A Hundred Pieces of Me by Lucy Dillon Read Free Book Online Page A

the heat from his body. It’s a sharp male smell, dangerous and exciting.
    ‘“We could be heroes,”’ Georgina sings, and it comes out towards him. He smiles and she blushes hotly. Hotter. But she’s not embarrassed. Not even slightly. This is an entirely new feeling. Georgina is embarrassed at least five times a day: by her stepdad, her ‘exemplary’ grades, her neurotic mother’s constant notes to the head, her shoes. She never has the right shoes.
    They stare into each other’s faces and Georgina has the weirdest feeling that she’s known him from somewhere before. His face isn’t new to her. She feels like she’s arrived somewhere she’s been heading for all her life. It’s intensely comforting and freaky at the same time.
    The crowd are squeezing them closer, and her heart is beating in her throat. They’re still singing, but he’s leaning closer and, without warning, as the guitar solo soars over their heads, he shouts, ‘Kit!’ right in her ear, and there’s a sharp tug inside, as if a giant fish hook has landed in her chest. For a second Georgina wonders if she’s actually hurt, and puts a hand up in surprise.
    He grabs it, and cups it to his ear, trying to mime ‘Tell me your name.’ The skin of her arm goosebumps at the sensation of his fingers round her wrist. She shouts, ‘Gina!’
    Her voice is drowned, however, by a roar rumbling down from the front. Hard elbows jab in her back, and Gina turns to see a massive rugby-player surfing across the raised hands, upside-down and so close she can smell the beer on his breath, the acrid sweat on his T-shirt. His eyes lock on hers as he crashes nearer, his fist out-stretched like Superman. It’s aiming straight for her head.
    Gina panics, but she’s trapped by the crush of bodies around her, arms pinned to her sides. All she can think as he hurtles towards her is, Mum. How’m I going to explain being in hospital to Mum?
    She opens her mouth to scream as the boy – Kit – grabs her by the belt of her jeans and drags her away with surprising strength. Gina feels eighteen stones of solid prop forward brush past her shoulder and slam into the lads next to her. The whooping crowd bends away like a field of corn, pushing her into Kit’s arms, but before Gina can register the sensation of his skin against hers, hot and intimate in the general crush, it moves back again, and she’s shoved into a stranger’s side, half-lifting her off her feet. By the time she gets her balance on the slippery floor, another surge has surrounded her in a thick forest of strangers. Black T-shirts and clammy backs and a communal body odour, dark under the aftershave and deodorant.
    She looks but Kit’s gone. Adrenalin – and disappointment and vodka – rakes her body so hard she wants to cry.
    Gina’s foot feels wet and she realises she’s lost her slip-on pump. Naomi’s nowhere to be seen, and she needs the loo. The spell’s broken. Close to tears, she fights her way out of the audience to the back of the hall.
    The few cool people hanging at the back ignore her. Gina stands there with ringing ears, one sock sodden with spilled beer. Then, just at the moment she most wants to go home, Kit appears out of the thicket of the audience, with a shoe in his hand. He doesn’t see her at first, and Gina has the luxury of watching him looking for her, his blond hair hanging damply in his eyes. Then he spots her, and his anxious expression turns to a smile. Gina holds her breath as he approaches.
    ‘Cinderella, I presume?’ He offers her the shoe.
    ‘Gina,’ she says, taking it. It’s not the one she lost, but she doesn’t care. It’s roughly the right size and her foot’s soaking. Why let a small detail like that spoil the moment?
    ‘Hang on.’ Kit frowns as she tries to force her heel in. ‘ Is that yours?’
    ‘Near enough,’ she says. They’re both talking too loudly; she assumes his ears are buzzing like hers. ‘Well, no. To be honest, it’s not.’