Diary of a Crush: French Kiss

Book 0: Diary of a Crush

by Sarra Manning

Genres: YA Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

New town, new college, new people, Edie's feeling overwhelmed. What if nobody wants to be her friend? But then something happens that turns her life upside down: Edie spots Dylan. Messy-haired, pouty, frustratingly elusive Dylan. . . Fast forward to the college trip to Paris and things are really heating up. In between the shopping, the clubbing, the kissing and the making up, something happens between Edie and Dylan that changes both their lives for ever. But do boys like Dylan ever play for keeps?

Release date: April 30, 2013

Publisher: Atom

Print pages: 158

Sample

Do you ever get the feeling that you’re waiting for your life to begin? I feel like I invented that feeling. ’Cause today is all about shiny, new things. Scary, shiny new things. And instead of jumping out of bed, ready to dazzle the world with my brightest smile and my cute new hairslides, I’m huddled under my duvet, scribbling in my new Cath Kidston notebook.

I mean, I should be rising to the challenge but, y’know, not so much. It’s my first day at college so, officially, I’m not a schoolgirl any more. And, OK, I might be doing A-levels but I’m doing ’em at a college where there are art students and drama students and everyone (apart from the savage, psycho Barbies studying Hairdressing who laughed at me in the canteen on the day I had my interview) is achingly cool.

So, how come I know that I’m going to feel so young and phoney compared to everyone else? Like, someone’s going to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Hey kid, you don’t belong here, back to school.’ But school and my friends are miles and miles away. Why did Dad have to get a new job and decide to transfer me, Mum and Pudding halfway across the country? Because he’s hellbent on ruining my life and destroying what little self-esteem I have, that’s why.

 

Did my heart love till now?

I got this massive lecture from the parents at breakfast about ‘making more of an effort to fit in’ and ‘we know the move was hard on you but it’s been four weeks and you should have adjusted by now’. I’m sure they’ve taken lessons in how to make me feel like a socially dysfunctional freak of nature. They don’t understand though. All the people in my classes at college were at school/youth club/Brownies together and they just completely ignore me. And, besides, it’s really hard to just crowbar myself into other people’s conversation, like, ‘Me too! I love The Vaccines. Isn’t the lead singer just the dreamiest?’ Insert retching noises.

But I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of this (my mother is the missing link between Rottweilers and rat-catchers) so I got pro-active and signed up for a Photography course that starts next week. I might not make any friends but at least I’ll learn how to take arty, grainy black ’n’ white shots of dead trees and stuff.

So, directly after scribbling my name onto the sign-up sheet on the noticeboard, I was ambling down the corridor, nothing on my mind but whether I should have another packet of Skips, when five minutes later my entire life changed! One moment it sucked and then the next, nothing was going to be the same again. No warning, no booming music. There I was in the canteen scraping a plastic stirry thing through the hot-chocolate granules at the bottom of my cup and hoping no-one would notice me sitting there all alone, when I looked up, locked into a pair of deep blue eyes, and felt my spiritual self shift into orbit.

His face was all hard planes and angles, cheekbones and jawline softened only by these pillowy lips. His hair was equally confused and couldn’t decide whether it was a fin or a mullet or just really messy or all of the above. But it was the colour of liquorice, or maybe that really dark chocolate that I can only eat in tiny amounts because it’s too rich. He was wearing jeans that were faded on the knees and dark blue everywhere else, a striped shirt and a suit jacket. All of him was in chaos and it was hard to work out whether he was beautifully odd or oddly beautiful. I never knew boys could be beautiful but this one was.

Then he kinda looked beyond me and frowned as if he was annoyed at my audacity for daring to be in his line of vision. Boys that look like that always reckon they can get away with that kind of behaviour. He’s probably an arrogant dickweed but he’s a drop-dead gorgeous, arrogant dickweed.

I saw him again, later that afternoon, striding across the college lawn like the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. It was like everything around him slowed down and then I heard someone shout, ‘Dylan!’ and he turned round. His name’s Dylan. Of course he’s called Dylan. How could he be called anything else?

This is what I’ve found out about Dylan, or the heir to my heart, as I now think of him:

 

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He’s on the Art Foundation course, and he’s 19. He’s three years older than me. Age gaps are very sexy.

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That means he’s done his A-levels already.

