Are you still here? I’m surprised. I’m a bit horrible. I’m sorry you had to witness that.
I curl up on my bed and have a mini cry—a wrong-time-of-the-month sort of sob at a sad film. I can see that Mum loves Gary. The calm part of my brain can see that he makes her laugh, and he rubs her dry heels with cocoa butter. She’d been single for years because she didn’t want to settle for second-best. Gary came along with his posh mountain bike and amazingly expensive muesli and—BANG!—it was major relationship time. So believe me—I don’t want to ruin my mum’s happiness.
But if I’m honest, the whole situation is making me really unhappy. This house feels like a ride at a theme park that never stops, and I can’t get off. And it’s not making me feel good. My chest feels tight. And the thing is, in that argument with Mum, I didn’t even sound like me. I’m usually totally chill and …
Okay, let’s just say it: sensible.
It’s a CURSE. I’ve always been that way. I blame Mrs. Woods. She wrote in my school report: Millie is a girl with plenty of common sense. How did she know? Well, when Stephen Pearson broke his arm while running around on the playground, pretending to be an owl, I was the one who suggested that we should probably call an ambulance. Everyone else was trying to find a phone to get a photo. Including, probably, Mrs. Woods.
I was nine.
I know. Sweet. But also a bit tragic.
You can be anything at school—geeky with geek chic, a cosplayer, or a MAJOR member of the Nerdverse—that’s basically ALL FINE. No one cares. Bradley Sanderson in the year above has a vlog chann called The King of Elevation, where he films himself in lifts or going up and down escalators. One of his videos has seventy-seven thousand views! That’s way more than Erin has ever got for one of her mindful-in-mohair posts. To some people—admittedly not many at school—HE is the BOMB.
But me? Being the sort of person that is quite … wise? Well, I’m less cool than Daniel Gyver from tenth grade, who can chew through six entire pens in one geography lesson, including the metal nibs.
My friends love me. Mum says I’ve got a good ear and a soft shoulder. She doesn’t mean I’ve got a floppy, mushy body (sorry—you probably realized that). She means I usually know what to do in a crisis. Even the sort of crisis that Lauren says makes you hide in your bedroom for days eating crisps and playing Pet Doctor.
I can usually cope with my weird family. I can even cope with real men. I’ve had a REAL BOYFRIEND—Dylan Anthony. Yes! Him! HE was mine. For a month and a half. Until we had a massive row over the suffragettes. He thought they were overreacting. I said not being allowed to vote JUST because you’re a girl was a pretty big deal.
I know. I sound like a right doofus. But in that moment, it just felt RIGHT. This is why I feel so panicky now. I’m not normally the one having a meltdown. I’m not the one who makes any silly decisions, and yet, here I am about to.…
It is not sensible to want to leave your mum and go live with a man who still lives with his own dad at the age of thirty-eight and who once used elastic bands and a copy of Top Gear magazine to make you a diaper.
There is not much common sense there, Mrs. Woods. But this is what I want to do.
Perhaps I just need time—some time to stop being a wobbling mess. I’m not a dessert shaking in a desert. I’m Millie. I’m …
I need to go.
For once, I’m going to follow my heart, and my head can just … shut up, be quiet, and DISAPPEAR. If it possibly can. And if it can’t, my heart can go out partying alone and my brain can stay home with a tub of ice cream and watch a film.
I must be nervous. Can’t stop thinking of desserts. CLASSIC sign.