All the Little Things Sarah Lawton (red white royal blue TXT) 📖

on her fingers and chewing on her nails. Becky is scribbling away next to her, head close to the paper, leaning to one side like the scratching of the pen is a language that maybe she could understand if only she can get close enough. She’s making revision flash cards. I don’t need those. I can remember pretty much anything once I’ve read it, though eventually I’ll forget it if it’s something pointless. What’s the point of memorising loads of dates of when boring dead people did stupid shit in real life? It’s not going to help you budget your crappy wages from your dead-end job, is it? Not that I’m going to have a crappy job. Once I’ve figured out what will make me the most money with the least amount of effort I’ll be set. Probably banking or hedge funds or something. I thought about studying law, but I don’t think I’d like the hours you have to work. I’d also rather have a job where you don’t have to speak to idiots, but I’d imagine being a criminal lawyer might be interesting. Or a psychologist, full to the top of everyone’s darkest, slimiest secrets. Maybe that. Not that any of the ones I spoke to were particularly clever: they sucked up everything I told them and just regurgitated it in a way that made them sound clever, but certainly didn’t fix me in the way they wanted, the way I made them think they had. There’s nothing about me that needs fixing.

I’ve texted Molly again, but she still isn’t answering, and I don’t know what to say to Tilly so I haven’t sent anything to her. I guess we’ll get her some flowers or a plant or something useless that’s supposed to make you feel better. I might have a picture somewhere with Tristan in it. I went through a phase of taking photos of everyone, secretly, if I could. Posed photos are the worst: you can’t see people when they are posing. I’ll have a look later. Maybe, if I can be bothered.

‘There you are.’

After I get down off the ceiling a warm thrill runs through me. It’s Alex, he must have been looking for me. He’s not supposed to be in our library, he could get in trouble.

‘Hey.’ I brush my fringe out of my eyes and peep over to where Chloe and Becky are sitting. They’ve both noticed, perking up their ears. Alex slides into the seat next to me and puts his arm over the back of my chair and both their mouths drop open at the same time. This. Is. Amazing. They are looking at me! Alex doesn’t notice, he just trails a finger over my shoulder, back and forth. I can feel it through the thin material of my shirt and my chest gets tight. His touch burns me. I can feel heat creeping up my neck and before it can reach my cheeks, I reach up with my hand to link it with his.

‘Shall we go somewhere else?’

Picking up my bag, I smirk at Chloe and Becky and then I follow Alex out of the library and into the blinding sunlight. It makes me sneeze, like it always does, and then he sneezes, too.

‘You’ve got it as well,’ I tell him, wiping my eyes and laughing.

‘Got what? Hay fever?’

‘Oh, maybe, no, I thought it was the sun? The light makes me sneeze. It’s a genetic thing – photic sneezing. My tear ducts are a bit wonky and when the sun makes my eyes water a bit goes the wrong way and makes me sneeze.’

‘Ah, I do have that! I thought everyone did it. I thought it was your eyes protecting themselves from the light. You can’t sneeze with your eyes open.’

‘In case they fall out?’ I laugh. ‘Nope. We’re special. Apparently you have a fifty per cent chance of getting it from your mother. Does your mum sneeze? Mine does.’

‘I hadn’t noticed.’

I notice his mouth press when I mention his mother, so I make a note not to ask him about family any more. What do I talk to him about, though? It’s not going to be easy, even following up on the world’s most boring sneezing conversation.

‘How has your day been?’

‘Fine. Great. Everything going to plan.’

‘What plan?’

‘Ah, wouldn’t you like to know!’ He slings his arm around my shoulders again, pulling me to him before dropping his hand to mine and gathering it up.

I don’t like it when people have secrets. I want to know about everything. I don’t mind if people still think they have secrets after I have found out about them, though. That’s just useful. I’m still not sure what else to do about Molly’s secrets. At least Tristan’s can’t hurt me any more. Us, I mean. Tristan’s name in my mind seems to have transferred itself to Alex’s mouth, and he asks me about him.

‘How are you feeling? About the accident?’

‘Awful, it’s so sad. He was only seventeen.’ I find my mother’s words coming out of my mouth: something tells me they are more palatable than my own thoughts, which are basically I wish everyone would stop fucking asking me. I don’t see the point of grief: everyone dies eventually.

‘It’s all right if you don’t care, you know.’

‘What? Of course I care. That’s a weird thing to say.’ It is weird, but it also makes me feel good, because of course I don’t actually care that much and am just waiting for everything to go back to normal. It intrigues me to think he might go against the grain as much as I want to.

‘Well, you told me, didn’t you, what he did to you the other week. That was well out of order. Maybe bad things sometimes happen to bad people, too.’ He’s looking at me as he says this, and he looks… I don’t know. I find it hard to tell how other people are feeling sometimes. I’m not sure what he wants