Solitaire, Part 2 of 3 by Alice Oseman Read Free Book Online

me smile properly before? He doesn’t say anything. He just looks.
    And that is how the rest of my Saturday comes to be spent with Michael Holden.
    I didn’t bother changing. Michael invades our kitchen cupboards and teaches me how to make chocolate cake, and then we eat chocolate cake for the rest of the day. Michael cuts the cake into cubes, not slices, and, when I query him on this, he simply replies, “I don’t like to conform to typical cake-cutting convention.”
    Oliver keeps running up and downstairs showing Michael his large and varied collection of tractors, in which Michael takes a politely enthusiastic interest. I have a nap in my room between 4pm and 5pm while Michael lies on the floor and reads
Metamorphosis
. When I wake up, he tells me why the main character isn’t really the main character or something like that, and also how he didn’t like the ending because the supposed main character dies. Then he apologises for spoiling the ending for me. I remind him I don’t read.
    After that, the three of us clamber inside the living-room tractor and play this old board game called ‘Game of Life’ that Michael found under my bed. You receive all this money, sort of like Monopoly, and then the object of the game appears to be to have the most successful life – the best job, the highest income, the biggest house, the most insurance. It’s a very odd game. Anyway, that takes up about two hours and, after another round of cake, we play
Sonic Heroes
on the PS2. Oliver triumphantly beats us both, and I have to give him a piggyback for the rest of the evening as a result. Once I put him to bed, I make Michael watch
The Royal Tenenbaums
with me. He cries when Luke Wilson slits his wrists. We both cry when Luke Wilson and Gwyneth Paltrow decide they have to keep their love a secret.
    It is ten o’clock when Mum, Dad and Charlie get home. Charlie goes straight upstairs to bed without saying anything to me. Michael and I are on the sofa in the living room and he’s playing me some music on my laptop. He’s got it hooked up to the stereo. Piano music. Or something. It’s making us both doze off, and I’m leaning on him, but not in a romantic way or anything. Mum and Dad sort of stop in the doorway and just stay there, blinking, paralysed.
    “Hello,” says Michael. He jumps up and holds out a hand to Dad. “I’m Michael Holden. I’m Tori’s new friend.”
    Dad shakes it. “Michael Holden. Right. Nice to meet you, Michael.”
    Michael shakes Mum’s hand as well, which I think is a bit weird. I don’t know. I’m no expert on social etiquette.
    “Right,” says Mum. “Of course. Tori’s friend.”
    “I hope it’s all right that I came round,” says Michael. “I met Tori a couple of weeks ago. I thought she might be a bit lonely.”
    “Not at all,” says Dad, nodding. “That’s very kind of you, Michael.”
    This conversation is so boring and clichéd that I’m almost tempted to fall asleep. But I don’t.
    Michael turns back to Dad. “I read
Metamorphosis
while I was here. Tori told me you lent it to her. I thought it was brilliant.”
    “You did?” The light of literature dawns in Dad’s eyes. “What did you make of it?”
    They carry on talking about literature while I’m lying on the sofa. I see my mum stealing glances at me, as if trying to stare the truth out of me. No, I telepathically tell her. No, Michael is not my boyfriend. He cries at
Beauty and the Beast
. He taught me how to make chocolate cake. He stalked me when I went to a restaurant and pretended to forget why.

FIFTEEN
    WHEN I WAKE up, I can’t remember who I am because I’d been having some crazy dream. Soon, however, I wake up properly to find that Sunday is here. I’m still on the sofa. My phone is in my dressing-gown pocket and I look at it to check the time. 7.42am.
    I immediately head upstairs and peer into Charlie’s room. He’s still asleep, obviously, and he looks so peaceful. It would be nice if he always