Things I Know About Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

blogs. And maybe because I think a part of me is hoping she’ll crack my code and find it and discover that I’ve fallen for her as quickly as I did the first time I met her when I bumped into her in Manchester and she’d been crying and I just…You know how there are some girls you just want to hold and be held by? I should have asked her out or something today, just casually, like, “I’m a Brit, you’re a Brit, shall we go and laugh at Americans together?” Instead, I just asked her a bunch of boring questions and talked too much about myself, and now I’m thinking about her way too much, and I’ve come back and set up a blog. Stop being a nutter, Adam.
    I think I should ask her out, but she’s a mate’s sister, so I’m not sure. My brother says why not ask her to the semi-party he’s having the day after tomorrow. Or, in Dougie’s own words, “Why are you being such a fairy about this? Just ask her.” But Dougie’s mates will be there, I don’t know if it’d be her scene—they’ll probably start watching Star Wars movies, and I think making a girl watch sci-fi on a first “date” is roughly equivalent to wearing a T-shirt that says, BY THE WAY , I DON ’ T REALLY BELIEVE IN PERSONAL HYGIENE .
    According to Livia, when I read what I’ve just written now in the future, it’s going to make me understand myself better. Unfortunately, I think I understand myself too well already. And diaries are for girls.

july 23
    I need to fill in a bit of backstory before I go on. I’ll be as brief as I can be, I promise. But my life is still all wrapped up in this, and I…I had a really tough time. It upsets me to write about it and I want to write my valuable love analysis, not sit and cry about that time, and it’s making me teary already—it always does. I just still can’t talk about it easily, even though I know that makes me seem like I feel sorry for myself too much. I was diagnosed with leukemia just before I turned fourteen—I actually thought I’d caught mono from Darren. I got a sore throat soon after snogging him, and at the time he had some kind of cough. He was clearing his throat a lot. Stupidly, I thought this was proof that I’d snogged him properly and not on the cheek! I used to daydream about getting up in front of class and shouting in my new hoarse voice, “Hey, everyone! Listen to this! Scraaaar . [That’s the sound of me inhaling at the time.] I only kissed him on the cheek, did I? So how come I’ve got this cold, too? Scraaaar .” I’m not a “Scraaaar” -out-loud sort of girl, though: I just burned with silent rage and shot him stink-eye looks.
    In the meantime, the cold wouldn’t go away. Every morning I woke up and the first thing I thought about was how my throat was really sore, and after weeks of this, I saw the doctor and… When they tell you, you’re just like, Oh, leukemia, I’ve read about that, I’m dead now, that’s bad . The worst bit was coming out of the doctor’s office to find my mum to bring her back into the office with me. She was casually reading a prehistoric copy of Hello magazine (“Henry VIII tells all about his breakup with Anne”), waiting patiently the way she always did when she came with me to the doctor’s. She knew straightaway that something was wrong. Just from the look on my face. When I said we couldn’t go home yet she said, “What’s wrong?” really loudly, kind of getting on for hysterical already, and people looked at us.
    They put me on steroids first. Steroids can make you fat. They made me fat. I know I’d just been diagnosed with cancer and had more important things to worry about, and I had fatter friends who were sexy and pretty, and I would have swapped places with them in a heartbeat. But still, there’s something about getting fat when it’s beyond your control that just feels…like the last straw—one more piece of bad luck that’s almost funny, but almost enough to make you give up. You have cancer, and