Chapter 9
My pencil had bored a hole through the paper as I lay on the grass in the campus and doodled, hoping inspiration would strike. I'd done two crappy lines in the last half hour and the rest was being very un-striking. Magnus was dozing in the rare winter sun while Nico filled his brother's ears with grass. He looked like a gross goblin from some 80's film. Kay was painting her nails bubble-gum pink and reading a gossip magazine, every so often squealing and telling me all there is to know about some Barbie's new divorce. Boring.
The tip of my pencil broke through the paper again and dug into the earth underneath me. I pulled it out and started on a new doodle of procrastination.
"How's it going?" Liv nudged me, her eyes fixed on her book.
I sighed and rolled onto my back, staring at the clouds with my hands behind me head. "Argh, I'm dying."
She turned a page. "That's a pity."
"I can't write, I have a problem, what's it called?"
She smiled and adjusted the way she was leaning on her elbows. "Writer's block?"
"Yes!" I reached over and angled her book upwards so I could see the title. A picture of a woman in an empire skirt talking to a man with amazing sideburns illustrated the name of the book. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen.
I smile, "Again Liv?"
She laughed. "Yes again! It's the best, now go away so I can panic about Mr Collins and Lizzie."
I sat up and picked some grass out of my hair. "I bet you a coffee that she refuses him."
Liv flashed me a look. "Go and talk to Rose."
I glanced over to where Roe was leaning against a tree with Charlie who had come over yet again to 'talk guy stuff with Magnus'. If he'd said one word to M in the last two hours then I was Lizzie Bennet.
"I can't, she's with Charlie."
Liv looked over at them before pulling me down again next to her. "Excellent, don't disturb them, leave romance to do its work."
I sighed and went back to doodling.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rose's P.O.V.
"So then I took my caravan and we went on a road trip round Europe. It was awesome, we went to London, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Rome, Madrid, everywhere. But we had to cut it short when I realised I had eaten through my allowance and gone into Alex's." Charlie was illustrating his story with his hands, waves and flicks, it could have been anything.
"That sounds amazing, I've always wanted to go to Europe." I said wistfully, playing with the band he gave me two weeks ago.
"You've never been?" He sounded surprised.
I shook my head, suddenly awkward with the fact that he'd been everywhere and I'd never left Colorado.
"Well," He sounded defiant. "I'll take you. We'll save up a bit, grab the caravan and do the road trip all over again."
I looked up. "Yeah, and we'll get mini jobs in diners to pay our way and go for weeks without staying anywhere solid and realise half way through that this is the life for us and end up in Italy living out of the van for the rest of our days."
He stared at me, waiting for me to catch on.
"Oh my god." I said suddenly. "You're serious."
He nodded, grinning. "Yeah, I am. I really mean it."
I laughed, still not clicking. "You want to take me to Europe?"
He nodded, his eyes softening as he looked at me. I felt heat rise to my cheeks and looked away, back to my fiddling fingers.
"You're serious?" I asked again, still not really believing it.
He nodded and took my hand slowly, twining our fingers together, going through the plastic band on my wrist. "Yup, I want to show you Europe, and hopefully a lot else. How about it?"
I looked up at his face, trying to make sure he was asking what I thought he was? "Charlie, are you asking me out?"
He glanced away, smiling slightly, his own cheeks reddening a bit. "Possibly, that depends, what would you say if I did?"
I gaped for a second. He was actually asking me out. This wasn't some joke form a douchebag. This was an asking out from Charlie! Charlie! My stomach flipped and squirmed. My brain short-circuited.
But, logic had to win. "Could I have a minute?" I let go of his hand and got to my feet. "I'm just going to get my coat. I'll be back in a bit."
He blinked, his surety of my answer dying. My chest tightened, I didn't want him to hurt over this, I just needed to think. My self-consciousness was battling its way through.
"Oh, ok." He said, quieter than normal and looking slightly downtrodden.
I tried to make it better. "Hey,"
He looked up at me.
I smiled. "I'll be back in a bit."
He stared looking hopeful again, and smiled, his whole face lighting up like the Charlie I knew.
I turned and walked over to Magnus's rooms, remembering my green parka slung over the sofa arm.
"Rose isn't it?"
I turned sharply at the sound of my name and came face to face with a girl, maybe a few years older than me.
She was blonde, her hair falling over one shoulder, beautifully done, complimenting her coral pink shirt and her skinny white jeans. There were a pair of large sunglasses on her head and a white bag slung over one arm. A Starbucks takeaway latte was clutched in one manicured hand. She was the definition of White Girl.
"Stella." She held out her free hand and I shook it blindly. Stella.
"Charlie's sister right?" I said, slightly intimidated by her confidence and looks.
She nodded and sipped her drink before speaking. "Yes, Charlie's my baby brother."
I frowned. "He's two years younger than you."
She waved it away and played with her hair. "So, I just wanted to meet you, Charlie didn't want to introduce us last time I saw you. Not sure why. Of course, you are a lot different from his last girlfriends. Very different actually. What do you do?"
I was a bit startled, it wasn't often some gorgeous girl came up and said you were very different from her brother's exes. "Um, I don't work actually, I help with my friend's band."
She pursed her crafted lips and looked me up and down. I suddenly felt incredibly self-conscious in my ratty jeans and stripy top, with pen on my hands and my sleeves tangled with my wrist bands. I could see her take it all in and it was obvious what she thought.
"Ah. Well, you see, I set up Charlie and his last two girlfriends. I met them through work. I'm a model, but of course you knew that."
I didn't actually but she kept going.
"Anyway, seeing as his last two girlfriends were models by the time they were nineteen and the one before that was one of my bestest friends. Caroline, her name was, poor girl. They were all so lovely, but of course, boys will be boys and he wasn't exactly interested in sticking around."
I gaped at her. My hands started covering up my wristbands, even Charlie's. My feet felt strange in their white converses and I felt naked without my parka to hide in. "Right, well, I'm not a model."
She laughed to herself, looking me up and down again. "No, no you really aren't."
My shoulders hunched against her onslaught.
She sighed and checked her dainty watch. "Well, it really is time for me to dash. I have a photo shoot in two hours and I simply must get my pedicure beforehand. I just wanted to see if it was true that Charlie had a new girl."
I nodded dumbly, my shyness and self-consciousness eating away at me.
She turned on a heel and started walking away. "I'll see you at Christmas maybe Rose. That's often when the family meets Charlie's latest playmate."
And with a flick of her platinum blonde hair she was gone.
There was a hollow feeling in my stomach. It had been a long time since someone had taken that much of a hole out of me. I had to physically rub my chest to make sure my heart was still there.
That really hurt.
I turned to get my coat.
I was going home.
The promise of Europe was fading away.
