Lots of French in this one, but Effy is munted and her brain keeps returning to her native tongue. Even KFF gets in on the act. So once again thanks to blueeyedfrog for her excellent interpretations. In the interests of authenticity I have asked her not to translate Katie's French so it remains as an English person attempting French mistakes and all.

I don't own Skins, but I would like to. Then I could make dozens of Mini episodes and watch Freya Mavor acting for hours. That girl has some serious skills.

And love and thoughts to SJ as always xxx

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14. The Pressure Cooker

Effy

I pulled the little plastic baggy out of the inside pocket of my jacket. Merde, was that gramme gone already? I held the bag by the top corner and tapped it, shaking the meagre contents down to the bottom to see if I could gather enough to make a line. Fat chance. I cut the bag open with my penkife and licked out the remains. As my tongue went numb from the drug, I turned my mind to the most important question of the day. Where to get more…

Normally my first port of call would be Cook, but I didn't want to see that bastard. He hadn't shown up at the barn today. Probably sleeping off the night's excesses or… Putain de bordel, that was a thought I could not afford to have, so I took another slug of vodka straight from the bottle and called Thomas. I hadn't slept at all since last night, dancing and drinking myself into oblivion after I'd seen Cook with Katie, and dragging poor Freddie along in my wake. We were amongst the last to be thrown out of Merrick's, but I had already scored us an after party, and we carried on throwing drugs down our neck in an attempt to remain in our clouded Nirvana. Whilst there was music and narcotics I could forget what I had seen. And forget the effect that it had on me.

Jusqu'alors, la jalousie n'était que quelque-chose que j'avais lu, pas vécu. I'd watched it wreak its havoc on other people, and had felt myself suitably superior. To me it was a ridiculous emotion that served no purpose at all. It never helped you get what you wanted, and more often than not it destroyed something that had been beautiful in the first place. It amused me how people would put themselves through this nonsensical pain, when we're all just fuck ups anyway. I never really gave a fuck who anybody slept with, and back in the day I could always pretty much get whoever I wanted, regardless of if they were with someone else or not. And as long as I was getting mine, who cared if they were giving it to someone else?

But this? This mess was unfathomable. Katie wanted me, and I had turned her down out of a sense of loyalty to a boy I had run away from for years. I could have had her that very first night at the Old Library. I could have taken things further those nights in her tent. I could have kissed her at the rally. I was the one who had stopped me. I had no right to stake any kind of claim on Katie, and yet I had gone to the party last night to stop her fucking Cook. Even though I had given him my blessing to take her out. Even though there was a massive part of me that just wanted her to be happy. Even though they would make a fucking lovely couple.

But I was not prepared for the sensations that overwhelmed me when I saw them touch. I had coped with all the flirting, because that's just the way Cook is, and I knew that Katie could more than hold her own. But to see them there like that, tongues down each other's throats and hands grabbing hungrily at each other's bodies, practically fucking each other where they stood… It was physical. I felt nauseous. My muscles cramped up until they felt like steel. My heart was hammering faster than it had ever done, even on the fastest drugs. It was all I could do to control myself from shaking. And there was a pain so intense beneath my ribcage that if I didn't know better I could have sworn I was having a heart attack.

But these symptoms were nothing compared to the emotional war that raged in my soul. Je souffrais. J'étais furieuse. Devenais violente. I wanted to tear him away from her physically. I wanted to hurt him, to stop him hurting me. I wanted to fuck her roughly just to make sure she knew who she belonged to. But at the same time I was horrified with myself. This evil feeling had turned me into some kind of monster. I wanted to kill my best friend. I wanted to sexually assault a woman I cared for deeply. I did not like the person I had become under this spell. This feeling was neither normal nor good. This feeling was a venom. If this was what I had become by joining the ranks of the moral majority, then I was fucking better off when I was a whore. When Cook had caught my eye, he had actually looked scared. Katie merely defiant.

I was paralysed. I knew I had done enough to throw Cook off his game, but I was helpless as to what to do next. Je ne pouvais pas aller leur parler avec cette violence dans mon coeur. I knew I didn't have a solution to offer them. So I just stared, and hoped somehow it would be enough to keep them apart. When they left, I had no idea what they were leaving to. But I knew what was coming next for me. I could feel the darkness encroaching all around me, and there was only one way to blot it out.

