The Trouble With Flirting (24 page)

Tears spill from my eyes as the door to
Jazzy Beanbag
swings shut behind me. Cool air soothes my burning cheeks, but the rest of my body feels the icy cold of rejection.

“So you come here,” a voice says to my left, “and make a great big public declaration of love. Everybody claps for you, giving you the attention you so eagerly desire, and I’m supposed to fall back into your arms?”

I look down the sidewalk and see Adam leaning against one of
Jazzy Beanbag
’s windows, his arms folded over his chest. “Adam. No, that’s not—it was for
you
. I was saying sorry.”

“And everybody else needed to hear that?”

“Well, no, but you wouldn’t talk to me, so—”

“Because I wasn’t ready to hear whatever your excuse is, Livi. But that didn’t matter to you, did it. No, you’d rather belt your apologies out to a crowd of strangers for a round of applause than wait until I’m ready to talk to you.”

“I … I didn’t …” I look down at my feet as another few tears course down my cheeks.

“Well,” Adam says, “since you worked so hard to get my attention, what is it you’d like to say?”

I sniff, swallow, and look up at him. “It’s all a silly mistake, Adam. The messages Carl said I sent him—the ones he showed you—they weren’t for him. They were just … it was just …” I try to figure out the best way to explain it, but there doesn’t seem to be any good way. “It sounds dumb, but that was like my online diary. I didn’t think he could get into that email account anymore, so I didn’t think he’d ever read those messages. It was my Dear Diary. Just … my thoughts and feelings about … stuff.”

“Really?” Adam doesn’t look convinced. “If that’s all it was, why didn’t you use a
book
like any other girl?”

“I—I don’t know. I just … opened up my email one day and … I don’t know.”

Adam shakes his head. “Maybe you believe yourself when you say you don’t know, but I don’t.”

“I …” I run my hands through my hair and tug at it. Maybe I do know. Maybe I just never admitted it to myself. “Okay,” I say, starting to pace. “Okay. Maybe at first I was doing it because, at the back of my mind, in that place where people keep their secret fantasies, I thought that perhaps somehow he’d see those emails and realise he made a mistake letting me go. And then he’d come along and sweep me off my feet and far away to a foreign castle where I’d live happily ever after like … like a princess.” I whisper the last few words because they sound like a betrayal. ‘Princess’ is Adam’s name for me, no one else’s. “But I didn’t really believe that,” I continue quickly, “and after a while, it was just like writing in a diary. That’s all it was, I promise.”

“‘Dear Carl,’” Adam recites, “‘I miss you. If I asked, would you come and rescue me?’ Yeah, that really sounds like you were talking to a diary, Liv.”

I slump against the window with a groan. That one? Carl had to show him
that specific one
? “Yes, okay, I wanted to be rescued then. I’d just had drugs forced on me and my boyfriend groping me. I was dropped on the side of the road in the dark and the rain, and then I was running for my life because I thought someone was chasing me. I was feeling more miserable than I’d ever felt before, and I just wanted to GET. AWAY. It wasn’t
him
I was missing. More just … the idea of someone who cared enough to come and rescue me from everything.”

“And it didn’t matter that
I
was right here taking care of you?”

“Of course it mattered! And after I wrote those words and clicked send, they were gone from my thoughts, just like everything else I ever wrote to that email address. Type. Send. Gone. That’s what every one of those emails was about, I
swear
. And if you don’t believe me … well, I don’t really have anything else to say.”

Adam stares at me for a long time. The seconds tick slowly by until eventually he says, “Okay. Let’s say I believe you.”

Yes. Please. One step in the right direction.

“That isn’t the only problem.”

“It—it isn’t?”

“Livi …” He seems to be grasping for words like I was a few minutes ago. Eventually his hands fall to his sides and he says, “I don’t know if I can ever be enough for you. I’ll never be the hot guy. I’ll never be the popular guy. I’ll never be the rich guy. I’m just me, Livi. That’s all I have to offer you.”

“And that’s all I want!” I step closer to him. “Just you.”

