Free Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss by Sarra Manning

chips and looking morose were Grace and Jack. I think that’s progress.
     
19th February
    Dylan and I have just had what has to be the most scary, intense argument ever. ’Cept it never really got to be an argument; it whooshed out of control like someone had just thrown lighter fuel on a bonfire.
    See, in between brooding and more brooding and, hmmm, brooding some more about my not-very-imminent move to London, Dylan found time to get hold of a copy of every US fly-drive brochure that’s ever been written. I cashed in my Crimbo book tokens and bought a load of travel guides and we started to plan our amazing road trip adventure.
    Actually we weren’t getting very far. We knew where we wanted to go but planning out the route takes organisation, military precision and levels of concentration that neither of us seemed to possess.
    ‘We should start in New York,’ I said decisively, as I peered at the map I’d pinned to my corkboard.
    ‘But New York’s on the right and a lot of the places we want to go are on the left. Maybe we should start at the top in Seattle and work our way down.’ Dylan traced his finger along the middle of the States.
    I gave a frustrated groan. ‘We have to do this in a scientific way? God! This is like being back at freakin’ school.’ I find in times of great stress that it helps to use not-quite-swear words.
    ‘Maybe we should make a list of all the places that we want to go to and just draw a line that connects them together. And that’s our route.’ A very smug note was creeping into Dylan’s voice, which I tried to ignore. It was not very becoming.
    Instead I shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess that would work. Might be a pretty crooked line but, hey, I got nothing here.’
    We started our US wishlist:
     
    New York (both)
    Seattle (both)
    Portland (Dylan)
    Las Vegas (both)
    Palm Springs (Edie)
    Hollywood (Edie)
    San Francisco (Dylan)
    Chicago (both)
    That’s as far as we got before we had a big argument because I had the audacity to point out that we’d have to go to other places to get to the places we wanted to go to. And then I might have had a teensy weensy little temper tantrum because it was getting really complicated and making my head hurt. I might even have thrown myself on the bed and pounded the pillows with my fists, while Dylan told me to grow up. But I didn’t want to grow up so I lay there for a while, face down on the pillow and eventually Dylan stopped snarling at me, sat down on the edge of the bed and ignored me! He ignored me in my moment of pain. I sulked for about three more seconds and then, with great effort, managed to lift my head and say, ‘Hey. What you doing?’
    Dylan tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m sorting through my wallet while I wait for you to stop regressing. You think you might be done soon?’
    ‘Hunh,’ I grunted and half sat, half rolled over so I could rest against Dylan’s back, even though he’s far too knobbly for comfort.
    ‘Sorry, Eeds, I don’t speak Neanderthal. Want to run that by me again?’
    I reached up and kissed the back of his neck and tried to tug him round so we could have a cuddle but he was being all stiff and uncooperative.
    ‘Give me a hug,’ I ordered and then looked over his shoulder to see what was distracting him. ‘What’s that?’
    Dylan was looking at a small, dog-eared photo. ‘It’s nothing,’ he said far too quickly and tried to shove the picture back in his wallet but I was quicker and managed to get him in a weedy but effective headlock so I could snatch it away from him.
    ‘Give it back!’ Dylan twisted out of my hold but I scrambled off the bed and squinted at the photo. ‘Is this you? Is that your mum and dad?’
    Dylan pounced on me and held my arms by my sides so I couldn’t move. ‘I said, give it back!’ he growled in my ear but he wasn’t using his sex voice, he was using a very scary voice that made all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and say hello.
    He