Drugs, and lots of them. Under their influence I could party the night away without hating myself. And so it continued throughout the night and all of today. But now I had run out and that wasn't any good at all. The sensible thing to do would have been to go to bed and try to sleep it off. Try to rest and then tackle my problems with a clean, fresh head in the morning. But how much did that suck? It was trying to be sensible and normal that had fucked me over in the first place, and all I wanted to do now was get monumentally fucked up, and float along in a place where I didn't give a shit about anything. Fortunately Thomas was doing a DJ set at a venue of dubious reputation enough to have all the right kinds of people there.

I was just trying to fix my make in the bathroom mirror when I was ambushed by a sleepy Freddie.

"Are you going out again, honey?" he frowned at me.

"Yeah," I said non-commitally.

He had followed me out to the roof party, but I certainly wasn't in the mood for his company tonight. My love affair with getting wasted was the only one where there wasn't room for a third party.

"Wasn't last night enough for you?" he said, a pleading note in his voice.

I just scoffed at him in return.

"Have you slept at all?" he said, a note of concern colouring his words.

I offered him a shrug in reply. He shook his head at me in that disapproving way of his, and I knew I had to get out of there.

"Thomas is playing," I said. "I want to go and support my mate."

"I don't think you should go," he said, doing that fucking headshake again.

"Et moi je pense que tu ne devrais pas être un tel fouineur pompeux," I replied.

I saw his nostrils flare in anger, and just smirked at him. I knew he hated it when I used French in an argument, but it was his own fucking fault. Even though we had been together for three years, his French was still fucking appalling, and when I was feeling wicked I had no qualms about using it against him in revenge. I could see him weighing up whether to take this further, when I was saved by the sound of my taxi horn beeping in the yard. I gave my hair one last fluff up in the mirror, and then turned and kissed him on the cheek.

"Don't wait up," I said.

.

.

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The place was grimy, but friendly, set up in an old warehouse at the shoddier end of town. The music was loud and intense, and the lighting was minimal and dim. Groups of people lurked shiftily in the shadows. To the untrained eye it would have been intimidating, but this was just people doing their own thing, outside of the poisonous embrace of profit-centred entertainment and the narrow confines of the law. My kind of place. Nevertheless, I was lurching perilously close to come down. I needed to get some drugs and fast before I crashed and the place became a loud and filthy nightmare. I spotted Thomas chatting to a couple of guys whose band were playing later. I wandered over, ignoring the way the band guys were blatantly checking me out, and got straight down to business.

"J'ai besoin de quelque-chose," I said to Thomas. "Y'a quelqu'un de solide ici ce soir?"

"Ooh, French girl," said the shorter of the band guys excitedly. "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?"

I didn't even dignify that with an answer. Thomas looked back at me with amusement and aplology.

"Je parie que tu ne l'as jamais entendue avant celle là," he said.

"Non, c'est si rafraîchissant et irrésistiblement drôle," I said. "Je vais devoir le baiser immédiatement."

Thomas laughed, and then looked up spotting something over my shoulder.

"On dirait que ta chance s'améliore," (looks like your luck is improving) he said.

I turned round, hoping to spot one of the dealers we knew. Instead I got an eyeful of Cook, laughing and chatting with a couple of girls. Immediately my stomach lurched again, and my eyes flashed around the room for Katie. There was no sign of her, and an uncharacteristic glimmer of optimism ran through me. Maybe he had heeded my warning after all. Either way, he was now my nearest available source of drugs, and that was what really mattered now. I kissed Thomas on both cheeks and headed over.

"Hey you don't wanna go with him, darling," I heard the band guy calling over my shoulder. "He'll fucking put it anywhere."

The insult was enough to make my temper flare again, but I didn't even know who I was angry at. At him for insulting my friend? At him for insulting me for having slept with Cook? For insulting Katie for possibly having slept with Cook? At Cook for having slept with Katie? At Katie for turning me into this useless emotional idiot? At myself for letting her? By the time I reached Cook and the girls, I was so confused and riled up I ignored any attempt at politeness, simply grabbing him by the arm roughly by the arm and dragging him away from them. He had looked up angrily when I first grabbed him, but the instant he had recognised it was me his anger had evaporated. And in that instant, even before the emotion in his eyes had been replaced by anything else, I knew. He had fucked her.