“The thing is … I don’t know if it is. The first thing you did when you got to Cape Town was change everything about yourself so you could fit in with the popular people. You hid your violin and the books and DVDs you love. You wore clothes I’ve
never
seen you wear before, and you changed your hair colour because your friend said it would make you hotter. Then when things went south and you decided the glamorous life might not be so great after all, suddenly I was good enough for you to hang out with again. Fast forward a few weeks: Allegra shows up, and now the two of you are
besties
again, and we’re watching horrible chick flicks when I
know
you’d rather be watching something else. What’s next? Are you going to abandon Salima because she doesn’t fit Allegra’s definition of cool? Are you going to be out every night of the week again, stopping by my room occasionally when you have nothing better to do?”

“No! It’s not like that. She—Allegra told me all this stuff about herself that I didn’t know. She said she’s not interested in that popularity crap anymore. She wants real friends. She knows who I really am, I know who she really is, and we’re happy with that. We’re … it’s not gonna be like it was before when I was out all the time.”

“Really?”

“Really.” I move closer to him and try to take his hand, but he steps away.

“I just … I don’t know, Livi. I want to say yes to you. I want to
be
with you. But I can’t help thinking that this is more of an … in-the-moment thing for you. That in a month or two you’ll end up bored and want to go chasing after some hot, popular guy you saw in a club or on a beach, and then I’ll be the one left with a broken heart. Because you know that place at the back of people’s minds where they keep their secret fantasies? That’s where I kept you, Livi. And if I finally get to make that a reality, I want it to last.”

After one final pause, he steps around me and pushes through the door into
Jazzy Beanbag
, leaving me stunned and unable to move. “Is that a ‘no,’ then?” I whisper to the night.

I close my eyes and let tears tumble down my face. Adam’s words replay in my mind even though I don’t want to hear them again. I can’t believe he thinks I’m that shallow. That fickle. After all this time, doesn’t he know me better than that? Doesn’t he know how much he means to me?

A message dings in my pocket, and I swiftly pull my phone out, even though the logical part of my brain
knows
it can’t possibly be a message from Adam. It’s from my mother, telling me to let her know when she can call again. I exit my messages and see that I missed a call from her twenty minutes ago. I tap the three numbers that will take me to my voice mail and bring the phone to my ear.

“Livi, darling, I have some exciting news. Dad and I will be arriving in Cape Town early tomorrow morning. I’ll try you again just now so I can give you more details. We can’t wait to see you.”

From:
Alivia Howard

Sent:
Mon 28 Mar, 0:39 am

To:
Sarah Henley

Subject:
Trying to think of something wacky, but I’m just not feeling it

Dear Sarah

My parents swooped in this morning for an impromptu visit. I’ve been selfish and preoccupied lately, and I kinda haven’t been paying attention to what’s going on between them. Things seem to be—as surprising as it sounds—much better. They hold hands a lot, which they’ve never done before, and when they laugh they sound genuinely happy. Apparently they’ve dealt with a lot of stuff over the past few weeks. Dad’s affair was just the beginning of it. I guess they had a whole marriage of issues to work through—not that they gave me details, and that’s fine.

They’re heading off to Mauritius on Friday to spend some quality time together. Nothing work-related was allowed into their suitcases—a revolutionary concept for them. It sounds like they’ve still got issues to work through, but I think this holiday will be really good for them. Until then, they’re staying in this hotel, and, apparently, so am I. I’ll be driving through way too much traffic every morning to get to campus, and in the evening I’ll be dining in style at the Waterfront while bonding with my parents—also a revolutionary concept. (I’m glad it’s only five days. I think we may run out of things to talk about before then.)

They told me they’ve been looking for a flat in Cape Town, and they think they’ve found the perfect one in Claremont. It’s for them to stay in when they come and visit me—which they’ve decided they need to do more often after they spent far too much of my childhood ignoring me—but they want me to live in it until I graduate and get my own place. (Like I can even think of graduation right now. Passing first year is going to be hard enough, never mind second, third and fourth.) Good timing, I guess, since Adam’s about to kick me out of the Toll Road house so his friend Hugo can move in …

Missing you.

