Read The One Before the One for Free Online

he’s somethin’ spesh, he is. Such an inspiring person. He says he wants to photograph me. He says I have a very interesting look.’
    ‘Lexi,’ I groan. I get that feeling, like stop the train, I wantto get off. ‘You can’t just meet up with randoms off the train and let them take your picture. This is London. A big, scary, dangerous city.’
    I’ve been thinking all day about what Dad said on the phone, but it’s only later, when I’ve drunk the best part of half a bottle of wine, that I pluck up the courage to talk to her.
    ‘So, Lexi …’ She’s slumped on the sofa in the playsuit; laptop open, one eye on Facebook. ‘I think we need to chat.’
    ‘Wow, sounds serious. Are you about to dump me?’
    ‘No!’
Sometimes, Lexi strikes me as very sophisticated. Then she says things like that and she sounds about twelve.
    I reach over and slowly close her laptop.
    ‘Look, you know you’re very welcome to stay …’ I start.
    ‘But,’ she says.
    ‘But?’
    ‘There’s a “but” in there, isn’t there?’
    ‘No, not exactly.’ God, I’m crap at this. ‘It’s just, Dad’s worried about you.
I’m
worried about you. I think we need a plan for this summer, that’s all.’
    ‘What sort of plan?’
    ‘A plan, you know? A goal. An aim.’
    ‘God, now you sound like Mum and Dad. They can’t go to the toilet without a personal goal.’
    I resent this comparison. I hardly think me suggesting a few things for Lexi to concentrate on constitutes a ‘motivational talk’ on a level with the talks (that’ll be evangelical lectures) Dad and Cassandra give as key speakers with the Healing Horizons Forum (that’d be cult) that they run. And anyway, it was Dad who insisted I talked to her. I would quite happily have avoided anything of the sort.
    ‘I made a list,’ I say, finally.
    ‘Not another one! You’re obsessed with lists.’
    ‘Oh, that’s unfair.’
    ‘I don’t think it is. I’ve seen them all over the place. You make so many lists, I’m surprised you have time to do anything on them.’
    ‘Lists help you to focus,’ I say, grabbing my notebook and opening it at the page that says LEXI’S FIVE POINT PLAN. ‘Number one, your room.’
    ‘Oh, you’ve seen it?’
    ‘Yes, and I nearly had a seizure, so please sort it out. Moving swiftly on. Number two, you need to get a job. If you’re not going back to sixth form – which, incidentally is number three, we need to discuss sixth form properly – then you need to know what else you’re going to do. I thought we could draw up your options.’
    ‘Make a list you mean?’
    ‘Number four,’ I sigh. ‘You need to call Dad.’
    ‘I’ll call him tomorrow.’ She shrugs
    ‘Good, well that’s all of them.’
    ‘That’s it? That’s the list?’
    ‘Yup. Told you it wasn’t serious.’
    ‘But you said there were five points,’ she says, edging closer.
    ‘Did I?’ I move my hand so that it covers up the fifth point. The bit Dad told me to do. The bit about finding out what’s actually wrong with Lexi.
    She uncurls my fingers from the notepad.
    ‘Find out what’s wrong with Lexi,’ she reads out. ‘God!’ She flops dramatically onto the sofa. ‘Did Dad put you up to this? He did, didn’t he? There’s
nothing
wrong with me, except that everyone keeps
asking
what’s wrong with me, and my parents treat me like I’m depressed, or a total mentalist or like it’s not totally normal for a seventeen-year-old to not know exactly where she’s going or what to do with her life.’
    ‘Of course it’s normal,’ I say. ‘I’m thirty-two and I still haven’t really got a clue what’s going on with my life.’
    ‘Liar!’
    ‘It’s true! It’s just, Dad said—’
    ‘I don’t care what Dad said. He’s such a moron sometimes. I mean, I love him, but he doesn’t understand me. He and Mum, they’re always like: “You could do anything you want to do, Alexis. The world is your oyster!” But what if you don’t
know
what