Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up (16 page)

We were just about to make our getaway when I saw the college principal bearing down on me. He must have spent the last two years thinking I was a complete thicko because he kept going on and on about how surprised and impressed the faculty were with my results and what was I going to do about university? I muttered something about deferring and having a gap year and, besides, my parents were away and I didn’t want to make any life-changing decisions. And then he said that I might even have a chance at Oxbridge and I just turned to Anna and said, ‘Can we please go now?’

Well, I guess I’m not quite done with the book learning after all.

By the time I spoke to Mum and Dad – they’d stayed up all night waiting for me to call – when we got back to the café, I could have asked them for a pet elephant and they’d have agreed to build a jumbo kennel in the back garden. After Mum had finished cooing and Dad had got on the phone to say, ‘Oh yes, quite good Edie, really,’ which is what he comes out with when he’s very impressed, there wasn’t much time to say anything else. What I really wanted to say was that I was scared and confused and I wished they’d come home and did they think it was a good idea to have sex with Carter? But Mum insisted that I go to the festival as long as our neighbours agreed to feed the cat and then badgered me for five minutes about what I was going to do in my gap year. Apparently my options didn’t seem to include moping around the house watching daytime television, which was all that I really wanted to do.

Once I got off the phone, Anna made me close my eyes and when I opened them Italian Tony was holding a cake in the shape of a guitar, which said, ‘Congratulations’.

‘I’d have had to change it to “Commiserations” if you’d failed,’ he joked and then him and Anna started singing
‘For She’s A Jolly Good Fellow’
and all the customers joined in. It was too embarrassing for words. But I couldn’t be an ungrateful bitch so I smiled until my jaw muscles ached and acted like I was really pleased. Don’t get me wrong, I was touched that Anna and Tony had gone to so much trouble but I just wished everyone would shut up about my sodding results and my bloody future.

Dylan had called in sick for, like, the third time this week, which I was eternally grateful for. We’d had an unspoken pact since the barbecue to studiously ignore each other but when Poppy came in at lunchtime she was studiously ignoring me too. Every time I smiled at her or caught her eye as we waited tables, she looked away. I didn’t know what was going on with her. The minute that Anna put the sign to ‘closed’ Poppy was out of the door. I gave Anna a big hug for being an ace surrogate mum and raced after Poppy.

‘Poppy! Wait up!’ I called but she carried on walking.

I finally caught up with her at the bottom of the road. ‘Didn’t you hear me calling?’

She gave me a nervous look. ‘No.’

‘What’s up?’ I demanded, turning her to face me. ‘You’ve been strange with me all day. Have I done something to piss you off?’

Poppy ran a hand through her messy blonde curls. ‘I’ve been trying to plan out what I was going to say to you but everything I rehearsed sounded wrong,’ she began.

‘What are you talking about?’ I asked in a confused voice.

Poppy took my hand and led me over to someone’s garden wall and sat down next to me.

She sighed deeply. ‘Carter made a pass at me last night.’

‘What?!’ I hadn’t been expecting that and yeah, yeah,
yeah
I was shocked.

‘I bumped into him in the beer garden of The Elephant’s Head and we were talking about bands we liked and then some insect thingy landed on my shoulder and bit me. And he… Carter, I mean, he pulled me forward to see the sting and then he kissed my shoulder and before I knew what he was doing, he’d kissed me properly, on the mouth.’

‘Are you sure?’ I wasn’t entirely convinced that I wanted to know the answer.

‘Yeah, Edie, I’m sure,’ said Poppy sadly. ‘I told him to cut it out and he just laughed and said that I’d been flirting with him. But I hadn’t. I just liked him, was all. He was someone to talk about music with.’

I tried to smile as if the whole thing was a silly misunderstanding. ‘He probably had too much to drink…’

Poppy shook her head. ‘He hadn’t. And he said… no, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Tell me!’

‘He said he was fed up with you playing games,’ Poppy continued unhappily. ‘And that he’d fancied me for ages and you were just seeing him to make Dylan jealous.’