Seriously. Like, a LOT.

xx

P.S. Have you spoken to Adam in the past few days?

P.P.S. I messed up. I want to talk to you, but I’m too embarrassed to tell you about it because I know it’s all my fault.

___________________________________

Being the amazing friend she is, Sarah phones me about three minutes after I click the send button on my email—even though it’s almost 1 am and she probably only saw the email because she forgot to put her phone on silent. I burrow beneath my hotel duvet and tell Sarah everything. I cry a lot, and she tries to convince me that Adam
doesn’t
hate me and perhaps he simply needs some time to figure out that everything I told him was true.

When we’ve said everything we can say, and my eyes are raw and scratchy from far too much crying, we say goodnight. I sniff into my pillow and prepare for five days of not seeing Adam AT ALL—a thought that makes my already cracked heart threaten to split open.

I sneak back into the house late on Friday evening after saying goodbye to my parents. A sliver of light shines from beneath Luke’s door, but Adam’s door is open, his room dark and cold. I stand in the doorway for a minute or so, my eyes traveling over the shadowy outlines of the tattered sci fi novels lined up on one side of the desk, the computer we’ve watched so many TV series episodes on, the shirt hanging from the cupboard, the folded music stand in the corner.

Then I close myself in my bedroom, spend some time writing a note to Adam, leave it beside my bed, and fall asleep easily for the first time in a week.

***

My alarm wakes me early. I get up immediately, my heart already thudding in anticipation of Plan Steal Adam’s Heart Back. I pull my heavy winter blanket off my bed and sneak past Adam’s closed door to the lounge with it. I spread it out on the floor, then arrange all the couch cushions around the edge. In the centre go all the goodies I got at the 24 Hour Woolworths last night: strawberries, blueberry muffins, mini yoghurts, fresh cherries—and baby tomatoes because Adam loves them. Finally, I add a packet of princess gums from the collection in my cupboard. Just for fun.

I hurry to the kitchen and turn on the oven for the croissants, then skip to the bathroom while the oven heats up. I brush my teeth and splash some water on my face, but I don’t shower or do my hair or change out of my pyjamas. Adam thinks I’m too concerned about my appearance, and I’m determined to show him I’m not. If he wants the real Livi, that’s what he’s going to get—messy hair, PJs, glasses, and no make-up. This is, I realise with a smile, pretty much how I look every evening when we watch series together.

Once the croissants are heated, I have one thing left to do. I tiptoe back to my room, grab the note I wrote last night, and stick it on Adam’s door. No, wait, he probably won’t see that. He’ll open his door and walk out. He won’t stop to examine the actual door. So I remove the note and stick it on the outside of
my
door. I pull it closed, then stoop down to place the paper arrows I cut out in a trail pointing to the lounge. I leave the final arrow in the lounge doorway and scamper back onto the blanket.

Then I wait.

Oh! The fireplace! I forgot about that. It’s been sunny all week, but the rain has arrived in time for the weekend. Others might be grumbling about the weather’s bad timing, but I think it’s perfect. My indoor picnic will be even cosier with a crackling fire right next to it. I just have to figure out how to get it going …

Ten minutes later, I’ve discovered I’m not such a girly girl after all: I can successfully light a fire! Indoors. With matches and wood and plenty of newspaper stuffed in between. Okay, so it’s not exactly an impressive achievement, but I’m still fist-pumping the air because it’s my very first fire.

I get up off the floor and go to the kitchen to wash my hands. I wonder how long it will be before Adam wakes up. Perhaps I should tap on his—

Wait, was that his voice? Yes. That’s definitely him. He must be talking on the phone. Or—OHMYGOSH what if there’s a girl in his room with him? A girl who stayed over last night? What if he—

No, don’t be ridiculous, Livi. He wants
you
, remember?

I peek around the kitchen doorway into the passage and listen carefully. Adam’s voice—a pause—Adam’s voice—another pause. So he’s on the phone. I think. Unless the girl in there has a really quiet—

Stop thinking that! There’s no girl!

