Girl Saves Boy by Steph Bowe Read Free Book Online Page A

and arguing and laughing.
    I realised how much I missed noise—there’s a certain kind of quiet that perpetually haunts my house. I don’t think it ever existed at Al’s.
    Al sat on the wheelie chair by his desk and spun and spun and spun. Set up on his desk was a DNA model made of Paddle Pop sticks and Styrofoam balls.
    I stopped throwing the ball at the ceiling and turned my head and looked at him. He paused. ‘What?’
    ‘Why would they think you were sleeping with True? She never comes to your house.’
    Al shrugged. ‘They’ve seen the yearbook.’ He sighed. ‘They see something like that “dream couple” label and never let me live it down.’
    ‘But you do like her?’
    ‘You know I do.’ He held his hand to his forehead and sighed dramatically. ‘Oh, the woes of unrequited love.’
    ‘I wonder why she’s like that?’ I returned to throwing the ball at the ceiling.
    ‘Women,’ said Al, putting on a David Attenborough voice. ‘A perplexing species.’ Then he added, in his ordinary voice, ‘I think she hates me.’
    I shook my head. ‘No she doesn’t. Why don’t you just talk to her, Al? Ask her out. It’s not a big deal.’
    Al laughed and shook his head right back at me. ‘You know she doesn’t like me.’
    ‘She didn’t like you when we were thirteen . It’s been five years. She’s probably just waiting for you to ask her out.’
    ‘You know that’s not her style,’ said Al.
    I stopped tossing the ball again and sat up. ‘Sometimes, you just have to take risks, okay? What happens if you get hit by a bus tomorrow?’ I asked.
    Al said, ‘It won’t matter. I’ll be dead.’
    I sighed. ‘Okay then, what if the world ended tomorrow?’
    Al paused his spinning for a moment, and tilted his head. ‘Um, then we’ll all be dead. It won’t matter then, either,’ he said.
    ‘Oh God.’ I slumped back down. ‘You just don’t get it. The point I’m trying to make—the point you’re deliberately ignoring—is that tomorrow it might all go away. You have to do what you want and take what you want now .’
    Al laughed, but this time it wasn’t genuine. ‘When did you go all Eckhart Tolle on me?’
    I swung my legs over the side of the bed and held my head in my hands and sighed.
    Al added, ‘I think you need to take your own advice.’
    ‘It’s a lot easier to give advice than listen to it,’ I mumbled into my hands.
    ‘I reckon you’re in with a chance with this Jewel,’ said Al. ‘She’s a bit of all right.’
    ‘It sounds kind of demeaning when you talk like that,’ I said, looking up.
    Al snorted. ‘Sacha, you do know my family, right?’
    ‘I was serious about what I said before though,’ I said.
    Al stretched his arms above his head and reached for the ceiling. He nearly touched it. Then he sat on his hands. ‘There’s more to life than this whole going out business, you know.’
    ‘I never thought I’d hear that from you, Al,’ I said.
    He smiled. ‘I know.’
    ‘What if True died?’ I asked.
    ‘What?’ asked Al, the smile dropping from his face. ‘Is she dying? Is she sick?’
    ‘No, no, no. Not to my knowledge, anyway.’ I gave Al a look. ‘I’m being hypothetical.’
    ‘Honestly, what is up with you this afternoon?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Next you’ll be dressing in black and listening to emo music.’
    I smiled. ‘That’s a funny image.’
    Al nodded, grinning. ‘Yeah, you and Draco Malfoy.’
    We laughed. Then we fell silent again.
    ‘I’d feel like shit if she died,’ Al said, after a moment. ‘But she’s not going to. Even if she did, it wouldn’t make a difference whether we were going out or not. I’d probably feel worse if we were.’
    ‘You’d regret it though,’ I said. ‘Not asking her out.’
    ‘Have you seen the looks she gives me?’ asked Al.
    ‘They’re not that bad,’ I said. ‘She gives me nasty glares as well, you know. Her face is pretty much permanently like that.’
    ‘I don’t think True’s