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

laughs at me. I think he must know exactly what he’s doing to me. I think he’s just winding me up, like I’m a toy he’s playing with. Every time he kisses me or touches me it feels like he’s adding branches to a fire that’s just building up inside me. I can hardly wait to get there.

‘Your friend has been texting me,’ he says, suddenly.

‘What? Molly?’ My stomach twists viciously. ‘What about?’

Alex just laughs. ‘You know what. She’s very persistent, isn’t she? I had to run away from her yesterday, in college. She tracked me down and tried to molest me.’

I was right then, about what she was doing. She’s trying to steal him. The thought of Molly and Alex together hurts my head. It’s a black thundercloud in my perfect day. I put it to one side but I will have to do something about it later. He’s mine. She can’t have him.

Finally we get to the bank, and I choose to properly forget about Molly, pushing away the simmering anger I’m feeling for later. It’s an open spot, just big enough for me to put down the blanket I brought with me in the dappled sunlight. The wide stream spins and whirls by, and the small sounds of the woods stop while their inhabitants decide if we are a threat or not before starting up again. It’s warm and it’s calm and it’s completely perfect. Alex sits down and asks me if I want a sandwich, pulling his rucksack toward him. I kick it away to the side. I sit down over his lap.

‘No, I don’t want a sandwich,’ I tell him, taking off my top just to make things really clear. ‘I want you. Here. Now.’ And I push him down and I kiss him.

Rachel

Vivian went to Molly’s for a sleepover on Saturday and I had to stop myself from calling Abi to check that she was there, that she was safe, telling myself that I was being paranoid. I knew that she would go mad if she thought I was checking up on her. I also knew the chances were that Abi wouldn’t even be there, anyway. I paced around the house instead. I started jobs and left them half done, taking everything out of the airing cupboard and then just leaving it all in a pile. I needed to wash it all again. Then I decided to clean the bathroom, properly clean it. I sprayed everything with bleach and I scrubbed and scrubbed, but nothing was clean, and the skin on my hands started to split and to bleed. I didn’t know why they were so dry. I thought I would have a shower, and clean the inside of the glass door at the same time, but the hot steam kicked up the chemical smell and it got in my mouth and in my eyes and it hurt, and I sat down in the hot bleach and I cried and cried. The arguments with Vivian about Tristan had sent me into a tailspin. I had thought everything was fine, that she was fine, but I had seen a flash of the anger that terrified me. There was no one I could speak to about my worries – I’d pushed people away and kept them at distance. I felt abandoned somehow, dragged back into a dark place I thought I had escaped from.

After I managed to pull myself out of the hissing water, I scrabbled around for my phone and I sent a message to Alex, apologising for the day before. I told him he could come any time he wanted to, later even, if he was free.

I managed to get dressed, just pulling on some of Vivian’s short-shorts and a vest. Why was it still so fucking hot? I was sick of it. I went out to the studio; I had no idea what time it was or what the hell I’d been doing all day but I hoped that working – I was so behind on my work, I’d been throwing away page after page all week – might calm me down. I took a glass of wine with me. I took the whole bottle.

I picked up a new sheet of paper and I decided to work on the penultimate plate, the one of the prince and the girl, Arabella – whatever her bloody name was – breaking apart after their first kiss. She’s pushing him away; he’s desperate to control her, to hold her to him. His hands gripped her waist, her long, loose hair whipped at their faces. Dead, grey trees tore at a sickly yellow sky. It was a dark image, desperate love in the heart of it.

I always gave my drawn girls Vivian’s face. I couldn’t help it, even though it drove her mad. Delicate arching eyebrows, clear cool eyes and a slightly pointed chin. Perfect cupid-bow lips. But I just couldn’t get her right, and was about to scrunch and rip the paper up in a childish, screaming tantrum when I heard a cough behind me and I spun around, heart in my mouth. Alex.

‘You nearly gave me a heart attack!’ I screeched at him, voice rusty and breaking.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, palms lifting. ‘I got your text, so I came. I was worried about you yesterday. I wanted to check on you – it didn’t seem like you were feeling yourself.’

‘Not myself?’ I swung round, glass in hand, almost spilling wine everywhere like a drunk. ‘What would you know, Alex? You don’t know me! You have no idea what I’m really like, do you?’ I could feel my pulse pattering under my skin, everywhere; I was going to have a panic attack and, oh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t go through this all again… Then he took my wine away and caught my shoulders. His hands were cool, and it was enough to start to snap me out of the spiral. His thumbs gently stroked up and