Free Diary of a Crush: French Kiss by Sarra Manning Page A

the traffic.’
    ‘Some people are
so
touchy,’ she smirked before sauntering back to Paul.
    ‘I think I put a pair of leggings in my shoulder bag,’ said Shona helpfully. ‘Like, if you want to change.’
    I shook my head. ‘I can’t take off my jeans in front of everyone.’
    ‘I guess not.’
    This trip was turning into a nightmare. I’d humiliated myself at least three times in front of Dylan. Mia was obviously planning on being a complete bitch on wheels for the next five days and it looked like I’d wet myself.
    ‘D’you want some chocolate?’ said Shona, shoving an Aero at me. ‘It might cheer you up.’
    I turned it down. Not even an Aero could help me right then.
     
    Fortunately the ferry crossing helped me get my own back on the world. The Channel was choppy and practically everyone on the boat was puking up. The scene in the ladies’ toilet was like this painting I’d once seen called
Descent into the Inferno
. People were even hurling into the washbasins. Luckily, I have a cast-iron constitution. It takes more than a little rough sea to make me sick. In fact, it was really peaceful sitting on the deck, feeling the salt-water spray sting my face. It was one of those times when you know that you’re really alive. You’re aware of all of your senses. I could hear the sea whooshing against the sides of the boat, I could smell and taste the tang of the air and even though the water was a murky blue, the white-tipped waves running along the top of it looked like little frills of lace. I sat there, feeling at one with the elements until I got a bit bored, so I dug out my phone and sat there like a dweeby boy with my hood up. I’d just got to level eight on Tetris when Dylan sat down beside me.
    ‘I thought you’d be puking somewhere,’ I said, concentrating on slotting shapes into place.
    ‘Nah, I’ve got a stomach like an ox,’ Dylan explained, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
    ‘Hmmm, me too. Oh, hell,’ I added as I screwed up the next level of the game. ‘Look, I’m sorry about before, about hitting you, I mean. I’m a bit disorientated when I first wake up.’
    ‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Dylan lightly. ‘You’re not the first girl to hit me, you won’t be the last.’
    ‘Who hit you?’ I asked.
    ‘Mia hit me once when we were sort of seeing each other,’ he muttered.
    My chest felt like it had just caved in.
    ‘You never said you went out with her, you just said that you’d got off with her,’ I blurted out, before I could stop myself.
    Dylan turned and looked at me. ‘We didn’t go out on dates, we’d just go round to each other’s houses and fool about.’
    For starters, I’ve never been round to Dylan’s house. Secondly, all those times that he’d kissed me, was that just ‘fooling about’? Thirdly, why did I give him every opportunity to say things that I knew I didn’t want to hear and fourthly…
    ‘You’ve gone again,’ Dylan remarked.
    ‘What?’
    ‘You do it all the time, Edie. I’ll be talking to you and you just disappear somewhere inside of yourself,’ he whispered, leaning back on the seat so his head was close to mine. ‘Anyway what are you doing, sitting here by yourself?’
    I started to tell him about the stuff I’d been thinking before, about how alive I felt with the sea roaring underneath me. Dylan was staring at me intently while I spoke. Then he did the most curious thing. He reached out one of his long-fingered hands and pulled down my hood.
    Immediately, the wind tugged at my hair, blowing it in every direction. Dylan caught a bunch of it and pulled it gently. ‘Your hair’s amazing. It’s the colour of clear honey.’
    Our faces were so close by now, I could see that his eyes weren’t completely green; there were flecks of brown around the pupils. God, he had the longest boy-lashes.
    I felt like I was caught up in the middle of someone else’s dream as I touched his hair, which was ruffling in the