I felt cold. It was impossible because it was fucking baking in here, mais je ressentais un froid comme celui qu'on dit que l'on ressent quand on s'apprête à mourrir. The confusion and the rage had dissipated to be replaced by… nothing. I couldn't feel anything at all.

"Got any drugs?" I asked the boy in front of me, event though I knew it was a rhetorical question. Unlike mine, Cook's eyes were a cocktail of emotion, the biggest one seeming to be relief that I was not tearing him to pieces.

"What's your poison?" he said, putting his Cook bravura mask back into place.

"Everything," I said calmly.

"Never do things by halves, eh?" he smiled. "That's my Effy."

He stuck his hands into both of his pockets.

"Coke on the left side, MDMA to the right. Here I am, stuck in the middle with you," he sang, producing a different bag of powder from each pocket.

I snatched them both and took a dab of mandy before stuffing the packets into my bra. I was looking around for a drink to wash the disgusting taste of the mandy from my mouth, when I heard Cook's text alert go off. He pulled out his phone, and his face burst out into a spontaneous affectionate grin. Acting on pure impulse, I snatched the phone out of his hand. Of course it was a text from Katie.

"Thanks for last night, Babes. I'm just about compos mentis again. So where's the party, stud?"

And all at once the coldness changed to searing painful heat. I screamed and threw his phone against the wall.

"What the fuck, Eff?" he said in alarm.

"You fucking know what the fucking fuck," I yelled, and punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

Of course, I didn't have the strength to really hurt him, but he still looked winded and shocked. Not that I blamed him. This was the second time I had lashed out him like this.

"Effy, calm down," pleaded Cook. "It's not like that."

"Oh, isn't it, stud?" I said sarcastically.

"Yeah ok, we had sex," he admitted causing me to physically flinch. "But it's not going to be a thing."

"So you just fucked her for the hell of it?" I challenged. "You knew how I felt about it, and you went ahead and did it anyway."

"I told ya, it wasn't like that," protested Cook.

"Well why don't you tell me what the fuck it was like then," I spat angrily at him.

"When I saw you looking at me like that, I knew I couldn't go through with it," he sighed. "And I told her as much. But she needed someone, and the someone she wanted wasn't there for her. And it's Katie. And I'm just a man Effy. It's hard to say no when she comes on to you like that."

"So it was all Katie?" I said bitterly.

"It was the heat of the moment," he said earnestly. "She's a beautiful woman, but it was never going to be a goer, not really, and you know why."

I wanted to hate him, but he was Cook, and he was one of my boys. But still this lingering bitterness would not relinquish its grip on me.

"So was she good?" I asked, like some stupid jealous housewife.

Cook looked at me with disappointment in his eyes.

"We're not seriously going to go down that road, are we Eff?" he said. "If you don't want her, then you have to let her go."

He was right, but I couldn't fucking admit it.

"Whatever," I shrugged, and backed away into the night.

Time passed. Narcotics were consumed, and cognitive thought processes were shut down and ignored. I built an artificial wall around my heart, and lost myself in the grimy bass and the pretty lights. C'était un chemin familier, un chemin que j'avais parcouru maintes fois. Before long I neither knew nor cared who I was or what I was doing. I had a primary objective and it was driving my every move. Get wasted, and then get more wasted. I had given up on being careful and going to the toilets to do lines, merely lurking in the shadows and racking out on the tops of speakers or whatever surface was most handily available. I felt that familiar lurching in my heart as the drugs increased their grip on my brain and body that any sensible person would have taken as a sign to slow down. But I was not a sensible person, and the intervals between lines kept getting shorter and shorter. I had my bag in my hand and was just about to shake some out onto my library card, when I felt the gentlest of touches on my forearm.

"Hey you," came her honey laced voice. "How are you doing?"

She was beautiful, she was always beautiful, but in my accelerated state she was simply breathtaking. Comme si elle avait été envoyée par un dieu cruel pour me punir de mes péchés avec ses charmes. I knew I didn't deserve her, but I couldn't resist her.

"Katie, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Cook called me," she replied.

"Fucking Cook," I swore, as everything I'd been trying to blot out came crashing back into my memory. "Fucking fuck de chier."

"Keep your vagina on," said Katie, laughing at my fucked up mess of an attempt at bilingual swearing. "He called me cause he was worried about you. Said if he tried to help you, you'd cut his fucking balls off, so I said I'd like to see her try that shit with me."

