Page 71 of The Seemingly Impossible Love Life of Amanda Dean

Mandy traced the raindrops on the window and gazed up to the gray sky, a sinking feeling in her stomach. Maybe it was time to tell Roger to turn around.

Chapter Thirty-Four

December 2005

Never in a millionyears did Mandy ever think she would be spending New Year’s Eve in Paris. Mandy should’ve been home in California, but the closer and closer her departure date approached, the more apprehensive she was about actually going back. What would she be going back to anyway? Her old room in her parents’ house? Back to apply for colleges she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go to? Back to a town where everything in it reminded her of Isa?

It had been about four months since Mandy said goodbye to her, and it didn’t hurt any less to think about. She poured herself into her studies. Tried and failed at so many pieces, because she was blocked—because she wasn’t good enough. And she needed to talk to someone about it but couldn’t, since the only person Mandy needed wasn’t talking to her. Nor would there be any reason for Isa to ever want to talk to Mandy again.

Mandy couldn’t even make it home for Christmas. Her heartwas in the United States, but it wasn’t in California. It was somewhere on the East Coast. Breakups had never been this hard before. But Mandy knew why this one was different. Because Isa was different. Because their relationship was different. Because Mandy never wanted to break up with her to begin with. So she convinced her parents to come out and spend the holidays in Europe with her, and then she convinced them to allow her to extend her studies, saying she could apply to colleges from anywhere, and telling them schools wouldn’t take her midterm anyway.

The New Year’s party Mandy attended was in the flat of a friend of a friend of Sophie’s. Some guy with shoulder-length dark hair, deep brown eyes, warm bronze skin, and by the looks of the flat, lots of money. There were so many people, there was no place for Mandy to be alone—which was probably a good thing. Although this not being alone didn’t stop her from all the thoughts swirling in her head. Mandy didn’t know why she even agreed to come to this. Trying to socialize with a bunch of random people was the last thing Mandy wanted to do. Her plans were to go to the cantina near her flat, gorge herself on chips and terrible salsa, and then go home to cry in bed alone. So basically, the thing she had done at least once a week since being in Europe. But Sophie dressed her up and dragged her out, saying she couldn’t keep moping around. But moping was the only thing Mandy wanted to do.

She casually sipped from her bottle and pretended to be interested in the painting on the wall. A French artist from what Mandy could tell by the signature, but one Mandy hadn’t heard of before.

“Pretty,” someone said on her right. The voice was likeSophie’s—British, not French. A girl with platinum blonde hair and the bluest eyes stood next to Mandy in a sequined minidress.

“The composition is a little too busy for my tastes. But I do appreciate the limited color palette. It shows some restraint and makes you really think about why they placed the gold where they did.” Mandy tipped her head to the side, studying the piece a little more.

“I wasn’t talking about the painting.” The girl was looking straight at Mandy.

Mandy blinked.

“That was bad, wasn’t it? My mates told me to come over and talk to you, and now I must look like the biggest wanker. Giles said that Sophie said that you were into girls too and…I should piss off, shouldn’t I?” It was adorable the way her pale cheeks lit up like two bright neon cherries. Mandy had never really been hit on before like this. She was being hit on, right?

Mandy smiled. “No. You don’t have to go.”

The girl smiled back. “Cool. I’m Poppy.”

“Mandy.”

“Yeah, I know.”

For a moment they just stared at each other. Mandy swirled the liquid around in her bottle and got a whiff of what had to be Poppy’s perfume—lavender and patchouli. “So you were asking about me, huh?”

“You are the only posh American girl in the room. We all just really want to hear your accent. I know I could personally listen to it all night.”

Mandy laughed. “The feeling’s mutual.” And there were those red cheeks again. “Poppy’s fitting. At first, I’d say you are more of a sunflower, but I get it now.”

As though she knew what Mandy was talking about, Poppy touched her cheeks with both hands. “It’s a curse, really. I’m shit at poker.”

“There are worse things than not being able to lie.”

Poppy shrugged. “When you put it that way.”

Mandy wasn’t sure what to say. She stood there fidgeting with the bottle in her hands. The liquid inside had already grown warm, so she didn’t really want to drink it, but Mandy also didn’t know what she was supposed to do, so she took a small swig and tried not to make a face when the yeasty mixture hit her tongue. This whole flirting thing was exhausting.

“Yeah, I hate that stuff too.” Poppy lowered her voice. “Come on, let’s get you something better.”

Mandy didn’t really want anything else, but she also didn’t really want to talk about it, so she followed Poppy. The crowd of people’s faces blurred, their conversations crashed into the music playing somewhere in the background, turning it into the sound of a traffic accident.

In the kitchen it wasn’t as loud, but the scent of stale beer lingered like someone had spilled some and didn’t properly clean it up. Poppy took her time mixing an amber-colored fruity liquor with something like Sprite, but she called it lemonade. She joked and glanced at Mandy through her eyelashes, until she was finally done and handed Mandy a glass. It tasted significantly better than the warm beer.

In a way, it was strange being with Poppy. She was sweet, and funny, and pretty, and she was definitely flirting with Mandy—which was why Mandy’s stomach rolled around with moments of calm that shifted to moments of panic. Because there were things Poppy did that reminded Mandy of Isa. The way Poppywould lightly jab her elbow into Mandy’s side, or the way she could raise just one single eyebrow. Mandy alternated between being in the moment and not thinking of Isa at all, to all of her thoughts being consumed with her, which made being with Poppy excruciatingly awkward from time to time.

Poppy took a sip of her drink, blue eyes peering over the top of her glass. “Sophie said you’re a painter.”

That was what Mandy had come to Europe to learn more about, but she had way more failures than she did successes. And aside from showing in a “student gallery,” no one had ever even seen her work, so could she even call herself a painter? “I mean, I paint.”

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