Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up (20 page)

I finally emerged oozing cleanliness from every pore. It felt so good to be wearing a dress again, I’d even managed to shave my legs. Dylan was stretched out on the grass and I walked over to him and nudged him with my foot.

‘I’m starving,’ I said, as he sat up and looked at me. His gaze started at my feet and travelled slowly up. By the time he got to my eyes, I was trying very hard not to do something lame like go into full-on body spasms.

‘You’re not going to scream at me for failing to have your breakfast ready and waiting?’ he asked with a slight edge to his voice.

‘Not my style,’ I said lightly. ‘You’ve got the wrong girl.’

‘Hmmm, if only you knew,’ said Dylan significantly. He stood up and snaked his arm around my waist and I could have pulled away but it felt so right that I didn’t. ‘Let’s get ourselves fed.’

We bought coffee and bacon rolls and sat under a tree to have breakfast and watch as the sun climbed in the sky. We didn’t talk, but we didn’t need to. Instead we just leant against each other and were silent. Finding someone you can be quiet with is way more difficult than sustaining a conversation. Carter used silence like a weapon but Dylan and I had always been good at companionable silences.

By this time the sun was up and staying put, it was really hot. I reached into my bag for my sunblock and started smearing it on my shoulders but Dylan took the tube from me and began to smooth the lotion onto my skin. His fingers slipped under the thin straps of my daisy-covered sun-dress and his touch became less soothing and more caressing. I held my breath as he traced a finger down my spine to the zip. Dylan hesitated for a second and then handed the tube back to me.

‘You’d better do the front,’ he said unsteadily.

I shoved some of the cream around my neck and arms and then turned to face him. His eyes were very green against his tan but there were dark smudges painted into the hollows of his face and I itched to smooth them away.

‘I know we’ve had this bad patch but I really want everything to be all right between us,’ I said carefully. ‘And I want you to know that all the times I said I didn’t want to be friends with you, I was only trying to convince myself.’

Dylan got up and tugged me to my feet so I was standing with his arms round me. ‘It doesn’t matter Edie,’ he told me. ‘I’ve said and done things to you that make me pretty much hate myself but you’ll always be my friend. Even if I don’t act that way sometimes.’

‘Do you mean that?’

Dylan didn’t reply but he pulled me close to him and held me. My arms crept up around his neck and he buried his head in my shoulder. I could feel his heart tapping out its beat through his thin T-shirt and I put my hand against it. Dylan gently drew back.

‘I think if we’re going to spend the day together we should have a no-touching rule,’ he drawled in that light teasing way that I’d missed so much.

I pulled a face. ‘You touched me first,’ I pointed out. ‘I was just returning the favour.’

‘I’m serious,’ Dylan insisted. ‘No touching, let’s just do the friend thing.’

‘I never said I was going to spend the day with you,’ I said jokingly and Dylan arched an eyebrow and smiled knowingly.

‘Stop whining, Eeds, or I’ll make you spend all morning in the trance tent.’

I really got into the whole festival vibe, man. OK, I didn’t buy any stupid hats or get a henna tattoo but Dylan and I saw some bands, spent an hour in the comedy tent, pigged out on junk food and bitched about how much we hated jugglers. Nobody knew us, nobody cared if we were dating or were friends who ended up kissing each other or even having a tempestuous affair. Being anonymous can kick some serious ass.

Dylan stuck to his no-touching rule even though our hands kept brushing and I wanted to grab his fingers and not let go. Walking round in the summer heat and not touching and the way Dylan kept looking at me like I was a Big Mac and he hadn’t eaten for days made me feel restless. My whole body felt heavy and Dylan and I were exchanging so many lingering eye-meets that the whole thing was getting a bit ridiculous.

Eventually we made our way back to the tree where we’d seen the sun rise and I flopped down on the ground, exhausted.

‘Next time, if I go to a festival, and it’s a big if, I’m staying at a hotel and having myself airlifted in and out,’ I announced before digging into my bag to find my emergency bottle of nail polish to start a quick repair job on my toenails that were looking decidedly chipped.

Dylan collapsed next to me, his arms pillowing his head. I tried not to look as his T-shirt rode up to reveal several inches of tanned, taut stomach.

