Page 24 of Anxious Hearts
‘Really?’
He stopped hopping and grinned. ‘No, not really.’
Kelly slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine and wound down the passenger window. She leaned across to look up at him. ‘Goodnight, Eli.’
‘Goodnight, Kelly,’ he said, his eyes like saucers.
She let the handbrake off and put the car into drive.
Just as she was about to accelerate, Eli stuck his head through the open window. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘That thing you said about making something come true. It worked.’
‘No, it didn’t.’
Eli screwed up his face in confusion. ‘But I said I wanted you to kiss me again.’
‘Exactly,’ Kelly said. She started winding up the window.
Eli backed away, his hands raised in question.
Kelly stopped the window three-quarters of the way up, pulled away from the kerb, and called back to the big dope: ‘You kissed me!’
Chapter Thirteen
Monday 30 January
The next day, Juliana was waiting for Kelly in the Medical Registrars’ lounge. This was, strictly, a breach of protocol; only doctors were allowed in there. But Juliana was clearly oblivious to the dirty looks of the registrars milling around before their shifts began, her eyes locked on the phone cradled in her hand and her thumb moving up and down so rhythmically that Kelly was momentarily entranced.
Juliana seemed to sense her presence. She stopped scrolling, looked up and smiled maniacally.
Oh, no.
She stood up and fixed her crack addict–wide eyes on Kelly’s face. ‘The socials have gone mad for you!’
‘What? What socials?’
Juliana threw her arms out and spun in a full circle. ‘All the socials!’ she cried.
The other doctors death-stared Kelly, as though this was her fault.
‘Come outside,’ Kelly said.
Juliana followed her into the corridor like an adoring groupie. ‘We have to strike while you’re still trending.’
‘Strike what?’
Juliana paused. Tilted her head slightly. ‘Well, I don’t know exactly. It’s an expression. Anyway, what I mean is we need to get you on social media immediately.’
Kelly shook her head. ‘Out of the question.’
Juliana continued as though Kelly hadn’t spoken. ‘We’ll start with Facebook and Instagram, but I reckon you could also be huge on TikTok.’
Kelly shook her head again but seemed to have run out of words to object. She had thought ‘out of the question’ was definitive enough.
‘I get it,’ Juliana said. ‘You’re thinking, why the fuck would I want to be on Facebook? My parents are on Facebook. But that’s the whole point, Kelly. All those Boomers with too much money and nothing else to do have turned Zuckerberg’s innovation into an online nursing home. Mind you, Zuckerberg himself must be about forty by now. Can you imagine it?’
‘What?’
‘Being forty. I mean, shoot me now.’
