It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,25

anything about me at all; is this all a huge joke to you; are you trying to ruin my life; I hate you; your hair looks good today.

‘You didn’t tell us you played spin the bottle!’ Lucy shouts at me, her voice high-pitched in outrage and excitement.

‘I didn’t play. Not really.’

Alex is watching me. His face is unreadable.

‘Do you and your friends usually play spin the bottle?’ Zach says to Alex.

‘No. It was Natalie’s idea,’ Alex says. He smiles at me. He’s enjoying this. I am not.

‘You made a party full of uni students you didn’t know play spin the bottle?’ Zach turns to me. His eyes are huge. He looks half impressed, half scared, like an alien might have taken over my body and will come bursting out of my skin at any moment.

‘Hang on. That is not how it happened,’ I say.

‘How did it happen?’ Lucy asks.

‘Well, everyone was playing a drinking game—’

‘You played a drinking game!’ Zach is being very dramatic today.

‘Calm down, Dad, and let her finish,’ Alex says.

‘Everyone else was playing the Never Have I Ever drinking game and I said I had never played spin the bottle and that’s how the game started,’ I say.

‘Why did you leave this out of your story?’ Zach says.

‘Who did you kiss?’ Lucy asks, almost breathless.

Now there is silence. Everyone looks at me.

‘No one,’ I say. My face feels very hot.

‘Who did you see kiss?’ Lucy asks.

‘It wasn’t like that. They went around the side of the house to kiss or whatever.’

‘Or whatever?’ Zach says, raising his eyebrows.

‘I don’t think anything actually happened.’

‘How do you know?’ Zach says.

‘Well, I don’t know. But they only had one minute.’

‘A lot of things can happen in a minute,’ Lucy says, in a serious tone, which makes Zach blush and Alex laugh.

‘Shut up and don’t say a word,’ Zach says to Alex.

Alex rolls his eyes, lifts his feet off the chair and wanders back inside.

‘Was he an arsehole to you last night?’ Zach asks me.

‘No.’

‘Did he look after you? I told him to look after you.’

‘You told him to look after me?’ My stomach drops.

‘Yes, of course I did,’ Zach says.

Suddenly everything makes sense. Everything that Alex said and did was out of obligation. Of course it was.

I feel a jolt of rage towards Lucy and Zach. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘We were worried about you there on your own,’ Lucy said.

‘I’m not that socially incapable.’ I am, but they shouldn’t think that.

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Well, you don’t need to organise secret chaperones for me at parties.’

‘That’s not what we did,’ Zach says.

‘It seems like it.’

I get to my feet, and the two of them stare at me like I’m acting crazy. Which, yes, I am. But all my jittery energy finally has a focus. How dare they tell Alex to look after me? I feel stupid. Alex just sees me as his little brother’s clueless friend. None of what happened means anything anymore.

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Natalie, don’t go. I’m sorry,’ says Lucy. Nothing stresses her out more than someone being angry at her, especially me (and her mother).

But I flounce out in a huff, riding high on the knowledge I am in the right, and they are wrong, and the world is unfair and awful and out to get me, and I can blame it all on two people. Well, four, actually, because my parents have a lot to answer for too.

7

Ten Minutes of Fun

I hesitate on the front porch when I realise it has started to pour with rain and I don’t have an umbrella and the nearest tram stop is a seven-minute walk. I have to leave though. You cannot return after a dramatic storm out. I hover in the doorway, considering what to do.

Alex walks past me, shoving his feet into thongs.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ he says.

‘A lift where?’

‘Wherever you’re going.’

‘I could live on the other side of the city for all you know.’

‘I know it’s not far. You’re here way too often for it to be miles away.’

I frown at him and cross my arms. ‘I’m not here that much.’

‘The offer disappears in ten seconds.’

He runs out into the rain, shouting over his shoulder. ‘Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three—’

‘Okay, I’m coming!’ I yell, as I run out into the rain behind him.

I open the passenger door, throw myself into the car and tell him my address. He pulls out into the street and we fall into silence. Normally I’m good with