Model Misfit (15 page)

That’s exactly how it feels now. As if the world has come screeching to a halt and I’m being launched from the top of it.

“Yo,” Nick says, leaning against the doorframe. “How’s it going?”

His skin is darker, and his hair has been cropped. The big black curls have gone, and it’s changed the proportions of his face: his cheekbones look sharper, his eyes more slanted and his lips more curved. He still looks like a lion, but now he reminds me of Aslan in
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
, just after he gets shaved and dragged to the slab. In a more modelly, less representing-Jesus kind of way, obviously.

Early Egyptians believed that the heart could literally move around inside the body. I think they had a point: mine feels like it’s lodged in my windpipe somewhere.

I blink in silence, and then realise that it’s my turn to talk. I’m still looking at Nick in the blank-yet-fascinated way that Hugo stares at the television.

“H-h-hey,” I finally stammer, unable to breathe. “It’s g-going … erm …”
Nice one, Harriet.
That’s fifteen years of studying a dictionary, totally wasted.

“
Erm
,” he grins
.
“Not as good as
umm
or
err
but still one of my favourites.”

“Actually,” I say, starting to beam with my whole body. “I was trying to say erm-mazing, but you interrupted me.”

“I’m umm-believable, aren’t I?” He wrinkles his nose. “Awesome new T-shirt. I think I recognise that one. Diplodocus?”

“Uh-huh.” I stretch it out. “Except that it’s actually anatomically incorrect because this version has his head held up like a giraffe. Experts now believe it was held horizontally and they used to just
sweep
it across the foliage.”

Before I can stop myself I feel my neck do a nervous little swooshing action to illustrate the point.

As if I’m a diplodocus.

I blush and his nostrils flare slightly.

“You should write to the T-shirt company and tell them.”

“I already have,” I admit, going even pinker.

Nick shouts with abrupt laughter, and – just like that – we’re back to the beginning, and I have flu, and he’s waking me up to kiss me all over again.

“So …” Lovely as this is, I don’t really have the lung-capacity for any more small talk. A crocodile can hold its breath for up to fifteen minutes, but I am not a crocodile. If I don’t start breathing soon, I’m going to pass out. “What are you doing here?”

Nick rests his head against the wall and looks at me for a few seconds through beautiful, lowered eyelids. “I’m doing a couple of modelling jobs and helping out behind the scenes of Aunty Yuka’s new campaign.”

“Oh.” I feel a bit punctured. “But what are you doing
here
?” I point at the doorstep. “Did you get my email?”

“I did.” He takes a step towards me. “And I need to talk to you about something.”

Yesss! You see? I don’t want to sound smug, but this is
exactly
why I wasn’t worried. Nat was wrong, and I was right. All a girl really needs is a bit of faith in the romantic narrative arc that’s been proven by countless films, books and TV dramas.

Nick’s finally realised that the stars don’t shine without me. That the sun doesn’t burn, and the moon doesn’t glow. (Metaphorically, obviously, or we’d all be dead.) That his world just doesn’t make sense without me in it to explain everything in unnecessary detail every thirty seconds.

And OK, so he took a bit longer than I’d have liked, but if two months is what Nick needed to make a nice dramatic entrance and woo me back, then who am I to deprive him of it?

I’m
so
telling Nat that I understand boys better than she does when I get home.
She
can start taking relationship advice from
me
, henceforth.

I might even run some kind of classes.

I take the deepest breath I can find.
Stay cool, Harriet.
Stay calm. Stay sophistica
—

“Oh, Nick,” I blurt happily, fizzing and popping all over. “I knew I was right and you’d come ba—”

The bathroom door opens.

“Hello,” Poppy says, swishing towards us with her hair pinned into a braid and bright red lipstick on.

“Hey,” I smile. She looks even more ridiculously beautiful than she did five minutes ago. “Poppy, this is—” and then all words fail me as she keeps walking and slings her golden arms loosely around Nick’s neck and kisses him on the cheek.

“Hello, handsome,” she says softly into his ear. “You’re much earlier than we agreed.” And I’m suddenly falling very slowly, like Alice through the rabbit hole.

“Am I?” Nick says stiffly. He’s not looking at me. “Sorry. Are you ready to go?”

No.

No.

NO.

“With you, Nick Hidaka?” Poppy says, grabbing her handbag, beaming prettily at him and swishing into the hallway. “Any time and anywhere, baby.”

I’m not falling any more.

Every part of me has just slammed into the ground.

The front door swings back behind her and Nick finally looks at me.

“Now’s probably not the best time,” he says quietly, as if there are other, more appropriate times for having your heart shattered into a billion pieces. “Can we talk later?”

I open my mouth to reply, but I have literally nothing to say and even fewer words with which to say it.

Nick waits patiently, and then takes a few steps backwards. “I’ll see you soon?”

I open my mouth, but it’s still empty.

He frowns and flushes slightly. “Have a great first night in Tokyo,” he says quietly, grabbing the door handle. “Sleep well.”

And then he closes the door between us.

