Leap of Faith (22 page)

Which was a good point. As if things weren’t complicated enough already.

‘Actually, I wasn’t thinking you were a horrible hypocrite, but thanks for suggesting it because now I come to think about it, it was hypocritical. Wasn’t it?’

He looked at the ground. ‘I . . . Dawn said she didn’t mind.’

‘What if I minded? You were just using me to see if you wanted to do this whole casual relationship thing.’

‘Is that what you think?’

That didn’t seem like a fair question.

‘What am I supposed to think?’

‘Faith!’ Westy grabbed me by the shoulder. ‘Faith, you’ve got to tell this bloke that inside my manly body is the heart of a child! He says I’m too old for the bouncy castle.’

‘Sorry, Westy. I’m . . . I’ve got a bit of a headache. I think I’m going to sit in the shade for a while.’

I turned to leave but Megs caught my arm and gave me an enquiring look.

‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘I just need to cool down for ten minutes.’

So I walked off to the edge of the field and sat down under a tree with my back to the crowds. I wasn’t sure if I was being daft or not. I just felt a bit hurt. It seemed like the only reason Ethan had even thought about kissing me was to play Dawn at her own game.

‘Oh, it’s you.’

I looked up to find Icky and someone who I assumed must be her latest boyfriend. He had that look in his eyes; you know, the look of someone who’s been hit around the head with a cricket bat until they agreed to a date with a girl who I can only imagine came about as the result of an ill-thought out experiment to splice the heart of a troll into the body of a pig.

Icky looked down her snout at me. ‘I should have known. You’re the only person sad enough to come to a music festival by yourself.’

I really wasn’t in the mood for this so I stood up. ‘I’m not by myself! My friends are over there.’

She smirked. ‘Of course they are. Do they always make you sit in the next field?’

I looked at the boy. He was shifting uncomfortably.

‘Bet you didn’t know she was such a charmer, huh?’

He turned to Icky, but didn’t quite manage to look her in the eye. ‘Actually, Vicky, I’m just going to go and find Dan.’

And he was gone.

I beamed at Icky. ‘Wow. He didn’t last long, did he? Either you’re going to have to start dating boys who don’t mind your nasty remarks, or you’re going to have to learn to keep up the pretence that you’re not an evil, rat-toothed, imbecilic, stinking, pig-troll for a little longer.’

‘At least I’ve got a boyfriend.’

‘Yeah, we’ll see. Anyway, Vicks, it’s been a blast but I expect you’ve got pig-troll business to do, so off you go. It’s over there.’

She turned round to look. ‘What is?’

‘The burger stall.’

‘Why would I want to go over there?’

‘I thought you might need the condiments. Bit of ketchup, maybe a drop of mustard.’

She put her hands on her hips. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Your head. I can’t imagine anyone could possibly chomp that down without a bit of sauce. After all, it’s mostly fat and gristle, isn’t it?’

‘What?’

‘Remember? You said if one of my lot got to be head girl that you would eat your own head. And Angharad has been officially appointed.’

She shook her fatty gristle head. ‘You’re ridiculous.’

‘Hmm, maybe. The thing is, Angharad is one of my very best friends. Which means that if I have a ridiculous idea about how you should be the prefect in charge of litter duty or the Year Nine bus queue, then I think Angharad will listen to me, don’t you?’

She narrowed her hard little eyes. ‘You are such a b—’

‘Brilliant predictor of an accurate future?’ someone interrupted.

I knew it was Ethan, even before I turned round. He was stood right next to us holding an ice cream. I’ve got no idea how long he’d been listening for.

‘No, she’s a lit—’

‘A little diamond,’ Ethan interrupted again.

Icky looked between the two of us. ‘You’re both completely—’

‘Awesome!’ Ethan and I said together.

Icky gave one oink-roar of frustration and stropped off.

Serves her right.

There was a pause.

Ethan held out the ice cream.

‘I bought you this. I thought it might help you cool down.’

