Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up by Sarra Manning Read Free Book Online

frantically searched around for Dylan before I saw him and his mates chilling out on some sofas.
    Walking towards ten people who are staring at you is very off-putting. I kept my head up and tried not to bite my lip.
    Then Shona jumped up and was hugging me, and Dylan was introducing me as ‘the coolest girl I’ve ever known’.
    Veronique looked unimpressed while this lanky boy with a quiff called Carter (Carter!) had the audacity to say, ‘Edie? What kind of a weird name is that?’
    I looked to Dylan for support but he was too busy kissing Veronique to notice. As evenings go, it wasn’t too bad. If, like, your only other option was to have your eyes gouged out or something.
    Turned out that Carter is actually Veronique’s brother, which explains why a) he had a stupid name and b) he was so aggravating. He asked me if I called myself Edie because of Edie Sedgwick and when I pulled a face to suggest that I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about he had the nerve to say, ‘I’m sorry, I guess the 1960s New York underground scene is a little too sophisticated for your tastes.’
    I would have worked up to a really crushing reply but I still didn’t have any idea what he was banging on about, ’cept he was managing to make me look like an idiot in front of five people I didn’t know. Shona shrugged apologetically and Paul started this long, complicated explanation to do with Andy Warhol, and Veronique and Dylan were
still
investigating each other’s back molars.
    I had one drink and then pretended that I had an elsewhere to be, which was actually home to my bed, where I curled up with Pudding who could tell that I was down and didn’t try to claw me to pieces when I cried into her fur.
     
31st October
    I’ve finally got a clue. I am not going anywhere near Dylan again. If he comes into the café, which he does with alarming regularity, I’m going to be polite but apart from that, I am avoiding him. As far as I’m concerned, he should have a ‘Warning! Haz Chem!’ label tattooed on his forehead. He’s out of bounds as a friend, as someone who may or may not still be in love with me, as someone who is sucking face with another girl. He is out of my life, once and for all. I mean it, this time. I might not have meant it the other times, but I’m serious. No more Dylan.
     
1st November
    I’ve been Dylan-free for forty-eight hours. It’s going pretty well.
     
5th November
    Still Dylan-free. He came into the café today but I got Poppy, the other waitress, to serve him. And I managed not to make eye contact the whole time he was in there. I pretty much rock!
     
8th November
    Still Dylan-free and thank God that I can screen his calls on my mobile. I wish he’d get the message to just leave me the fuck alone.
     
14th November
    Turns out that Dylan doesn’t just play games with my heart when I’m with him. Oh no. He can do it via the medium of email too.
     
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Oh Edie, Edie, Edie
    You seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. After our trip to Blackpool I thought we’d agreed to be friends but after one hanging-out session with my mates, you disappeared and left no clues.
    Shona’s being annoyingly unhelpful about the whole business. I think she feels guilty about having to side with me out of long-term loyalty when she’d rather side with you out of some kind of misguided sisterly solidarity. But she did put forward the theory that seeing Veronique and me together was like ‘someone cutting out your heart without an anaesthetic’. But I don’t get it. ’Cause sometimes, Edie, I think you’re all heart and I worry about how you get hurt by everything from sad puppies on YouTube to reckless art boys who won’t fall into line. And then there are the other times when you act like you don’t have a heart at all. Maybe I shouldn’t even go there. But there were so many times when you brushed me aside without even listening to what I