All the Little Things by Sarah Lawton (the best books to read txt) 📕

I can ignore the rest – it was the wind-up, she was just making it up to try and catch me out, no one knows anything. Breathe. Relax. Alex is the trigger here, and that I can deal with. Relief makes me light-headed and colourful spots dance behind my eyelids like sprites.

‘I’m not interested in him, so he can be up to whatever he wants.’ Breathe out, feign boredom.

‘Why not? It’s not like you don’t get asked. Tommy asked you out last year, and he’s quite fit.’

‘I just don’t want to do any of that stuff.’

‘What stuff?’

‘You know!’

‘No, what?’

‘Molly!’

‘Vivian!’

I swear to god, one of these days…

‘Haven’t you even thought about it, though? You must think about what it’s like. Everyone does. It’s perfectly normal, you know.’

Maybe I should think about it. It all looks so disgusting and dirty, though. I just can’t see how it would be nice in any way. I haven’t figured out yet what I’d get out of it; it always looks like the men are doing all the enjoying. I’m not doing it unless I get something out of it, too.

‘And if you went out with Alex everyone would die of jealousy.’

‘I suppose.’ I change the subject. ‘Do you think Serena threw that ball at me on purpose in PE? I’ve got a massive bruise.’ I slip down the side of my shorts for her to see, and she purses her lips and frowns.

‘Ouchie. That looks sore. No, I don’t think she wanted it to hit you. She was just being a dick, trying to make you jump out the way. I don’t know. Don’t worry about her, she’ll get over herself.’

‘I hope so. I don’t like it when things are all messed up.’ I look down at her. ‘Your head is going to pop if you hang there for much longer, Molly.’

‘Blood flow is good for the complexion, Viv! You should try it.’ She laughs.

Molly finally hauls her now very pink face up from where it was hanging and flops back down on the bed. I can see a sheen of sweat on her skin and it’s getting on my sheets. I’m going to have to change them now; I won’t be able to sleep in them, otherwise. I feel itchy already. If it’s not her revolting hairs, it’s her sticky skin.

We both get back to our books, but something she said is distracting me. Would people look at me differently if I was with Alex? Would I be the most popular one? We scribble for a while longer before Molly starts to get antsy again.

‘Let’s have a drink.’

‘What? A drink drink? It’s Wednesday, Molly, we’ve got school tomorrow.’

‘So? A couple won’t hurt. I’m bored. Go on, Viv, you’re no fun any more. I only brought a couple, and I’m staying over, and your mum’s out…’

I am not boring! I don’t really want to but I guess a few won’t hurt.

‘Okay, but I don’t want to stay up late!’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ says Molly, as she runs out of the room and down to the kitchen, taking her bag – which I now realise is clinking – with her. She comes back with pint glasses full of bright pink fizzy cider and ice. Passing one to me, she holds the other out, too.

‘Cheers!’ she demands, pushing her glass against mine. We drink. It tastes a bit funny; I tell her I don’t like it and she rolls her eyes, so I just drink it, and I drink the other two she makes as well.

After the third one, I try and stand up to go to the bathroom and I stumble against the doorframe on the way out, feeling dizzy suddenly. I don’t like it. I feel a bit sick.

‘Are you all right, Viv?’ asks Molly, when I come back. I can feel a slick of sweat on my top lip gathering in the dip beneath my nose, matching ones at my ears, on my neck. Everything is a bit fuzzy. Am I drunk? How can I be drunk? I don’t usually feel like this after three – I never have more than three for precisely that reason.

‘Vivian,’ says Molly, her voice sounding a bit like it’s in a bubble, ‘why did you and your mum move here? Why did you leave London?’

‘She didn’t like her job,’ I lie, not liking the conversations tonight. I hate talking about London. She knows this. Why is she being so weird and nosy all of a sudden?

‘Alex was asking me why you’d come here. I don’t think I like Alex,’ she says. Back to this again. The constant change of subjects is making me nauseous.

‘What? Why not? I thought you thought he was sex on legs.’

‘No, he’s fit but I don’t like him. I don’t trust him, I don’t think you should trust him, either. He’s shady.’ Her voice trails off as she shifts closer to me on the bed. I hope she’s not going to get all touchy-feely with me. ‘Do you like him?’

‘I… I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it…’

‘What?’ Molly sways towards me, crawling up the bed to where I’ve had to sit down, my head nodding, flopping. I jerk it back up. ‘He’s interested in you, in some weird way, how can you not be interested, too? Vivian, do you think you might be gay? I don’t mind, you know I love you, right?’ I can feel her breath on my cheek, and I lean away, almost falling off the edge of the mattress.

‘I’m not. I don’t fancy anyone. I just don’t think about it.’ My head is pounding now, and I can feel my eyeballs, the pressure of them, the size of them pulsing like rotten grapes in my skull. ‘Moll, I think that cider is off, I feel really weird.’

‘You should think about it,’ she says, reaching out a hand. I jump up, and stumble.

‘Get away from me,’ I say, just before I have to run to the bathroom to be sick. ‘Get