Am I Normal Yet? Read Online Free PDF Page B

boys…”
    â€œâ€¦and how crap they are,” Amber finished.
    Lottie patted her head. “I met her in art and she was crying over some bell-end on the football team. We bonded over drawing his untimely death.”
    â€œWhat did football guy do?”
    Amber’s face ducked behind her sheet of auburn hair. “Stood me up.”
    â€œGod, that’s awful. I didn’t know people actually did that in real life.”
    â€œThey do to me.”
    â€œHey,” Lottie said. “It could be worse. Like me. I just have guys ‘boink’ me, then lose interest straight afterwards. Usually when they discover I’m smarter than them.”
    Lottie was smarter than them. She wasn’t being big-headed, just honest. She was smarter than everyone. At primary school she’d gone to special classes with the headmistress to be more “academically challenged”. She’d read textbooks, for fun. And she was definitely going to Cambridge. Even though we were two years away from that.
    A miserable silence descended upon us. My phone went off again. We all ignored it. I saw the tiny light of a car in the distance driving slowly away from our town, surrounded by night. I wished I was riding in it, escaping my disappointment. I thought again of this night, and what it was supposed to be. My first ever date… My first step into the world of normality. I’d just wanted to be like everyone else, and yet my attempt had turned out weirder than even my weird head could’ve imagined.
    Finally I spoke. “You guys?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œIs it…because I’m ugly?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” Lottie said. “You’re not ugly.”
    â€œYes I am. I’m Louise and everyone else is Thelma.” I threw my hardly-smoked cigarette into the mud dramatically.
    â€œI wouldn’t say Susan Sarandon is ugly,” Lottie said again.
    â€œFine then, I’m Jane Eyre.”
    â€œJane wasn’t ugly , she was just plain,” said Miss Going-to-Cambridge.
    â€œFine then. I’m the Elephant Man.”
    â€œYou’re not a man,” Amber pointed out.
    â€œStop ganging up on me.”
    Their laughs punctuated the darkness.
    â€œAnyway…” Lottie started. “I’m not exactly an oil painting.”
    â€œDon’t be stupid,” I protested. She was gorgeous and she knew it. Men’s eyes practically goggled out of their faces when they met her. Her long dark hair, her everything-in-the-right-place face.
    She smirked in reply. “If I were in a girl band, I would be the one that nobody fancied…”
    â€œHey,” Amber butted in. “That would so be me instead. I’m the ginger one! Nobody ever fancies the ginger one in bands.”
    â€œFine then. I’m Mary out of the Bennet sisters.”
    â€œWell if that’s true,” I stood up. “I’m…I’m…Mr Collins,” I yelled, and the three of us dissolved into hysteria. We huddled together on the bench, chuckling and yelling “Mr Collins” until our tummies hurt and our teeth chattered from the cold.
    â€œI really liked him,” I half-whispered, remembering far too soon why we were sitting in the middle of a field, gone midnight. I needed to message my mum actually; she would probably be freaking out.
    Lottie cuddled me into her. We’d not sat like that since we were eleven.
    â€œI know you did,” she replied. “Shitty, isn’t it?”
    Amber gatecrashed the hug, giggling as she made room for herself between our heads.
    â€œScrew guys,” she said. “Let’s meet for coffee tomorrow and spend the entire afternoon talking about everything other than boys.”
    â€œAmen,” I replied.
    And that’s what we did.



Five
    By Monday I was ready and raring to see Ethan again.
    I’d had so many dialogues with him in my head. They all ended with him on his