Read Don't Ask for Free Online Page B

and her
football and her mates. To her, Topfriendz was almost certainly nothing more than a diversion, something you join because everyone else does, just as it had been for me. Maybe I should have seen
her silence as a sign: ‘Quit while you’re ahead. Don’t go there. It was a bad idea and you’ve had a lucky escape. Get out now, while you still can.’ Gosh, there are a
lot of expressions that mean virtually the same thing, aren’t there?
    The only thing that didn’t cross my mind, as I tortured myself with all the what-ifs and the maybes and the buts, was the possibility that Alex might not go on Topfriendz every day, the
fact she hadn’t even seen my message yet. But I’ve never been one to let logic get in the way of paranoia.
    So, when I logged on, one Thursday evening, to see alerts telling me that I not only had one new friend, but also a message from Alex Porter, it came as a surprise. A very pleasant surprise. I
was so excited I almost shouted out ‘Alex has got back to Laura!’, which would have made everyone in my family think that I was on some sort of covert spying mission in my bedroom,
exchanging secrets with the Russians in code. Or, more likely, that I’d finally lost the plot altogether. I hesitated about whether to call Katie before opening the message, so we could read
it together, but I’d just put some fake tan on my face, one of those little sample sachets that comes free in a magazine, and I didn’t want it to rub off all over my phone and go
streaky.
    Tentatively, my heart bumping away in my chest as if I’d had three Red Bulls, I opened Alex’s message. This is what it said:
    Hi Laura.
    How’s it going? Good to hear from you. I think I do vaguely remember you from that sports camp when I was ten. Are you still playing? It’s great to talk to another girl
who’s into football. None of my college mates are, I think they think I’m a bit weird, to be honest. What team do you support? I’m a huge Arsenal fan. Don’t say you support
Spurs, or I’ll delete you from my friend list! LOL! It would be good to chat to you again. What are you up to these days?
    Love Alex xx
    Result! I couldn’t have hoped for more. Alex was friendly, she wanted me to write back and she seemed really keen to get to know me better. She even thought she
remembered me! It’s amazing what people will say so they don’t seem rude or ignorant; they will even convince themselves that a complete fabrication is the truth, rewriting history in
the process. Alex probably spent hours racking her brains, wading through the fog of her distant memories, trying to put Laura’s name and face on to the body of a little ten-year-old girl
whom she met at some stupid kids’ summer camp years ago. She wiped that poor girl’s identity and replaced it with mine (Laura’s). She concluded that I was someone she had once
known.
    So excited that I could barely steady my hands to type, I texted Katie:
    OMG K! Alex msgd!
    OMG!!
came her reply. And then a moment later:
Call me!
    I cnt,
I texted back.
Fk tan is wet.
    It can’t have been more than ten seconds later that my phone started ringing. I put it straight on to loudspeaker.
    ‘Oh my God, Lil,’ Katie shouted. ‘You can’t use fake tan as an excuse not to tell me the most exciting thing that’s happened in weeks!’
    ‘You wouldn’t understand,’ I told her, as my own voice echoed back at me through the speaker. ‘You don’t need to use it. Your skin is all lovely and golden brown
all year round, already.’
    ‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘So I don’t get fake tan. For God’s sake tell me what Alex said!’
    ‘It’s mad. She actually thinks she remembers me.’
    ‘No! How come? What else did she say?’
    ‘She asked me which football team I support and said it was good to talk to another girl who’s into football. I told you football was the line to go with, didn’t I? She wants
me to write back.’ I read Katie the message, so she knew as much