‘You’re not like other girls,’ Dylan said wonderingly, taking the bottle from me and hoisting my feet onto his lap so he could paint my nails. I let him. I mean what’s the point of having an art boy around and not making the most of his expertise with a brush?

‘How am I not like other girls?’ I enquired.

Dylan shrugged. ‘I don’t know any other girl who’d come to a festival with a full pedicure kit and I don’t know any other girl who’d put up with all the crap I’ve thrown at her and still want to spend time with me.’

‘I’ve been pretty nasty to you too,’ I said. ‘I’ve said some very hurtful things.’

‘I wish we could get back together now,’ Dylan said casually, looking down as he concentrated on my toes. ‘I think we’ve both changed.’

My breath caught in my throat and I couldn’t speak. Was Dylan getting real or just playing ‘if only’ with me?

‘I’ve thought about it a lot this summer,’ Dylan continued. He paused. ‘Say something, Edie. Even if it’s only to yell at me.’

‘I’ve split up with Carter,’ I muttered.

‘I know,’ said Dylan. ‘And I’ve tried a million times to dump Veronique but she won’t listen. Or she goes mental and smashes things up.’

‘So what happened outside the café wasn’t a one-off?’ I asked ’cause it had been something that kept tugging at my brain cells intermittently.

Dylan snorted. ‘That was Veronique on a good day. I don’t even like her, let alone want to be with her, but sometimes I think we deserve each other. I try to break up with her and there are broken glasses and she threatens to hurt herself, me, her cat. It’s like being back with my mum, which is just so Freudian, I don’t even want to go there.’

Dylan had finished my nails now and I swung my legs off his lap and lay down, tugging Dylan with me so I could prop myself up on my elbow and look down at him.

‘I have this theory,’ I told him. ‘I think Carter’s been busy seducing me so you get the message that I’m out of bounds. Because if you’re looking after Veronique then he doesn’t have to.’

‘I think you’re spot on,’ Dylan agreed. ‘I’ve thought that for months.’

‘It’s so
messed
,’ I said hopelessly.

‘But it doesn’t have to be,’ Dylan said fiercely. ‘If we were together and blatant about it, they’d have to let us go.’

‘Rebound romances never work.’

‘I only went out with Veronique to take my mind off you,’ admitted Dylan. ‘And when I’m with you I don’t feel like I’m on the rebound, I feel like I’ve come home. It’s like my whole world is just different combinations of black and white, but when you’re around everything goes Technicolor. You’re still the coolest girl I know.’

‘Do you think it would work this time?’ I asked hesitantly.

‘It has to.’ He sounded so convinced. ‘My heart couldn’t take being broken again.’

‘So I broke your heart, did I?’ I gave him a cool look. ‘That’s funny ’cause you broke mine too.’ But it wasn’t funny. I’d never told Dylan how much he’d hurt me before. And I knew that now probably wasn’t the time or the place. But these things had to be said while I still had the option of walking away.

‘Then we’re even,’ Dylan replied.

I stared at his face intently. His deep green eyes held my gaze.

‘I can’t go through all that again,’ I told him. ‘Seriously. You made me become someone I didn’t like. You made me hate myself and lose sight of all the things I liked about me: my self-respect, my dignity, my honesty. You have to know that. I sort of understand why you did it, but you still treated me like shit.’

‘I wouldn’t put you through all that again, I promise.’

‘’Cause I think about us all the time, but I wonder whether we really should be together…’ There! I’d said it. I stopped being all Tunnel Vision-girl and managed to be rational with Dylan who usually made me lose all my mental faculties.

‘Edie, stop it!’ Dylan exclaimed, and he gathered me up in a hug that almost threatened to break my ribs. ‘You have to give me another chance. Stop trying to find reasons why it won’t work before we’ve even started seeing each other again.’

There was so much I wanted to tell Dylan starting with the fact that I’d been in love with him for so long but there was a shadow looming over us, and I didn’t mean metaphorically, as I looked up to see Carter and Veronique glaring down at us.

‘What the hell is going on?’ Veronique screamed.

Dylan sat up while I put my hands over my eyes in the really mature belief that if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.

‘I’m with my best girl,’ Dylan said quietly. ‘What does it look like?’

‘What does it look like? What does it look like?’ spat Veronique. ‘It looks like that little bitch has got her claws into you again.’

‘Don’t talk about Edie like that,’ snapped Dylan, jumping to his feet.

