Page 17 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘OH, MY FUCKING DAYS, ELLA – your belly button looks fucking HUGE!’ Bianca screams. ‘You can see it sooo big through that top; it’s absolutely massive!’

I laugh it off. But no, the red rash is there, creeping up my chest and throat. I think of Bianca’s pierced belly button. A perfect noodly twist. A cockle, a piglet’s snout with its Britney Spears diamond underneath her massive boobs. Fuck you, Bianca, for being a bitch about my belly button, for choosing Lowe when you could have anybody you wanted. I’m Dolly Parton, wanting to beg Bianca not to take him just because she can.

I decide to head inside with my wishing well of a belly button and get some water so my rash can calm down. I might be able to get away with secretly slipping my trainers off and letting the soles of my feet cool on the kitchen tiles.

Dean’s glasses are all champagne flutes with gold-leaf rims. I use a Garfield mug, like the fat cat I am.

And it happens so quickly I don’t even have the chance to breathe.

‘Hi!’

It’s him. Lowe. Oh God. He’s wearing the same-but-different blue hoody, jeans and cap, this time, cocked up playfully. And he makes me dizzy. In one move he uses his arms, alone, to launch himself up into the sweet spot next to me on the counter, simmering, so shiny and twinkly.

And I am a magpie.

Once again, I am rushing from the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM of my own heart.

I melt down, like one of those thick trickling church candles, the way wax would drip like tears.

‘ … Ella?’

He says my name tentatively, because he’s cool, or in case he’s got it wrong, or is that his way of making out he doesn’t care? Or maybe he truly doesn’t remember my name. His voice is so low, uttered into the neck of his jumper, as smooth and sweet as caramel.

‘I didn’t think you’d be here,’ he says.

I tingle. ‘Yeah, those boys from your school invited us,’ I say. I blush again, my cheeks all hot.

‘So where are your lot then?’ he asks. Great, here we go … only moments before he finds Bianca and her great boobs and storybook wicked-witch beauty sucking cigarettes under Dean’s little olive tree.

‘Outside … ’ I look out the window behind the sink, where I can see them smoking on the patio.

‘I didn’t meet any of them properly the other night,’ he adds.

My belly tenses; I’m used to this, this gut-punch. Now I know he wants to meet my friends and not me, it makes things easy, gives me permission to move on. I point through the fake Tudor diamond effect on the double-glazed window.

‘That’s Aoife – my best friend; we’ve been best mates since we were three. That’s Shreya – she’s the funny one. Ronks – she’s basically a genius. The Twins – Louise is the one with the mole – that’s Bianca – she’s the wild one that—’

‘Which one are you then?’

I look at him. ‘Huh?’

I laugh, realizing I was introducing us like characters in a TV show. He dips his head closer to me, and I can smell him now, washing powder, outside air and adventure.

He says, laughing, so throwaway it could be a joke, or even an insult, I can’t tell, it just rolls out, ‘You must be the pretty one, then?’

The pretty one? I don’t think so. All the blood swims to my face. ‘Ha! No, I really don’t – think – I – am, no … ’ I’m obviously not so pretty anything.

He nods, like he’s absolutely certain of it but then bursts out laughing. Is he taking the piss? He’s winding me up, isn’t he? Or is he for real? This is heftily reminding me of the time a boy once said I looked like Cameron Diaz – I don’t, given that she’s blonde and a model – only to later find out later that what he actually said was that I looked like ‘a fat Cameron Diaz’; even then, nope, still don’t see the similarities. But maybe I’m just traumatized from that encounter? Bleugh, this is so AWKWARD and ADDICTIVE in equal measures I can’t cope. I don’t know where to look or how to be; my body is pancake batter and with the heat of him, jeeezzzz, I’m cooking crepes over here. The chemistry is … WHEW.

He nudges me gently with his shoulder, so I laugh back and he laughs more and I laugh more and oh GOSH I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or a joke. Our eyes up and down, and he tries to catch my gaze so we can Velcro lock in, but I just look shyly at my hands. I realize that he probably thinks I’m not taking his compliment seriously, and that it might have taken a lot for him to even say it. But nobody has ever really said I’m pretty before other than my dad, and of course he’d say that because I look exactly like him just with eyeshadow. UGH, it’s such a nice feeling that I wish I could bottle it and micro-dose like some mad vitamin with powerful propellant properties for the rest of my days. The things I could do with that in my system. I’d be unstoppable.

‘You are,’ he says, again.

AHHH! There’s nowhere for me to go. I’ve outgrown this body of mine. I want to burst through the ceiling of myself, and run rings around the planet.

‘You’re cute,’ he says.

Cute? I don’t want to be cute! Cute means friend. Means little sister. Means hamster.

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