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Oh.’ He looked at the ice cream and then around the field and I knew he was looking for a bin.

Suddenly, I was cross with him again. ‘There’s no need to throw it away! There’s no point in letting it go to waste.’ I reached out and took it from him. ‘What are you? Some kind of moron?’

‘Apparently so.’ He looked a bit upset and I was glad because at least that meant he cared what I think about him.

But that didn’t let him off the hook. ‘Yeah, well, no one likes feeling that they’re someone’s failed experiment and I—’

‘Faith, listen to me.’

‘I don’t want to listen to you.’

‘But you’ve got to. Stop talking and eat your ice cream.’

I took a lick or seven. Just so it didn’t melt everywhere.

‘Faith, this isn’t about Dawn, I don’t care about Dawn. It’s about you.’

Which is a sentence I usually enjoy hearing, but I still wasn’t satisfied. ‘But . . . the ghost train, you said it was because Dawn said—’

‘I wanted to kiss you in the ghost train because I’ve always wanted to kiss you.’

I froze. He wanted to kiss me.

‘I wanted to kiss you during choir rehearsals, at the playground, at your birthday party. That time Cam threw vegetable soup over us; there isn’t a single location in this town that I haven’t thought about kissing you in.’

I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. A little seed of happiness was sprouting inside me, but things still didn’t quite make sense. ‘But you
didn’t
kiss me in the ghost train because you liked Dawn.’

‘
No
.’ He said it so firmly that a girl walking past turned around to look at him. Ethan didn’t notice, his eyes were fixed on me. ‘No, that’s not what happened.’ He took a step closer to me and my heart squeezed hard. ‘I didn’t kiss you then because I liked you too much. I didn’t want things to be like that between us. I wanted it to be special and I wanted it to be just about us. Nobody else.’

This was amazing. And yet I was distracted by a small voice in my head cursing me for ever accepting that stupid ice cream. Ethan was finally saying the words I’d waited so long to hear, and all I could do was worry about drips. Something really important was happening here. He had said ‘us’ like that was a thing. I risked a look at him.

His dark eyes were watching me, large and earnest. He took a deep breath. ‘I split up with Dawn because I wanted to be with you. I didn’t think that was going to happen because you always seemed to be interested in someone else, but I still had to split up with her because I didn’t want to be with anyone who wasn’t you.’

Oh wow. I swallowed. ‘But . . . you were so cross with me when you found out I knew about Dawn and that boy in McDonalds.’

He sighed. ‘I was hurt that you didn’t say anything about it. I mean, I thought that we were good enough friends to look out for each other.’

So he wasn’t upset that Dawn had kissed another boy. He was upset that I didn’t tell him. It was time for me to do some straight talking. ‘I was afraid to say anything. I didn’t want you to think I was jealous of Dawn – even though I was. I didn’t want you to hate me.’

He leaned in towards me. ‘I am so far from hating you.’

I’d waited a long time for those words. (Actually I thought the words ‘princess of my heart’ might be in there somewhere, but I wasn’t going to quibble.) And somehow, instead of looking irresistibly snoggable, which is what I’d always planned to do in this situation, I ended up snorting out a half laugh.

He blinked.

‘Sorry!’ I said. ‘I’m not really laughing. It’s just, you know, weird, us being so serious. I keep expecting you to crack a joke.’

His face fell a bit and I cursed myself for not being able to keep it together.

‘Is that what you think of me, Faith?’ he asked. ‘That I’m just some fast-talking show off?’

‘No, of course not. Being a fast-talking show off is only one of the many qualities that attracts me to you.’

His eyes sparked when I said that.

‘Do you know what? I find it pretty easy to shoot my mouth off. If you ask any of my teachers they’ll tell you that I’ve always got a smart answer for everything, but I’ve been struggling for a long time to find the words to tell you what I want to say. The truth is that I don’t have a brilliantly clever speech prepared; I just want to tell you the truth. I like you, Faith.’ He looked right into my eyes. ‘I really like you.’