‘Look at her! She’s pathetic.’

Veronique did have a point. I was still lying on the ground with my eyes covered.

Showing willing, I got to my feet. I didn’t really know what to do once I was standing up, Veronique’s face was red with temper (which clashed satisfyingly with her hair), Dylan was grim-faced and Carter was smirking like he found the whole thing too entertaining for words.

‘Dylan and I are getting back together,’ I said eventually, more to fill up the silence than anything else. I looked to Dylan for support and he took my hand. The gesture seemed to trigger off something in Veronique. Something violent and dark and incredibly twisted.

‘I didn’t think sloppy seconds were your style,’ she hissed at Dylan. ‘You know she’s been having sex with Carter for months. And he wasn’t the first.’

It was as if everything had come to a standstill and the only thing moving was Veronique’s mouth as all this poison spewed out of it. I let go of Dylan’s hand.

‘It’s not true,’ I whimpered, turning to Dylan. He looked like he wanted to believe me but then Carter spoke up.

‘She’s a real pro,’ he said to Dylan in a conspiratorial way, like it was all lads together and they were down the pub. ‘I can’t blame you for being interested, mate.’

‘Is this your revenge ’cause I wouldn’t sleep with you?’ I demanded as Carter turned to me with a twisted little smile.

‘Edie, you seem to forget I practically had to fight you off.’

Veronique gave Dylan a triumphant look. ‘I told you she was a devious little slut.’

‘I’d rather be a slut than a psycho-bitch from hell,’ I shouted at her, neglecting to point out that I wasn’t actually a slut.

‘What did you say?’ she said menacingly. Dylan tried to step in between us but Veronique adroitly side-stepped him and almost as if I was watching it happen to someone else, I saw the white blur of her fist as she drove it into my stomach, which, ow, ow, OW! I yelped in pain and doubled over.

I was dimly aware of Dylan shouting and trying to take my hand but all I could focus on was the sudden nauseous waves that were threatening to drag me under.

‘That’s enough Veronique,’ said Carter in an icy voice, as Dylan clenched his own fists.

‘I haven’t even started,’ she promised and darted towards me. I tried to stagger out of her reach. Dylan seized her arm and told her to calm down but she twisted away from him and snatched a huge handful of my hair which she tried to use to drag me along. I started to prise her fingers away but in the end I ran with her, it was either that or lose a good chunk of my scalp. The whole thing was surreal. Dylan and Carter ran after us and begged Veronique to leave me alone but she kept up this evil commentary about little bitches who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves and I just tried to keep up with her because I didn’t want her pulling my hair out by the roots.

It wasn’t very Buffy-like and I so didn’t want to do the whole chick-fight thing but as we approached the toilets and the crowds started thickening, Veronique had to slow down and I took the opportunity to dig my nails into her wrist. She let go of me with a curse and I pushed her away with great force. In fact I pushed her so hard that she lost her footing and slipped over the edge of the latrine pit into two days’ worth of festival goers’ waste product, which was being saved to use as compost.

I didn’t stick around. I mean, I’d just pushed someone into a pit full of poo. There wasn’t really a right way to behave after that. Still clutching my tender stomach I took off as if the hounds of hell were snapping at my feet.

By the time I got back to the tents I could hardly breathe. The others were sitting around a campfire they’d built, having a jamming session with the bongo players and they looked pretty shocked to see me come staggering towards them at great speed. For a moment I stood there, painfully winded and trying to catch my breath while they stared at me.

‘You all right?’ Simon asked eventually.

‘I’m fine,’ I gasped because it seemed easier than actually trying to explain what had just happened. ‘But, hey, yeah I’m going to go home now, I think.’

‘But Edie you can’t,’ Atsuko protested. ‘We’ve still got two days to go.’

‘No,’ I sank to my knees and concentrated really hard on not throwing up. ‘You don’t understand; I have to go. Paul, please drive me to the nearest station. Please. Pleeease.’

‘Why do you have to go home?’ Shona asked, getting up and coming over to me. She looked concerned and tried to put an arm round me but I flinched away from her.

‘I’m going to ruin things for everyone if I stay,’ I gabbled. ‘I’m fed up with me so you must be even more hacked off. Veronique and Carter told Dylan… they said… I can’t stay with them here.’