Page 16 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

I swallow, but it’s like swallowing a ball of discount socks from Sports Direct.

And then it gets interesting.

‘I think Lowe likes you, Ella,’ a Twin offers, linking my arm sweetly.

I gulp. Panic. Is it that obvious and she’s trying to make me feel better? OK. I have to stop this. I don’t want the attention on me; I don’t want to begin the Ella fancies Lowe campaign only to get publicly rejected.

‘No, he doesn’t. What makes you say that?’ I ask.

‘Errr … it was kind of obvious,’ the other Twin backs her sister up, like they’ve spoken about it in their marshmallow-soft pyjamas at night.

‘I don’t think he does,’ I say. ‘We just have things in common. That’s all. We both like music.’

‘Everyone likes music, Elbie!’ Aoife cackles. (Not everybody classes NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL MUSIC! as being into music, Aoife, but anyway.)

‘Not their kind of music,’ The Twin (it doesn’t matter which one) states, as if Lowe and I are into the friggin’ pan pipes.

‘So do you fancy him, Ella, or not?’ Bianca asks, really needing to know. Everyone zooms in. Shrey and Bianca stand there, blinking.

‘I … dunno. I didn’t really see him like that.’ Could I try lying any harder?

‘The dude looks like he has no pubes,’ Ronke cackles.

‘Truuussstttt me, Ronks, the boy’s got pubes!’ Shrey blurts and everyone laughs.

‘No, really, Ella, for real, so who do you like then?’ Bianca demands.

‘ … Errr … ?’ On the spot, my mind Rolodexes through all the boys I can think of like an emergency game of Guess Who? on fourteen Pro Plus, hoping it will all go away if I just say a name: say someone, Ella, anyone. ‘ … Er … ’ They wait – blink blink blink – but once I’ve said a name, that’s it, Lowe is up for the taking. Bianca looks impatient, Aoife unconvinced. Just say a bloody name. ‘ … Sam?’

‘SAM?’ they chorus like his name has come completely out of the blue because oh yeah it has.

‘Yeah?’ I say, making my face force a blush like a ‘lady’ in a Shakespearian play might when she’s confiding to the chicks about how besotted she is with her new beau. ‘Sam’s alright?’

‘Sam, you say? Oh yeah, Sam’s nice alright.’ Shreya proceeds to dry-hump a lamppost. We all laugh. ‘Sam is FITTTTTT!’

But Bianca’s not done with me yet. ‘So, I can pull Lowe tonight, yeah?’ (Like the guy doesn’t have a choice in the matter.)

I look down at my hands, my stupid ambitious shag bands, my chipped blue varnish and ugly bitten nails.

‘Yeah, course,’ I say, ‘go for it.’ Which is an anagram for SHUT THE FUCK UP!

‘You lot better set me up with Lowe tonight then … ’ Bianca threatens. ‘C’mon, Ella, you’re good at writing love poems. Tell me what you’re gonna say?’ She looks at me, begging to role play.

Why me?

‘Come on … practise.’ But instead she sends herself into some frenzied hysterical squeal: ‘Oh, just tell him I said he’s fit,’ she orders, landing the word ‘fit’ like a swear word. Then she untucks her boobs from a sticky underwire, reapplies more marzipan perfume – which comes in its red little devil bottle that looks exactly like the bloody boar’s heart that the Huntsman gives to the evil stepmother instead of Snow White’s – sucks her cheeks in and says, ‘OK, let’s go.’

The party, sorry, gathering, is at a new house. Mia was invited, apparently, but she’s busy, apparently. I haven’t spoken to her since the exorcist showdown at her house. I tried to call her house phone but her dad said she wasn’t in. I didn’t push because he clearly hates us now. We reckon she’s grounded.

The host’s name is Dean. And Dean has walked fresh out of a Nineties R’n’B music video. He has greased-back hair and wears a fitted ribbed woollen polo-neck jumper and too-tight white jeans. He meets all the girls at the door of his parents’ double-glazed-windowed house, with a plastic stemmed rose with fabric red petals – the petals are adorned with fake droplets made to look like dew, which have clearly been stuck on with a tube of UHU – until he runs out and has to ‘grab back’ the roses he only just handed out. When Dean introduces himself, he holds his hands over his chest in prayer position, asks us our name, repeats our names back at us to sear them into his brain and thanks the heavens, as if we’re fallen angels.

‘Where’d he learn this crap?’ Aoife whispers.

Dean’s house is full of shiny black marble, flecked with shards of silver and mother of pearl, black leather couches and flashy trashy gold ornaments of dolphins and elephants. There is a cream marble fireplace with ceramic statues either side of frosty livid-looking snow leopards with painted gold eyes. On display, a tacky black-and-white pro-studio photograph of Dean and his family, barefooted, arranged in the most awkward position you’ve ever seen, like they were playing Twister and the mat was removed at the last minute. Dean has ice buckets filled with Smirnoff Ice, speakers muffling badly downloaded hip hop, snack bowls filled with salt and vinegar Chipsticks and pastel Love Hearts – ‘sexy’ and ‘be mine’. Dean himself smells of CK One, Febreeze and an impenetrable desperation to lose his virginity on a bed of rose petals ASAP. He’s definitely been carrying a just in case condom in his back pocket since he was twelve.

‘No smoking inside and no going upstairs,’ Dean reminds us.

We head outside so Bianca can smoke. It’s still light, the sky like sherbet. I am extremely grown-up tonight. Maybe it’s my turquoise flicks; they really came out good. Maybe it’s my body? The way it fits into this snug pink top? Maybe it’s because I’m excited to see Lowe again—

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