SOMEONE DIFFERENT by Kate Hanney Read Free Book Online

hands had been freezing, his fingers rough, and his nails dirty from working all day, he couldn’t have been more careful. And then, when he saw the cut, it was like it’d actually happened to him.
    I snuggled further down my bed, rested my cheek on my pink satin cushion, and smiled like Garfield. ‘Jay,’ I whispered. That’s what Becky had called him as we’d walked away to the office. Jay.
    Awe, I wish I could’ve remembered more about him. The tears and the dim light meant it’d been difficult to see anything very clearly when he spoke to me. His hood had covered his hair so I hadn’t seen that at all, but I guessed it was dark brown like his eyes; dark and deep and soft.
    He’d been wearing a black jacket, I saw that when we first drove into the yard, and grey tracksuit bottoms as well, I think. Then when he turned round, there was a tear down the front of his jacket, where you could see the white lining inside. But that’s it; I couldn’t remember anything else.
    Except that, well, all his clothes were sort of ... worn-looking; kind of grubby and faded. But of course they would be, wouldn’t they? Everyone who works with horses gets their clothes dirty, and their hands, and their nails; it’s what happens.
    Oh, I wish I hadn’t let them lead me away so soon; I wish I’d said something else to him.
    Would I get another chance tomorrow after school? God, I hoped so. I knew they were working at the yard on more than one day a week, but I didn’t know which ones.
    And even if he was there, would he be nice to me again? Or was today just him being kind because I’d hurt myself?
    No, don’t think like that. Think about his eyes shining down; his hands touching me.
    I pushed the duvet off to cool down, then propped myself up on my elbow and glanced at my watch; eight-thirty. Mum thought I’d left my dinner untouched and gone to bed so early because I was still shaken by what Tia had done. But of course it was just so I could have some peace to think about him without being interrupted.
    Somewhere, right at the back of my mind, there was a vague worry that Miss Welbourne would be phoning soon about the tuition, that Tia and I were never going to bond, and that I would never be able to handle her properly.
    But my stomach didn’t crumple, my hands didn’t shake, and not one, single tear sprung in my eyes.
    I looked at my hand again and beamed; what an awesome day!
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    9 – Jay
     
    Like I’d told Billy, it was nothing, was it? It might’ve seemed like it at first, but I mean we’d only said a few words to each other, and she’d been proper shook up; she probably didn’t even know what she was doing.
    And I suppose all she cared about, was that somebody’d stopped the horse for her. It could’ve been anybody: me, Becky, one of the other lasses who worked there – what did it matter to her? People probably did stuff for her all the time; I was just one of them. I bet she’d forgot I even existed by the time I let go of her hand.
    So what was it then? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her, and why did I wish I was going back there tomorrow instead of having to go into school?
    My stomach rumbled like a ten-ton lorry. I ignored it and pulled the duvet up higher. Then, closing my eyes, I imagined her face again. The tears where still there, but her blue, oval eyes and her soft, shy smile sort of sparkled through.
    Oh, for God’s sake get over it. She was just some stuck up little rich kid who wouldn’t look at me anyway, and even if she did , like Billy said, it was just cos she was after a bit of excitement, and she’d settle for anybody who’d give it her.
    Well, I’d got all the excitement I needed right there. I didn’t need her, and I didn’t need all the agro she’d bring either. Forget her; stick to what you know, mate, I told myself.
    But my last thought before I went to sleep, was about her.
     
    ***
     
    ‘Weck up!’
    My arm nearly got yanked