At First Sight by Hannah Sunderland (latest novels to read TXT) 📕

in the cinema.’ He said the last point a little louder than the rest, directing the comment towards the Chatty Cathy two rows behind us.

‘Good.’ I responded equally loudly and equally sarcastically. ‘Because there’s a special place in hell for those people!’

I think I heard a small harrumph from her but that was the end of it.

‘I was just a bit of a tosspot and not a very nice person. I was one of those men who speak fluent banter and think that spending twelve hours straight on Call of Duty is an acceptable use of time. I’d only have the latest phones and watches, even though I only ever wore them to show off to people. I’d drink in the fanciest of bars and I’d always be the first to buy a round to give them all the impression that I was doing better than I actually was. I once spent almost my whole month’s paycheque in one night out so that I wouldn’t have people knowing that I wasn’t gettin’ any theatre work. I had to take out a loan, which whooped my ass for a good few months until Carrick paid it off for me.

‘I used to look down on people who stayed home in Westport – the ones who settled there and didn’t move away. I thought that they were all small-town losers, missing out on what I thought life was about, but they’re all happy now and I’m not. So, I’m the one who got it wrong.’

‘Sounds to me like a bad person wouldn’t be sitting here confessing all of this to me in the hopes of being absolved,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it sounds like maybe you were a bit of a tosspot, but I think everyone has been someone they’re ashamed of at some point in their life. If you’re susceptible to peer pressure, it can force you into becoming someone you never anticipated yourself being – someone you don’t like.’

‘I bet no one’s ever peer-pressured you a day in your life.’ He chuckled. His eyes were filled with such affection as they caressed my face from afar, that I found I had a small lump lodged in my throat. I swallowed it down and heard the audible gulp as it fell away.

‘You’d be surprised.’ I thought back to the rides I’d been talked on to at theme parks, the nights out in my teen years when I’d wanted to go home, but had stayed out to appease someone else. The boy’s hands I’d let stray further than I was comfortable with because I didn’t want to be perceived as a prude. I thought of that one and only time I’d smoked a cigarette and then thrown up in a nearby bush when I found my mouth tasting like I’d just licked a barbecue. And I thought of Joel and all the times I’d let him pressure me into making decisions, into investing money in his business, into staying with him longer than I should have. Into rekindling long-dead flames that should have stayed extinguished.

‘I don’t think so.’ His eyes drifted down to my lips for a split second, before looking back up into my eyes. ‘I think you’re the most real person I’ve ever met.’

‘My mother’s brain is like this Aladdin’s cave of useless facts and fridge magnet metaphors and this one time she found me in her bedroom when I was only about twelve, slapping make-up all over my face and crying because some girls at school had called me ugly. She got a wipe and helped me get rid of the mess I’d made of myself. She said that pretending to be someone you aren’t was like wearing one of those big rubber Halloween masks. You can hide behind it for as long as you like, but eventually you’re going to get uncomfortable and you’ll need to take a breath and the only thing you can do in order to breathe, is take it off. If only she could see me now.’ I pointed to my rotting face.

‘Yer miss her a lot, don’t yer?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, my voice quiet. I was somewhat unnerved by how much sadness filled me up when I thought about her and it was happening more and more recently.

‘She sounds like one of those wise women, yer know, all knowin’ and whatnot.’ He frowned again, struggling, I think, to convey what he meant. After a moment, his frown unfurled and his eyebrows rose. ‘Like Rafiki.’

‘Rafiki?’ I laughed. ‘The mandrill from The Lion King.’

‘Isn’t he a baboon?’

‘Common mistake. But that’s a useless fact for another time.’ I batted away the mental detour. ‘Just promise me one thing, Charlie?’ I said, placing my hand on his arm, which lounged lazily on our shared armrest. ‘If you enjoy living, then please, never say that she reminds you of Rafiki to her face.’

‘Noted.’ He chuckled. ‘So, does that mean I’m gonna be around long enough to meet her?’

I blushed, but didn’t look away. ‘If you behave yourself,’ I said through a smile.

There it was again, that intense look that filled his eyes and made my stomach feel like I’d swallowed hundreds of squirming little worms. The insanity of falling for someone was so ridiculous, so nonsensical and against all self-preservation instincts, that I wasn’t surprised that so many people sang and wrote and centred their lives on it.

I wondered if he felt what I felt. The rush of blood that whooshed in my ears and thundered in my temples and the prickling of anticipation on my skin.

I’d tried not to get pulled into it, but there had simply been nothing I could do. My heart was working independently to my head and logic no longer had a say in the matter of whether I could keep myself safe from falling in love with Charlie Stone. I thought about leaning over and kissing him, of finally knowing what it would feel like, after so many missed opportunities, to be that close to