Despite myself I laughed at her confidence. Katie had bigger balls than most of the men I knew. But I was still annoyed at Cook for going running to her.

"I don't need help," I stated defiantly.

"No?" she said sceptically. "He said you were getting munted on your own, that Freddie…"

"I don't need a fucking babysitter," I spat angrily, resenting her for dragging him into this at all.

"OK," she continued unfazed. "How about a dancing partner?"

I laughed again. Katie always had a way of turning things around.

"Sure I could use one of those,' I said. "I'll just have another line and then we can hit the floor."

But before my addled brain could catch up, she had niftily taken the bag from my fingers, and held it out of my reach.

"Give that back," I demanded.

"Nope," she smirked at me, shoving the bag into her bra.

"Don't think I won't go down there," I threatened, staring at her tempting cleavage.

Katie's eyes flashed with mischief.

"I don't think you need any more," she said.

"Don't tell me what I need," I retorted angrily. "I've already got one social worker. His name's Freddie."

"Why do you take drugs, Effy?" said Katie teasingly. "To get high, right?"

I rolled my eyes at her.

"So, why are you wasting them lurking in corners just taking more and more and not giving yourself the full advantage of the effect?" she said. "You're taking the drug for the sake of taking the drug, and you've reached a saturation point when it's not going to get any better. You need to pump it through your system. You need to feel it."

I stared back at her confused. I was so used to getting lectures, I simply hadn't expected encouragement.

"Come on," she said, holding out her hand.

I took it willingly, mesmerised by the calm smiling figure in front of me. I followed her without question, even when she bypassed the dancefloor and led us out of the club. The sky was starting to grow lighter, and I could sense it was going to be a beautiful day.

"Where are we going?" I asked her, as we wandered down the street still hand in hand.

"Does it matter?" she smiled back at me cheekily.

"I suppose not," I replied once I had given the matter what was passing for thought in my scrambled, helpless brain.

"Oh and Effy…" she said teasingly. "Run."

"What?" I blinked in confusion.

"RUN!" she said, slapping me on the arse, before pelting off down the street at an impressively rapid pace. If they ever held a high-heeled Olympics, where competitors had to accomplish complex tasks in the most unsuitable footwear, then Katie would be Team GB's best hope for gold. I spent a couple of seconds just marvelling at her ability to conquer her chosen art form, before I realised she was leaving me behind, and I chased after her without a second thought.

She led me on a twisting turning route through the early morning streets and by the time I caught up with her, we had made it all the way down to the canal. To be fair, I think she had finally taken pity on my gasping cigarette-weakened lungs. I don't think I would ever have caught her if she hadn't wanted me to. But when we finally came to a halt under a bridge, I found myself clinging onto some railings and laughing with delight in between my gasps.

"So how do you feel now, Miss Columbia?" she asked me, rubbing my back.

"Pretty fucking wonderful," I managed to splutter out.

And it was true. The chemicals I'd been forcing into my system had been released to their greatest effect. It was a completely different high, and one that was much more joyful. Le sang courait dans mes veines, et avec venait une euphorie délicieuse. I felt a strange and unfamiliar sensation wash over me, and realised I was actually having fun.

"Told you you didn't need any more," laughed Katie. "You just needed to use what you'd got."

I loved the way she didn't censure me. She knew I was getting stupidly wasted beyond the point of all sense, but she found a way to draw me out of it without disapproving of me. I couldn't help but note the contrast between her cheeky taunting and the weight of Freddie's disapproval, and he was not coming out favourably in the comparison.

"Fuck you're beautiful," I said, the drugs washing away any thought of self-censorship. Katie took it in her stride.

"And you're the cocaine love bunny," she smiled. "I'm not taking anything you say seriously.

I collapsed into another fit of giggles. So this was recreational drug use? I had to admit, it was rather fucking nice. When I looked up, Katie's tantalising brown eyes had devils in them.

"Something's put you in a good mood," I said, and then remembered what it was. "Getting laid seems to work well for you."

Katie's eyes flashed with concern, before she realised it wasn't an attack.

"So he told you then?" she said tentatively.

"He didn't have to," I replied.

"Don't be too hard on him," she told me. "I kind of forced him into it."

"When you've known Cook as long as I have the idea of him having to be forced to have sex with a beautiful woman is fucking hilarious," I smiled.