His door opens. Crap! I hold back a squeal and dash to the lounge before Adam can step out of his room and see me. I drop onto one of the cushions and instruct my thundering heart to slow down. It doesn’t listen. I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them tightly. My eyes are trained on the doorway. I don’t hear footsteps, but if he’s wearing socks and walking slowly, then he probably wouldn’t be making much—

Ohmygosh it’s him. Standing in the doorway. Holding the note up. And because I’m sitting on the floor and because of the way he’s holding the note, I can’t see his face. I can’t see his reaction.

My brain whizzes through the words I wrote at top speed.

Dear Adam,

You said that what I’ve always wanted is to be accepted by the right people. That’s true. What’s also true is that the right person is YOU. I made a lot of mistakes on the path to figuring this out, but now that I’ve realised it, I won’t ever forget. You’ve always been the one. You were there every day at school. You were there every holiday when my parents didn’t have time for me. When I was in a faraway country, you were always at the other end of an email. And this year, no matter how many times I’ve taken you for granted, you’ve been there for me.

Adam, I don’t want the popular guy, the hot guy, the rich guy. I want YOU. Only you. And if you want me too … just follow the arrows.

Yours, if you’ll have me,

Livi

Falling in love with Adam was something that happened slowly. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment or day or week. But seeing him standing there in his boxers and hoodie with sticking-up hair, one sock pulled up to his calf, the other scrunched around his ankle, and his glasses just a tiny bit skew, my wildly beating heart falls in love with him all over again.

He slowly lowers the note, and the moment I see that half-smile of his, relief and hope collide within me. Maybe I still have a chance. Maybe I haven’t completely ruined things.

“Do you wanna, um, sit?” I ask. He crosses the room and sits on a cushion on the opposite side of the blanket. I slide my legs down and cross them. Then I pull them back up again. I fold my hands across the top of my knees. Then I sit on them. “This is so silly,” I eventually blurt out, “because I’ve been thinking about you every second of every day this week, daydreaming of the moment when I finally get to see you again—even though it’s only been a few days—and now you’re sitting in front of me and … other than everything I wrote in that letter … I can’t think of what to say.”

Adam smiles and looks down at his lap. “I’ll say something, if that’s okay?”

I nod. “Please.”

“I was happy to see your car here when I got home last night. Ridiculously happy, in fact.” My insides begin to melt, and my breath comes out unsteadily. “I was so worried last weekend. You were gone by the time I got up on Sunday, and you didn’t come back. I just … I thought I needed time to figure out if I believed you, and I thought you needed time to figure out if you actually meant everything you said. And then you didn’t come back, and I realised I didn’t need any time at all. Not knowing whether you wanted me or not didn’t for one second change the fact that I wanted you. So I decided that even if you hadn’t meant all the things you said to me outside
Jazzy Beanbag
, I was willing to beg you to mean them. To give me a chance to show you I could be enough for you.”

“You are,” I say, my voice coming out as a wobbly whisper. My legs slide away from my chest, and I crawl across the cushions towards him. I sit as close to him as I dare and slowly reach for his hand. He laces his fingers between mine, and shivers course up my arm.

“So it’s kind of funny, I guess,” he continues, “that while you were planning this—” he gestures to the picnic “—I was planning something else.”

Now I’m really struggling to breathe normally. “Y—you were?”

He nods, then rolls his eyes. “It’s the cheesiest cliché ever, but …”

“I don’t care. I like cheesy.”

“I kind of … wrote a song. For you.”

He wrote a song. FOR ME.

“It’s, um, not really finished, but …” He stands up and hurries from the room. When he returns, he’s holding Hugo’s Dad’s guitar. He sits, crosses his legs, and places the guitar in front of him. I’m about to hyperventilate because this—the guitar—the socks—his concentration as he slides his hand up the neck of the guitar—is one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. “Okay,” he says. “Hang on. I need more sugar so I don’t pass out from sheer nervousness.” He leans forward, grabs two strawberries, and pops one in his mouth.