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He’s one of the in-crowd, along with his two friends: Paul (bleached streaks, old-skool trainers) and Simon (really tall, goatee-d, always wears a black turtle-neck).

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They spend a large part of each day in the café across the road, but upstairs, which apparently is far more socially acceptable than downstairs with all the housewives.

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Dylan works in Rhythm Records on Wednesday afternoons and all day Saturday.

How do I know all this? Because, I was incredibly brave today and actually spoke to this girl, called Mia, on my course.

I was sitting in our English class with an empty desk on the other side of me and an animated, ‘I’m just waiting for all fifty of my closest friends to suddenly materialise’ expression on my face, when she plonked herself down next to me.

I glanced at her but she was rummaging about in her bag so I went back to doodling Dylan’s name all over my notebook.

‘I like your nail varnish.’

No-one has ever spoken to me at college apart from the teachers, so it took me a moment to process the information that she was actually talking. To me. I looked at a sparkly red nail and then at her. She gave me a look like she thought I was possibly mentally challenged.

‘Um, thanks. I didn’t realise you were speaking to me,’ I muttered.

She nodded impatiently. ‘So, are you from Manchester Girls’ School? I don’t recognise you.’

It was strange. Like, she wasn’t actually being rude but there was something in her tone of voice that wasn’t far off it.

‘No, I’m from Brighton,’ I said, and I’ve never been more aware of my posh southern accent. ‘My dad got transferred here over the summer. My name’s Edie.’

‘Eddie?’

‘No, Edie. It’s short for Edith.’ I mumbled the last bit because I hate the evil joke that my parents decided to put on my birth certificate.

‘I’m Mia,’ the girl announced. ‘I was named after this actress called Mia Farrow.’

‘It’s a cool name,’ I ventured nervously because it was, and after a moment’s pause, Mia smiled at me.

‘Thanks. So do you like living here?’

‘It’s all right,’ I said without much conviction. ‘I miss my friends though.’

Mia nodded and then glanced over at my notebook, which was lying on the desk with Dylan’s name plastered all over it.

‘Oh, Dylan,’ she grinned knowingly. ‘He’s very snackable. When did you meet him?’

My face went exactly the same shade as my nail varnish and I stuttered some nonsense about how Dylan was actually the name of a guy from Brighton but Mia wasn’t buying it for a second.

‘Yeah, right,’ she snorted. ‘Everyone loves Dylan. It’s like a rite of passage thing. You get breasts, you realise that sitting downstairs in Fritzsch’s is terminally uncool and you fall in love with Dylan.’

‘Are you in love with Dylan then?’ Just by saying his name, it felt like I’d signed my soul over to the devil.

Mia snorted again. ‘No, because I’m in love with his best friend, Paul. He’s in love with me too. We’re a regular love fest.’

And then she went into this long, complicated story about Paul and his ex-girlfriend that I couldn’t really follow but I nodded a lot and then I tried to make a few discreet enquiries about Dylan but I might just as well have had ‘I fancy Dylan’ tattooed on my forehead. Yeah, that’s how subtle I am.

Dylan sat at the table in front of me today in the canteen, but, like, facing me. I pretended to be engrossed in one of my English books but I couldn’t help stealing these glances at him. His left eyebrow is broken by a scar, a thin white line; it made me feel weird every time I looked at it. I wonder how it happened.

I think he was copying someone’s homework (do Foundation Art students get homework?) because he sat all hunched over a pile of papers and an A4 pad, a pen clenched in his long fingers, and his forehead all crinkled up, like he was deep in thought.

It made me feel sad because even though he was just a couple of metres away from me, he was really a million miles out of my reach. He was beautiful and everyone loved him and there I was sharing breathing space with him and he didn’t even know I existed.

I felt small and insignificant. He was a proper person. I was just a stupid kid.

He probably didn’t trip up the bus stairs regularly or lose all his cognitive thought processes when he was in close proximity to someone he fancied. Oh, please don’t let him fancy anyone!

And then he looked up. And his face came to life as this girl sashayed over to him and planted a kiss on his cheek. A pretty, hipster girl with an inky black bob and a slash of crimson lipstick and a cute black mini-dress, which would have looked ridiculous on me.

