you before and he’ll hurt you again.’ She said it with such finality. Like it was just this inevitable thing that would happen.

  ‘He’s changed and I’ve changed,’ I protested. ‘I’m less, well, less… less crushy this time. I’m more in control.’ Because telling her that I’d made Dylan my total bitch was not going to go down very well.

  But I might just as well have not bothered at all.

  ‘Yes, well, I’ll bear that in mind when you’re crying as though your heart will break because he’s proved himself to be completely unreliable. Again!’

  Huh! That’s so like my mum to throw my own words back at me like dirty laundry that she wants me to put in the washing machine myself.

  ‘Look, it’s different this time. We’re like committed to each other.’ I could actually feel my face turning blue with the effort of trying to explain this. She, on the other hand, was looking more and more pissy with every w
ord that came out of my mouth.

  ‘If by committed you mean that you’re having sex with each other…’

  Mum now looked like she’d just taken a slug of hydrochloric acid. The effort not to roll my eyes and huff nearly killed me. ‘Yes,’ I admitted unwillingly. ‘I’m having sex but you don’t have to worry because we’re being really responsible and I’ve had a sexual health check and we’re using contraception…’

  Considering that there’s been many an excruciating time when she’s sat me down and jawed on in great and embarrassing detail about sex, casually dropping clitorises and IUDs into the conversation when I’ve been trying to eat my dinner, I have no idea why what happened next actually happened next.

  One minute I was chattering away about my trip to the sex doctor and how Dylan and I had decided to carry on using condoms rather than me going on the pill, the next she’d made this weird hissing sound through her teeth and slammed the coffee mug down on the table so hard that it shattered, spilling Kenco decaf all over the pair of us.