It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,54

know what tone. That tone. I hate that tone.’

‘Because I’m mad at you. You’re hooking up with my brother behind my back, and you weren’t going to tell me. I’m allowed to be mad.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says the rules of the universe. When have you ever heard of someone being happy with their sibling and best friend getting together?’

‘All the time. The normal response is joy and happiness.’

‘Give me one example of someone being happy in this situation.’

‘I hate it when you do that “give me an example” crap.’ It’s Zach’s go-to move in an argument and it’s annoying.

‘Well, look, I can’t help how I feel, and I’m mad.’

‘At who?’

‘Both of you.’

‘And how long are you going to be mad?’

He frowns and my heart lurches a little, in the way it does when you look at someone and suddenly think, wow, this person is so precious to me, while simultaneously thinking, wow, this person is more irritating than anyone else on Earth. I hate you, I love you, I want to slap you.

‘I don’t know. Maybe a while. How long is this thing with you and Alex going to last?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe a while.’

Zach kind of half-snorts, half-grunts.

‘What?’ I say. Someone half-snorting, half-grunting at the idea of me being in a relationship confirms all my worst suspicions about myself.

‘I don’t see that happening.’

‘Wow. Thanks, Zach. That’s a really lovely thing to say.’

‘Not because of you. Because of him.’

‘Still terrible.’

‘Think about it for a minute. Alex likes going out and partying. Most of his friends are awful. He gets bored easily. He’s probably still in love with his ex-girlfriend. He doesn’t go to uni. He works weird hours. He’s on Tinder. You are not right for each other.’

‘We could be right for each other,’ I say, as if this is a solid rebuttal to anything on Zach’s deeply unnerving list. The very word ‘Tinder’ sends a shiver down my spine. The ex-girlfriend mention makes me want to vomit. I am way out of my depth.

‘Can you hear yourself?’ Zach says.

‘Yes, I can hear myself. Can you hear what you’re saying? You’re basically saying there’s no way Alex could possibly like me.’

And I agree, a part of me wants to shout, but I would never give Zach the satisfaction. The more he voices my deepest fears, the harder I am going to push back.

‘That’s not what I’m saying at all,’ he says.

‘Yes it is.’

‘Natalie, I’m saying that I’m worried that this thing won’t work out and you’ll be the one to get hurt. He has a history of stuffing things up.’

‘Do me a favour and stop worrying about my ability to cope with things, thanks,’ I say, as viciously as I possibly can, even though I have admittedly spent years of our friendship establishing myself as someone who can’t cope with things.

‘Fine. But don’t come running to me when he breaks your heart,’ Zach says, as Anthony opens the passenger seat door.

‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ I say.

You are being a shitty friend to me, I want to scream at him, even while a part of me is worried I am being a shitty friend to him.

Anthony hands us icy poles, and then jumps out of the car again to show Sal where the toilets are.

‘I would never be with a member of your family,’ Zach says, unwrapping his icy pole.

An irrelevant point when I have no siblings.

‘You and Lucy got together, which is kind of the same thing,’ I say.

In fact, it might be worse.

I bite off a chunk of my Frosty Fruit, which I know will irritate Zach, because his teeth hurt when he sees someone biting into anything frozen.

‘No, it’s not,’ he says, visibly cringing at the sight of my teeth on the ice.

‘You don’t think that was hard for me?’

‘That was different. For a start, we fell in love.’ He swallows after he says this. I know he and Lucy have said ‘I love you’ to each other, I know that they text each other hearts and ‘love you’, but he’s never said it so explicitly to me before. I can’t help making a mental note to tell Lucy later, because I know it will make her happy that he said it, and that his eyes softened when he did.

But right this second, I need to be angry. ‘You think you are so much better than me, don’t you?’ I say.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Yes, you do. You and Lucy are this great love story, and I’m just a pathetic loser who’s