That would be Shona, Paul’s infamous ex-girlfriend. Mia told me all about her yesterday. Apparently her and Dylan have been friends ever since they bonded in a sandpit at nursery school and they practically grew up together. So, that would make them like brother and sister, but I’ve never seen any siblings lovin’ it up like they were. She was playing with his hair and he was JUST LETTING HER.

And the other suckiness that was my day? The people in my English class hate me. They were sitting on the next table along from me in the café and talking about how I was ‘up myself’ and ‘weird’. Better than being a bunch of cookie-cutter deadheads.

I’m just back from a weekend in Brighton, staying with the grand’rents and hanging out with my old friends. It’s only been a month since I last saw them but everything seemed different. Toby and Alice are now going out, which just amazes me because I can still remember the time we were rehearsing the Nativity play at infant school and he wet himself and then pulled baby Jesus’ crib over the puddle. Alice is snogging him on a regular basis! Tish has dyed her hair pink. Eve’s parents are splitting up. I can’t believe how much happens in such a short space of time. They were all talking about sixth-form college and having long conversations about people I didn’t know and though they made a big effort to include me, I felt like I was being left behind. I know what will happen. The phone calls and the emails and the monthly visits will all tail off and, eventually, we’ll lose contact. So I won’t have any friends left there and I certainly don’t have any friends here.

I couldn’t write last night because my hands were still shaking! Picture the scene: me skulking into that stupid Photography course in my skinny jeans that sag at the knees and a scruffy old black T-shirt ’cause I couldn’t be arsed to make any effort and then I nearly fall out of my Converses because who’s taking up the back row but Dylan! And Paul! And Simon! In fact, the whole class was full of art students (apparently they have to take it as part of their course), so Martyn (the tutor) told me to sit in the back row next to Paul as there was nowhere else to sit.

It was the most exquisite torture. Paul sort of smiled at me but my face had contorted into this weird grimace. And then Dylan leaned across Paul and spoke to me.

‘Hey,’ he said in this voice that was all broken glass and silk. ‘Have you got a spare pen I can borrow?’

I am the lamest girl in the world. All I could do was shake my head. My tongue had become this heavy, lumpy thing. But when I got my camera out (a ‘sorry for ruining your life’ present from Dad) I heard him say to Simon, ‘She’s got a cool camera!’

The photography lesson went straight over my head. I couldn’t take my eyes off Dylan’s hands. He’s got beautiful fingers; they’re really long and thin and look like they should be permanently picking out chords on a shiny, red gee-tar. Also, when the class was over, they all went out for coffee but he held the door open for me and WINKED at me! I can’t believe that my stomach lurched at such obvious behaviour but, hey, it did. My everything lurched.

College has been a lot better. I get on really well with Mia. Well, she goes on and on about Paul (she’s made me tell her, like, fifty times about sitting next to him in Photography) and I’ve started hanging out with these two boys, Nat and Trent, from my History of Art class. They’re really cool. Nat has the naughtiest expression on his face all the time, like he’s thinking evil things. And Trent is so pint-sized and cute that I want to pick him up and stash him in my pencil case and take him home. They came over to talk to me when they saw the Rookiemag.com sticker on my folder and said that they’d seen me around and had been daring each other to come and say hello.

‘Why didn’t you just come over and say hi?’ I asked them. And Nat just shrugged and said that they were a bit intimidated by me, which is so wrong because I am the least intimidating person in the world. I mean, fluffy little baby bunny rabbits are more intimidating than me.

But the best thing that’s happened is that Dylan is now actively aware of my existence! He smiles at me when he sees me. I can’t believe I’m being such a wuss over a mere boy-shape, I seem to be losing all my kick-ass faculties.

In fact, everything was swimming along quite pleasantly and then life suddenly got seriously heavy and weird. When I got to Photography class yesterday (late as usual, but I had made a special effort and put on my favourite polka dot vintage dress and my new pink Converses), the only seat free was next to Dylan.

I felt as if all the molecules in my body were straining towards him. He was wearing a faded Coca-Cola T-shirt that had these little holes in it, like it was really old. And I realised that if I leaned very slightly to my right, his bare arm would be touching my bare arm, which made me feel almost sick with nerves.

I didn’t even dare sneak any sideways looks at him but then Martyn said we had to get into pairs to do this assignment and told us to work with the people next to us. Yup, the impossible just fell right into my lap – Dylan’s my photographic partner! But instead of being pleased, it just made me want to cry.

I couldn. . .