Girl Heart Boy: No Such Thing as Forever (Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

you. It was special.’
    Cass shot Donna a warning look before turning wide eyes to me. ‘Course it was, honey. You wouldn’t give it up for anyone.’
    ‘Exactly.’ My vision went blurry as my eyes filled with tears. I pretended to look for something in my bag. Didn’t fool the girls for a second, of course, but they were sweet enough to pretend. I didn’t know whether I was crying cos Joe hadn’t been in touch or because Donna, and probably Ashley, thought he was a wanker. I sneaked a look at Cass, who was staring at me with concern. I didn’t want to be like her: besotted with an unfaithful idiot who all your friends know is an unfaithful idiot.
    ‘Look, if it really did mean as much as you say – which I’m sure it did,’ Ashley held up her hand to stop any protest, ‘then maybe, I dunno, he lost his phone or something.’
    I sniffed. ‘Yeah. I did think that could be it.’
    Cass patted my knee. ‘Well, there you go, hon. You write to him care of his uni, he gets back to you, and all is well.’
    Donna gaped at Cass like she’d just suggested I send myself as a naked telegram. ‘Yeah, right. And what if he just hasn’t got round to calling her?’ She turned to me. ‘You writing him a letter is just going totell him you’re a stalker. If you must go down that route, work out his uni email address and contact him that way.’
    Ashley butted in: ‘But only if you have a reason. Don’t just email saying, “Hi! It’s me! Why haven’t you called?” like some mental bunny boiler. Say you’re going to be in London visiting a friend or something, and if he happens to be around you thought it’d be nice to catch up.’
    I mused on that one for a moment, little prickles of hope stirring in my gut. ‘And he definitely won’t think that’s stalkerish?’
    ‘He might,’ shrugged Ash. ‘That’s the risk you take.’
    Donna nodded. ‘Yeah, actually I’d leave it a bit longer. Wait another, like, two weeks. After that you’ve got nothing to lose by contacting him.’
    I looked at Cass to see what she thought, but she pretended to be engrossed in her tuna salad. Which probably meant she disagreed with the other two.
    Brilliant. I might be an A-grade student, but I’m a total failure when it comes to the opposite sex. I felt a stab of annoyance. Bloody Joe, being all sexy and attentive and invading my every thought then disappearing into the ether. I tried to ignore the ache in my loins and resolved to give him exactly fourteen days. If he hadn’t been in touch by then, I was sending himan email. I didn’t care what Donna and Ashley said. Anyway, they always agreed with each other – you could pretty much count them as one person.
    ‘Anyway, look on the bright side,’ said Donna, rocking back on her chair. ‘We’re Year Thirteens now – and there’s only, like, ten months until we’re officially released into the big, wide world … And soon we won’t even need fake ID – BECAUSE IT’LL BE REAL!’ She folded her arms and beamed around at us.
    ‘Totally,’ said Cass, sighing contentedly. ‘And it’s Jack’s eighteenth next week.’ She pointed her fork at me. ‘See: something to look forward to already.’
    Hmm.
    Our mate Jack’s parents had booked out the top floor of a pub for his birthday party. It was a full-on do, complete with ‘Happy 18th Birthday’ banner, grandparents, great-aunts downing white-wine spritzers and uncles sipping bitter and tapping their feet to the jolly young people’s music, a finger buffet and a huge cake in the shape of a football shirt with ‘Jack is’ written across the top and ‘18’ in the middle. (Jack’s a proper sports whizz. If we lived in America he’d wear one of those red-and-white jackets with the letters on the back and be dating a cheerleader. As it is he owns enough polyester sportswear to burn Brightonto the ground, he’s a lifeguard at our local pool at weekends and doesn’t have a girlfriend. Not that he doesn’t have his