Reasons Not to Think About Nick

1. He told me not to.
   
2. I have much more life-changing things to think about.
   
3. It’s all I do.
   
4. He’s an idiot.
   

I don’t know how long I stand there for.

It could be minutes; it could be hours. It could be a thousand years and vines have started to grow up the back of my shins and moss has started to sprout out of my shoulders and squirrels and birds have set up home in my hair and I don’t notice.

I have been so incredibly, unbelievably stupid.

Nick didn’t want to talk to me so we could get back together. He wanted to tell me he had met somebody else. He wasn’t trying to woo me.

He was trying to
warn
me.

Snippets from my happy little email are starting to bounce around inside my head, and every time a line makes contact I sink further towards the centre of the earth.

I’ve been thinking about you lots!
Five hundred miles.

Of course I have!
Another five hundred.

Send me another message or ring me?
Three hundred miles down.

I’VE MISSED YOU SO MUCH.
Another thousand.

Four kisses, and a needy, keen smiley face:
:)
And I’m right in the middle where there’s nothing but flames and molten lava and hotness forever and ever and ever.

Oh my God. This doesn’t happen in
any
of the stories I love. Except maybe in the Hans Christian Andersen version of
The Little Mermaid,
and that doesn’t bode well for my immediate future.

No wonder I can’t find my voice any more. I probably sold it to a Sea Witch in return for legs.

“Harry-chan?” A soft hand lands on my shoulder. “You OK, Harry-chan? You are very paling, Harry-chan. Perhaps you are lagging jet now?”

I turn and look blankly at Rin’s pretty face.

“I-I-I …” I swallow. “I – umm – think I’m suddenly quite tired.” I turn around and start wobbling on jelly legs into the bedroom. “It’s been a really long day.”

I push Kylie-cat aside, crawl into my new bed fully dressed and wrap my arms around my legs. Today is starting to feel like one of those confusing nightmares where you wake up crying and sweating and hurting and you don’t quite remember why.

“Yes, you sleep,” Rin says, sitting on the edge of my bed and carefully tucking me in. The cat jumps up and starts kneading my legs, but Rin picks her up. “No, Kylie Minogue. Bad cutey. No making biscuits on Harry-chan while she sleeping.”

Then she follows my blank, shattered gaze to the door. “Nick is super handsome,
ne?
He is like prince or movie star or man in Abercrombie advert. One day I am hoping I will be in romantic twosome with Australian. Is it not perfect, Harry-chan? Like fairy tale?”

I can suddenly see Nick and Poppy: all cheekbones and glowing skin and perfect, magazine-approved beauty. Matching perfectly. Fitting perfectly.

“Yes,” I agree. “Exactly like a fairy tale.”

Just not mine.

And then I close my eyes and wish – with every part of my eternal mermaid soul – that I was at home, in England.

ow, I know many things.

I know that caterpillars have 4,000 muscles. I know that one in twenty people have an extra rib, and that astronomers have discovered that sometimes on Uranus it rains diamonds. I know that camels originated in North America, that killer whales breathe in unison when travelling in groups, and that there are more receptor cells in a single human eye than there are stars in the Milky Way.

But I clearly know nothing about boys.

And right now I’d trade in every single thing I’ve ever learnt for just the faintest idea of what it is I’m supposed to do next.

I can’t sleep, so I wait until Rin is softly snoring, drag my duvet into the bathroom and curl up in the empty bathtub with my phone. It takes Nat a while to work out what’s going on. This is because I’m crying so hard all she can make out for the first three minutes is “S-s-s”.

“Spots?” she guesses, peering down the webcam. “Sausages? Socks?”

I shake my head. “S-s-s …”

“Sun cream? Scissors?” I can see Nat’s brain scanning through her vocabulary for anything that starts with an S. “Caesar Salad?”

A little bubble of unexpected giggle-snot comes out of my nose. I try something different. “N-N-N …”

“Nipples? Nits? No offence, Harriet, but it’s starting to feel like I’m trying to communicate with a penguin. Calm down and try to finish a word.”

I obediently wipe my nose on the duvet (oh, come on, as if everybody in the world doesn’t do that when they’re heartbroken). Then I take a few deep breaths and finally manage to hiccup: “S-sorry. I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry, N-nat. Y-you w-were r-r-right and I-I was wr-wrong and N-Nick d-doesn’t c-care about m-m-m-me and h-he h-has a n-n-new girlf-f-friend and sh-sh-she lives in m-my flat in T-T-Tokyo and sh-she’s b-b-b-beautiful and I-I d-don’t know w-what to d-do and I h-hurt a-all ov-v-ver a-and I j-just w-want to g-g-go
h-h-home
.” And I promptly burst into tears again.

Nat sits bolt upright. “
What
?
He’s in Tokyo?
You’re
in Tokyo? Are you freaking
kidding
me?”

To say that I am not in the mood for kidding anyone right now is the understatement of the century. “I j-just s-saw him.”

Nat’s face disappears, and somewhere in the background I can hear things being zipped. I sniffle and wipe my eyes on a separate bit of soggy bedding. “Nat? Are you listening?”