Free My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend by Eleanor Wood

Jackson Griffith, which I must say is very mature, sensible and reasonable of me – although it kills me,
kills
me to send it – and I have to resign myself
to the fact that this is the end of the short-lived, weird, possibly fake affair. I am, just as Seymour and Nishi told me to do, shutting it down, once and for all. It is simply the right thing to
do, or so I tell myself. I love my best friend, and I am very lucky to have a boyfriend like Seymour, and I am doing the right thing. Well done me.
    Then I go up to my room with a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of white bread and a copy of
The Notebook
on DVD (my mum’s, not mine – I hasten to add even at such a time of
trauma), and I proceed to cry hysterically for the next two hours. Fortunately my mum is out at a work dinner until late tonight, so I am free to wallow.
    I know I’m being ridiculous. I know that it’s technically impossible to miss something you’ve never had. But it’s letting go of the idea that’s the hard part. It
was a flash of excitement in my boring little life, and I’m extinguishing it before it’s even got started. For a tiny window in my ordinary existence I’ve been able to entertain
the fantasy that a gorgeous (not just in my opinion but Official Fact – he’s been listed in the 50 and 100 ‘most beautiful people’ by several trashy magazines) and talented
pop star could be interested in me, Tuesday Cooper – an average girl with a weird name, too-big ambitions, chubby thighs and delusions of grandeur. It was so fun while it lasted. Whether it
was true or not. It added a sprinkle of magic to my dull little life.
    Because I’m tired and miserable, and allowing myself to break my usual code of Putting A Brave Face On It At All Times, I take the opportunity to feel thoroughly sorry for myself and think
about every single bad thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I’m too fat. I don’t have a dad. My mum is always chasing after something that doesn’t exist and there
is nothing I can do to help. My best friend and my boyfriend are making me feel like utter crap. I’m terrified about the future. I hate my thighs. The most exciting thing ever to happen to me
is about to disappear and I don’t want to be a grown-up about this at all.
    Then – because I’m Tuesday Cooper, always putting my foot in it, always making a joke, never serious and never a drag – I pull myself together. I wipe the thick rope of snot
that has somehow made its way past my chin and into a clump of my hair, rub the black eyeliner off my cheeks and tell myself that’s enough.
    After my sob-fest, I immerse myself in a boiling hot bath with one of my mum’s old Jilly Cooper novels. A fat brick of a book from the 80s, that’s really saucy and has a lot of
horses in it. That’s always guaranteed to cheer me up. I really go for it, with candles and music on and everything. I manage to stop myself from listening to Sour Apple, and put on a bit of
old Neneh Cherry (hard-copy charity-shop find) to cheer myself up.
    It mostly works and that’s a good thing because, by the time I get out and change straight into my pyjamas, my mum might be home at any time. I don’t want to have to get into a whole
stupid discussion with her as well. It wouldn’t do for her to catch me weeping and dripping about the house – I don’t want to worry her for no good reason.
    It’s not that late, but I’m just going to go to bed. I’m not in the mood to get anything useful done, like college work or blogging, and I’m not even much in the mood for
watching TV. I’ll just check my emails first.
    I sit down on the edge of my bed with my laptop – an old work one of my mum’s, passed on to me, which I have duly decorated with a wide variety of ridiculous and/or sparkly stickers
– and that’s when I see that I have twelve unread messages. Other than one that is trying to sell me a cheap holiday to Latvia, they are all from Jackson Evan