Read Girl Heart Boy: No Such Thing as Forever (Book 1) for Free Online Page A

seconds later she was back. ‘He’s just gone to the loo. Tell Jack I’m really sorry for leaving early, will you?’ Before we had time to respond, she’d rushed off again.
    Two hours later, Ash was sucking the face off some cousin of Jack’s, obviously having decided to give DJ Alan a miss; Ollie had hooked up with Jas Mistry, a girl in the year below us, and was nowhere to be seen; Donna, Rich and Jack were doing shots; and I was moping. I wasn’t drunk enough to find the boys and Donna as hilarious as they found each other, and I missed Joe. I was sick of my heart leaping every time my phone made any kind of noise, only to have it break a tiny bit because it wasn’t him. But I wasn’t quite ready to admit defeat. After all, he had a few days left before his deadline was up. Not that he knew that.
    I heaved a hefty sigh. Fun as it was watching Donna, Jack and Rich getting very drunk, I’d had enough. ‘I’m going to make a move,’ I announced, but they weren’t listening. So I left.
    On Joe’s deadline day I kept my phone glued to my hand. There was almost some cosmic rightness in him getting back to me today, just as I’d nearly given up hope. Like a test of my commitment, or something. I know: mental. But I couldn’t believe that the connection we’d had didn’t mean anything. So even as the day came to an end, I remained optimistic. I was almost certain he’d get in touch.
    Then as we were leaving school Donna asked me if I’d heard anything.
    ‘No, but –’
    She interrupted: ‘God, men are dicks.’ She gave me a hug. ‘You gave him every chance, babes … Put this one down to experience.’ As I watched her walk away towards her bus stop, I finally realized it. He was never going to phone me. I’d given up my virginity to a holiday romance. I told myself it didn’t matter. Being a virgin wasn’t anything to be proud, or not proud of. It just was.
    But it did matter. It mattered a lot. I had really, really liked him. Still did.
    I tried anger on for size, aka the Donna and Ashleyway, but it didn’t fit. I wasn’t angry with Joe; I was angry with myself for being so bloody gullible.
    Then came self-deprecation. ‘Ha ha, typical! I’m such a doof! Durr!’ *
slaps forehead
* But that was wrong too.
    So in the end I settled for plain old weeping. Into my pillow, on to Cass’s shoulder, and once, embarrassingly, right in the middle of French. Ollie covered for me, earnestly telling our teacher Monique that he’d told me such an amazing joke I was actually crying with laughter, which made me snort a snot bubble.
    It was a horrible time.
    But then I got the text.

5
     
    It was the Friday night after the Monday of the two-week deadline, and we were in The Hobbit: me, Donna and Ashley, Cass, Rich and Jack, and Ollie. And, unfortunately, Adam. He had Cass on his knee, the better to whisper in her ear, in response to which she’d giggle and give him a lily-livered slap. God, it was annoying.
    I was so not in the mood. But the whole night had been organized by the boys as a cheer-up-Sarah event, so I couldn’t cry off to partake in my new hobby, the three Ms of getting over Joe: music channels (extra points for crying at cheesy ballads), microwave chips and moping.
    So I’d put on clean jeans and one of my dad’s shirts, given my eyelashes a couple of half-hearted flicks with the mascara brush, dutifully turned up on time and, as always, was the first one there. I’d parked myself at one of the picnic tables outside, the weather being stupidly warm for late September, and hunched over my watermelon Bacardi Breezer (I only like alcohol if it doesn’t taste of alcohol).
    Usually I loved this table, with the fairy lights in the trees casting everything in a blue glow and the noise from inside reduced to an atmospheric buzz, but all I could think about was my PJs and my bed. And Joe, obviously. He was still rudely trespassing all over my thoughts, with his lovely clean toenails and shapely