"Yeah well I didn't have to try too hard." she said smugly, before relenting. "But it's not going to happen again."

"Why not?" I asked despite myself. "You guys looked pretty good together."

Katie looked deep into my eyes, trying to gauge what I was feeling, and how to play the fact that she knew I had been staring at the pair of them in the club.

"Nah, he's a pussy," she said, going with humour. "I think he's scared of you."

"And you're not?" I asked, raising a teasing eyebrow.

Katie's dismissive snort of laughter was the most wonderful sound I've ever heard. It was the sound that unlocked the door to the tiny windowless room that I'd been keeping Old Effy in. Of course she wasn't afraid. Katie n'aurait jamais peur de moi. Freddie lived in constant fear of who I was, and I realised what a heavy toll his expectations of disaster were having on our relationship. But Katie was a titan, and I realised I was going to have to step up my game if I was to have any chance of being an equal to her.

"What's to be scared of?" she laughed. "I can outrun you, I can beat you in a fight, and despite your best efforts I am completely capable of resisting your charms."

I don't know if she meant it as a challenge, but I decided to take it as one.

"Are you sure about that?" I said before pushing her roughly back against the wall.

And it was enough. Enough to forget I had ever made a promise to a boy. The good girlfriend had been cast aside, and in her place stood Effy Stonem, former champion of desire. I pinned her to the wall and kissed her passionately, pressing the entire length of my body against hers. It only took a moment for me to feel the thrill of her capitulation. She opened her mouth to me and started kissing me back with equal passion. I pushed my thigh in between hers and started grinding against her, desire rattling through my body like a crocodile rolling its prey. There would be no escaping from the jaws of this lust as I felt Katie beginning to yield. I couldn't pretend any more. I was going to take her right here up against this wall with the first light of the sunrise glinting across the water of the canal. I was going to take her for all the times I hadn't allowed myself in the past. Katie was what I needed now, and by God I was going to satisfy that need. I heard the beautiful sound of her moaning, and I moved my hands towards her perfect breasts.

But before I could reach my destination I felt an unexpected and unwelcome pressure on my chest. I tried to ignore it and to kiss her even harder, but the pressure increased, forcing its way into my consciousness. It was Katie, her hand in between my tits. She was pushing me away. There was a moment's struggle before the animal in me gave way to its human companion, and I let her force me away from her. Ses prochains mots faillirent me briser le coeur.

"No Effy," she said breathlessly.

We stared at each other, our chests heaving and our eyes as dark as the farthest reaches of space. I was still leaning into her hand and she was actively having to keep me away. I could see she was struggling to regain her composure, but that was the last thing I wanted her to do. I placed my hands on the wall either side of her head. I was reminded of the terrible things I had thought when I had seen her with Cook, but still I couldn't bring myself to release the sexual pressure. I knew she could probably kick my ass if she wanted to, so I was willing to push my luck.

"You want me," I stated.

"Of course I do," she admitted. "You know I do. There's nothing I want more than to let you fuck me up against this wall and completely give in to the pleasure."

"So?" I said, leaning in and trying to kiss her again.

"No," she said firmly, keeping me at bay. "Not like this. I'm not going to be your mistress."

"Putain," I said, spinning away from her.

She was right. She was way to good to put up with this kind of crap from me. Once again I was seized by a maelstrom of emotions that were too strong for me. I started smacking my fist into the wall in frustration. Why was this so fucking difficult? And where was all this rage coming from? I felt Katie's strong arms grabbing me from behind, pinning my own to my sides.

"Stop it Effy," she demanded, and I started shaking in her grasp. "It's ok. It's going to be ok."

"How is it going to be ok?" I asked. "You're no fucking good for me."

"How'd you work that one out?" she said calmly.

"Things were ok before you turned up," I said. "I could keep it under control. I didn't have all these fucking feelings. Freddie, he…."

"What about him?" said Katie, releasing her grip on me.

"He keeps me steady," I replied.

"He stifles you," retorted Katie.

I turned to face her.

"I need it," I replied. "When everything's calm, I can keep the darkness away."

It was the first time I'd admitted to Katie the dark cloud that hovered as a constant threat over my head.

"What? By making you keep everything about you suppressed until you're wound so tight, you have to vent the pressure cooker?" she said scornfully. "Cause I can see that's really working for you. You better be careful, babes, cause otherwise the whole fucking thing's going to blow up in your face one day."