He likes me.

I focused on making my mouth talk. ‘I like you too.’

Slowly, he reached out and took hold of my left hand, which was the one not holding a dripping ice cream.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the inside of my wrist.

I’ve got no idea how I was managing to remain upright at this point because it felt like my whole body was pretty busy with the fireworks going off inside me.

I looked at him. With his lovely curly hair and his lovely sneery mouth and his clever clever eyes.

He looked back at me and his eyes were saying it again, saying that he liked me. My stomach swooped like it does when you’re on a swing and all I could think about was how amazing he is.

And then I did something I never thought I’d do.

I dropped a perfectly good ice cream on the ground.

And I kissed Ethan.

It was like walking into an electric fence of happiness. My whole body was fizzing with joy.

When we stopped to breathe a bit. He kept his arms around me and he said, ‘Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to do that?’

I shook my head.

‘Since the minute I met you. Remember? You laid into Vicky with a particularly vicious and hilarious put-down, and I thought to myself, that’s the sweet-natured girl for me.’

‘It’s nice that you like me for my cutting remarks as well as my amazing good looks.’

‘Don’t forget your upright moral character.’

We cracked up.

Then I caught his eye again and we stopped still. My mouth was about an inch from his. He smelled like clean t-shirts; fresh and cottony. He’s got a chickenpox scar in his hairline.

We kissed again.

‘Wayhay!’ someone bellowed behind us.

We broke apart and saw that it was Cam. He ruffled Ethan’s hair. ‘Finally!’ he said.

The others were right behind. I looked at Westy to see if he seemed upset, but he was beaming. He’s all Skype-snoggy with Josette now, anyway.

My eyes found Megs who gave me a huge grin. ‘You lot owe me money,’ she said to the others.

Unbelievable. There I was getting together with my dream boy at last and Megs was thinking about her ill-gotten gains. ‘Were you betting on us?’ I asked. ‘Does that mean the rest of you didn’t think we’d get together?’ I was slightly annoyed; surely they could all see what a brilliant couple Ethan and I are.

‘No, we all knew it would happen,’ Lily said.

‘They said it would happen sooner,’ Megs interrupted. ‘I was the only one confident in your ability to faff about and muck things up for several months.’

I tried to glare at her, but I was just so happy I could only manage to say, ‘You’d better split that cash with me.’

Ethan still had an arm around me and we stayed like that while we all walked up the hill to find a patch of grass big enough for us all to sit down.

The sun was going down.

Someone was playing the violin and leaping about on the main stage.

Ethan turned to look at me and asked, ‘Will you be my girlfriend?’

He said it so seriously that I didn’t even make a joke. I just said, ‘Yes.’ And grinned like a maniac. I was already feeling pretty good but once he’d said that, my insides really went to town and started whirling and fluttering about. This wasn’t just fireworks; it was a full on internal Disneyland parade.

Ethan squeezed my hand. ‘Let me just be completely clear about this: my totally exclusive, doesn’t snog anyone else and wears a t-shirt with a picture of me on it at all times, girlfriend?’

The Mickey Mouse in my tummy did a triple backflip and punched the air. ‘Yes to the first two bits. And you?’

‘Definitely. I’ll even wear the t-shirt.’

‘What, with a picture of yourself on?’

‘I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that I have already got several printed. You never know when someone will ask me to be president.’

I laughed.

He laughed too.

And he gave me a look and I knew what it meant.
This is going to be brilliant. We’re going to hang out together and say sarcastic stuff and wind up Icky and tease our mates and kiss and eat pizza and go to the park and kiss some more and talk and talk and talk. We’re going to have the best time.

The sunset was turning the sky pink.

There are so many good things in my life. I know I’m not perfect and I know life isn’t perfect. But sitting there, in the warm evening with all my mates, and my new boyfriend holding my hand, it was a completely perfect moment.

And I know there are going to be a lot more.