I could feel the sun beating down on my back through my T-shirt as I sat there and listened to Poppy’s confession. And as I looked at the tears trickling down Poppy’s face I knew she wasn’t lying. I might be able to snog someone else’s boyfriend but Poppy was straight-edge, she’d never break the girl code. That didn’t mean I wanted to believe her though.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked her again.

‘I’m positive,’ she said firmly. ‘I didn’t want to tell you but Atsuko and Darby said you’d want to know.’

‘Christ, Poppy,’ I exclaimed angrily. ‘How many other people have you told?’ I hated myself for that little outburst, Carter was the one I should be mad at, not Poppy.

‘Just them and erm, Shona,’ came the worried reply. ‘I had to tell someone and Carter stomped off once I’d yelled at him and I bumped into her in the loo and she could tell I was upset about something.’

‘No wonder you’ve been weird with me all day,’ I said. I could have told her what I’d really been doing with Dylan in my bedroom at the barbecue ’cause it would have made her feel better but for some reason I didn’t. I think it’s called self-preservation.

‘Are you and me all right?’ Poppy asked.

‘Oh, come here,’ I told her and gave her a hug and made her promise not to worry about it any more.

As I walked home I tried to work out how I felt about Poppy’s revelation. I was sorry that she was upset but I didn’t feel any of the blinding white jealousy I felt when I thought of Veronique and Dylan together. Maybe it was because Poppy was my mate. And maybe it was because I knew that Carter must have been drunk. He’d been so patient with me, stuck by me while I prevaricated and tried to make up my mind. He wouldn’t just bail on me like that, and not with a friend of mine. Carter wasn’t stupid. He must have known that Poppy would tell me. Which made me think that he must have been really drunk. I mean, why else would he have done it?

It had been such a tempestuous day, I must have gone through every emotion invented. The last straw was the next-door neighbours agreeing to look after Pudding while I was stuck in a field with the kind of people I normally cross over the road to avoid. I couldn’t understand why Fate was being such a meanie. The neighbours normally spend most of their time complaining about Pudding because she keeps having sex with tomcats while everyone’s trying to sleep. God, even my cat was doing it!

When I finally got indoors, I felt so restless – I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was beyond hot and I was so confused about every single last bloody bit of my stupid, little life. I threw my clothes off, pulled on my new boy-cut bikini bottoms and bandeau top, and started filling my old paddling pool. With the ’rents away our household was using hardly any water so I felt I could safely flout the hosepipe ban. Finally I was at peace, sitting in five inches of cold water with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough ice cream. The summer wasn’t going to get much better than this.

Or worse, I thought as I saw Carter climbing over the garden gate. I was just about to scramble out of the pool but thought better of it. There was no elegant way to get out. Although I was slightly thrown because I hadn’t planned on having it out with him while I was half-naked in a kiddies’ paddling pool.

‘I tried ringing the doorbell but there was no reply,’ he said sauntering towards me. ‘You look…’ he paused for effect, ‘… quite enchanting.’

I tugged my top more securely into place and folded my arms as Carter squatted down by the pool next to me.

‘So did you get your results?’ he asked after a minute had gone by and I hadn’t said anything.

‘Yup,’ I said shortly.

‘And they were good, bad, indifferent?’ he prompted.

‘They were fine,’ I hissed.

Carter took off his shades and gave me an annoyed look, narrowing his dark blue eyes and curling the top lip of his beautifully sculptured mouth. He looked like he’d been carved out of marble. ‘What’s up with you?’

‘What’s up with me?’ I couldn’t believe his nerve. ‘I had a chat with Poppy today,’ I spat out. ‘She told me that you… you… that you tried to get off with her last night!’

Carter froze for a second before going completely ballistic. He said I was a selfish little bitch who’d spent the last few months putting him through hell. He said that Poppy had been drunk and made a pass at him. And he said that I’d strung him along for ages and he’d just taken it like a fool. And finally he accused me of using Poppy’s story as an excuse not to have sex with him. I had to sit there in the paddling pool and listen while Carter shouted at me and hurled a couple of deckchairs down the length of the garden in his fury.

‘OK, I’m just going to walk out of here now,’ he said finally. ‘Then I’ll be out of your life for good. It’ll save you having to come up with sad stories like this. I love you but obviously that’s not enough for you.’

