Another Life Altogether: A Novel - By Elaine Beale Page 0,121

the sincerity she found there, she pulled a wide, beaming smile. “All right,” she said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward her. I felt loose, boneless, in her grasp. “I want to show you something.” As I stood close, delighting in her delicious presence, she began rifling about in one of the pockets of her coat. Then she pulled out a little box, struggled with one of her gloved hands to open it, and finally lifted the lid to show a gold locket set in the middle of a velvet cushion. “So, what do you think?” She held it a few inches away from my face.

“It’s lovely,” I said. It was heart-shaped, delicate, the kind of locket you’d give to someone you loved.

“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she said. “Here.” She thrust it into my gloved hand.

This was far more than I could even have hoped for. A gift like this said more than anyone could ever put into words. “It’s … It’s beautiful.” I said, almost breathless. “Thank you.” Then I threw my arms around her, pushed my face into hers, and planted a kiss on her lips.

I had written this a hundred times. In this delicious moment when I pulled Amanda to me, we wrapped our arms around each other, pressed our bodies close so that only the fabric of our clothes separated us, and our mouths melted together in a long heat-filled kiss.

But that wasn’t what happened. Instead of feeling limp and eager in my arms, Amanda seemed a column of stiffness, and rather than returning my kiss gratefully, as soon as I put my lips against hers she shoved me away.

“Jesse! What the hell are you doing?”

I staggered back. She had pushed me hard. I looked at her face—her eyes were bright with outrage, her lips twisted into a tight, revolted knot. As if instinctively wiping away dirt from her lips, she wiped her hand back and forth across her mouth. I watched her and felt the earth tilt, as if all gravity were gone and I was falling sideways, my head veering toward the ground.

“What the bloody hell was that about?” she demanded. “I just wanted to show you what Stan got me.”

I looked at the box, still sitting in my hand. “It’s from Stan?” I asked, still unable to find my balance, my heartbeat a drum pounding inside my ears. I didn’t understand. Amanda was finished with Stan. Only a couple of weeks ago she had kissed me. And now, when I tried to kiss her, she had hurled me away in horror.

“Yeah. What did you think?” Her forehead was wrinkled into a ferocious rippling question, then it suddenly smoothed. “Oh my God, you thought that I … you thought that you and me … you thought that when I kissed you …” Her expression changed and, instead of looking horrified she let out a loud, jagged laugh. It was a white cloud in the morning’s freezing air.

A solid, sickening realization fell over me: that kiss she had placed on my lips after the disco was nothing more than a drunken gesture of gratitude. I was an idiot to imagine that it had been anything else.

“No, no, I didn’t think that….” I was scrambling, flailing with words. “I just thought that maybe you had got the locket for me, and that was stupid.” I let out a hollow laugh. “But I didn’t think…. Of course, I didn’t think that.” My face was on fire, and my entire body was made of nothing more than hot liquid. Inside, I was boiling with shame.

Amanda studied my face for a moment, her brows knotted. I dropped my gaze to stare hopelessly at the ground. I knew what was coming next. I could already hear her taunts of “Lezzie, lezzie, lezzie,” echoing down the high street, through all the quiet streets of the village for everyone else to hear.

“So you like it, then?” Amanda asked.

“What?”

“The locket, you like the locket?”

I looked up and met her eyes. In them, green and dazzling and as beautiful as ever, I saw that she knew my secret. She knew exactly how I felt. “I’m sorry, Amanda, I—”

She shrugged. “Forget it, Jesse.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“I said forget it.” Her voice was firm.

I stood there, unsure if the ground beneath me was solid. I took a breath. “So you got back together with Stan, then?” I tried to make my voice sound light, to suppress the tears I felt rising. “That’s great.” I forced my