A breathy laugh escapes me. “Don’t be nervous. It’s just me.”

He chews and swallows. “Exactly,” he says, and his face is flushed as he looks up and adds, “It’s you.”

I hug my knees again and bite my lip. Adam puts the second strawberry in his mouth, then repositions the guitar. He finishes chewing and takes a deep breath. “I’m not nervous, I’m not nervous,” he mutters.

“You’re not nervous,” I whisper to him, hoping it’ll help.

His right hand hovers above the strings for a moment, and then he begins. I close my eyes and breathe in the music, not only hearing it, but feeling it. Notes tumble over each other as he plucks the strings. I want to keep my eyes closed, but I can’t because then I’ll miss the way his hands move over the instrument. He starts singing, and then I can’t look anywhere but at his lips. And then I can’t think of anything but kissing them. And I
know
I should be listening to the words, but I’m lost now in his voice, and then he dares to look up at me, and his eyes—his beautiful, bright, luminous eyes—capture me, and I can’t tear my gaze away, even though my neck is heating up and my face is heating up—

And then he stops. “It’s … yeah, I know it’s not perfect.” He places the guitar on the floor beside the blanket. “But I was just trying to take everything you make me feel and put it all into one—”

The moment the guitar’s out of the way, I launch across the cushions and pin him down. I kiss his lips and his chin and his nose and, after only about a second of surprise, he starts kissing me back. “Please …” I manage to get out between kisses “… don’t ever … sing songs to anyone but me.”

“I never have,” he says before dragging his lips along my neck. He rolls us until somehow I’m underneath and he’s above me, pressing his lips to my forehead. “The song at
Jazzy Beanbag
?” Another kiss on my nose. “It was for you.” His lips find mine. His tongue, my tongue. Strawberries and toothpaste. It’s an odd combination, but I don’t care. All I want is more. “And all the cheesy pick-up lines,” he says against my mouth. “They were for you too.”

I laugh. “I know.” I kiss his bottom lip. “I loved them.” His top lip. “Especially the one about perfect fourths and fifths. Although,” I add, pulling my head back slightly so I can look at him, “that one would only make sense to someone who speaks music jargon.”

He gently pulls my left hand away from where it’s wrapped in his hair and kisses each of my fingertips on the pads of rough skin produced by years of violin-playing. “Good thing I used it on my favourite musician girl then.”

We’re wrapped in each other’s arms again, tumbling across cushions, and then I squeal because I just rolled onto a tub of something. “What did I squish?” I ask, leaning to the side and laughing.

“Yum,” Adam says, looking at the back of my pyjama top. “Squashed tomatoes.”

“Ew.”

“You might just have to lose this article of clothing,” he adds with a sly smile, his hands snaking beneath my top and around my waist. It’s deliciously ticklish.

“Look at you,” I say through my giggles, “casually mentioning getting naked without even a hint of a blush.”

That
turns the tips of his ears red, and then he’s burying his head in my neck and saying, “Ugh, I’m terrible at this stuff.”

“No! You are
so
not terrible, trust me. However, if you’d like to learn from the master—or, in this case, mistress …” I pause and frown. “No, ‘mistress’ definitely isn’t right either. Let’s go with expert. If you want to learn from the
expert
—” I lean around him and grab a cherry “—here’s how to do it.” I tilt my head back and hold the cherry over my mouth. I part my lips, then slowly lower the cherry. I grip it between my teeth, intending to seductively pluck it from the stalk. But it slips from my teeth and out of my fingers, rolls down my chin, bounces off my chest, and lands in the squished tub of tomatoes.

We both burst out laughing, and Adam covers my face in kisses. “You’re right,” he says. “You’re definitely also terrible at this stuff.”

“Seems to be working on you, though,” I point out. “So I must be doing something right.”

“Definitely.” His eyes soften as he stares into mine. He takes my right hand and presses his lips gently aginst the inside of my wrist. It’s a kiss that gives me goosebumps and starts my heart racing all over again. “Everything about you is just right. I love you the way you are, and you don’t need to change anything about yourself.”