As he turned to go I realised that he must have been telling the truth. Why else would he have got so mad and been so hurt? Or offered to leave when he’d spent months hanging around waiting for me to get over Dylan? And although I didn’t think that Poppy had lied, maybe Carter was right and she’d been the one who was drunk and couldn’t remember what had really happened. Besides, he
loved
me! He was the second non-family person in the world to ever say that they loved me.

‘Carter, don’t go,’ I pleaded, standing up. ‘I’m sorry.’

Carter carried on walking.

‘Please come back,’ I begged, starting to cry. ‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’

He turned round slowly, looking shamefaced. ‘Oh, don’t cry,’ he said huskily, walking back to me and pulling me into his arms. It felt so good to be held by someone. I wound my arms round his waist and clung on for dear life and sobbed all over the Fifties bowling shirt, which was his pride and joy.

Carter made soothing noises and stroked my hair. ‘There, there, baby,’ he purred. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated. ‘I had to believe Poppy.’

‘I know you did, sweetheart,’ Carter said soothingly. ‘But do you really think I’d have hung around this long if I’d been jonesing after another girl?’

‘I guess not,’ I choked out.

And then Carter suddenly swung me up in his arms, climbed into the paddling pool and settled down with me on his lap.

‘You’re mad,’ I said, laughing even though I was still crying a bit. ‘All your clothes are wet.’

Carter shrugged. ‘They’ll dry.’

Our faces were so close I could see the tiny scar that almost touched the top of his lip. I stroked it with the tip of one finger.

I was sitting in my flowery pink bikini on the lap of a fully-clad boy in a paddling pool and it felt normal. And really, really nice.

I pulled Carter’s head towards me and kissed the corner of his mouth gently. He smiled at me.

‘Aren’t you going to kiss me properly?’ he said. ‘You’ve never had any trouble before.’

I kissed him again and his lips parted to let me snake my tongue into his mouth. I liked being the kisser and not the kissee for once. I kissed Carter harder and tugged at him so we were both lying in the water with our entwined legs dangling over the edge. Feeling better, I started unbuttoning his shirt and Carter’s hands which had been idly caressing my back stilled.

‘Don’t you want to?’ I whispered. ‘I was going to make it up to you.’

‘That sounds interesting,’ Carter drawled. ‘How were you going to do that?’

‘I thought we could, y’know…’ I ran my hand down his chest in what I hoped was a suggestive manner.

‘Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’ Carter asked, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

‘I think I’m ready,’ I said decisively. ‘Yes! Let’s do it.’

Carter held my face in his hands and gave me a long, deep kiss before getting to his feet and reaching out a hand to me. I let him pull me up.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. ‘I’m going to pass this time, Edie.’

I tried to twist away from him but he held me tight. ‘Oh thanks for letting me make a complete idiot of myself,’ I said bitterly. ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’

Carter tucked my hair back behind my ears and gave me a gooey look. ‘It is,’ he insisted. ‘And I’m incredibly tempted but I want you to have sex with me when it’s right for you. Not because we’ve had a row and you want to make it up to me. Trust me, I know what I’m saying.’

‘I feel so stupid,’ I muttered, still standing in front of him.

‘Well you shouldn’t,’ he said firmly. ‘It was generous and lovely of you and you’ll never know how much I want to take you upstairs and ravish you to within an inch of your life.’

‘Yeah, right.’ But I was smiling. It might have taken some time but what I was feeling towards Carter now was definitely a love thing.

‘Are you going to stick around?’ I asked him as we walked back into the house hand in hand.

‘You bet,’ he answered giving me another marshmallow look and I knew he was talking about the months ahead and not just the next few hours. ‘Why don’t you put some clothes on before I change my mind and then we’ll… what do you want to do?’

‘Eat some food, watch some DVDs, make out a lot,’ I decided. ‘You interested?’

Then I ran up the stairs and jumped up and down on my bed because I was so happy I thought my heart was going to burst into millions of sparkly pieces.

The last few days have been so blissful on the Carter front. Almost as if we had an unspoken agreement to put all the bad stuff behind us and start our relationship again. No more lies, no more playing games with each other, no more listening to other people telling us that we’re bad for each other. Which they did. Like, with knobs on.