She reached up and gently stroked my cheek.

"I'm not just saying this because I want to get into your pants," she said softly. "I'm saying this as a friend, but I think it's Freddie who's no good for you. I just want you to be happy."

"I am happy," I said. "This is me happy."

"C'est ça que tu se dis quand tu es éveillée dans la nuit?" she said.

In that moment all of the fight went out of me. This woman seemed to be able to see right into me, and her use of my native tongue made me want to melt into her arms and let her comfort me.

"I don't know what to do," I said helplessly.

"Have you talked to anyone about it?" Katie asked me.

"About what?"

"About your condition?" she said.

"My what?"

"Fuck, you don't even know," she said sympathetically.

She took my hand and led me out of the shadow of the bridge into the sunshine, and sat us down on a bank of grass.

"Effy," she said, her brown eyes staring into mine with infinite kindness. "I think you get depressed."

"What have I got to be depressed about?" I blinked at her.

"It doesn't work like that," she said. "And you know it. You make fabulous work, and have great friends and a boyfriend that loves you, but it doesn't stop it does it? This feeling that haunts you?"

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I worked in fashion," she laughed. "I've seen enough high functioning people with borderline mental illness to last me a lifetime, and I also know that there are better ways of dealing with it. I think you should go and see someone."

Her words shivered through me. Ever since I'd gotten so fucked up as a teenager I had known that there was something that wasn't quite right about me, but I had been too scared to ever give it a name. I was scared of what they would do to me if they knew. But Katie had managed to discover it all by herself. The relief of finally having someone who understood was almost overwhelming, but I was still worried about the reaction of the outside world.

"I don't want to get put on drugs," I frowned.

"And what do you think you were doing last night?" she laughed. "Can you honestly tell me you were having fun before I showed up?"

"No," I admitted. "It's never really been about having fun, no matter what I told myself."

"Anyway," she said. "It doesn't necessarily have to be about drugs. There are other ways of managing it, but you'll never know unless you ask for help. And even if you do, you still get to make the choice. You're not a freak, Eff. This happens to millions of people. I'll be there to make sure no one fucks you over."

"They wouldn't dare," I smiled.

For the first time in several days I was reminded that Katie wasn't just a stunningly beautiful girl I wanted to go to bed with, she was a compassionate, perceptive and intelligent woman, and one hell of a fucking friend.

"I'm not going to hassle you about it, babes," she said. "You're fucking amazing and brilliant, and you've got so much to offer. Just think about it, yeah? I'll respect whatever decision you make. Like I said, I just want you to be happy."

"Do you think that's possible?" I asked her.

"Of course it is," she said, squeezing my hand. "And we can start right now. Tell me about something beautiful."

I closed my eyes and let my head fall back, feeling the sun's rays on my face. I tried not to force it. I tried to empty my mind and let my brain throw up something genuine. Son visage m'apparut comme un rappel immédiat que ma vie contenait quelque-chose de pur et de beau.

"My brother Tony," I said, with a heartfelt smile nearly splitting my face in two. "He's beautiful."

"Tell me about him," said Katie.

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.

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la francais…

1. Jusqu'alors, la jalousie n'était que quelque-chose que j'avais lu, pas vécu.

Until that moment, jealousy was just a thing I'd read about in books.

2. Je souffrais. J'étais furieuse. Devenais violente. - I was hurting. I was furious. I felt violent.

3. Je ne pouvais pas aller leur parler avec cette violence dans mon coeur.

I couldn't go and talk to them with this violence in my heart.

4. "Et moi je pense que tu ne devrais pas être un tel fouineur pompeux."

"And I don't think you should be such a pompous controlling twat,"

5. "J'ai besoin de quelque-chose," I said to Thomas. "Y'a quelqu'un de solide ici ce soir?"

"I need something," I said to Thomas. "Is there anybody reliable in tonight?"

6. "Je parie que tu ne l'as jamais entendue avant celle là,"

"Bet you've never heard that before," he said.

7. "Non, c'est si rafraîchissant et irrésistiblement drôle," "je vais devoir le baiser immédiatement."

"No, it's so startlingly original and funny," I said. "I may have to fuck him immediately."

8. "On dirait que ta chance s'améliore," he said.

"Looks like you might be in luck,"

9. mais je ressentais un froid comme celui qu'on dit que l'on ressent quand on s'apprête à mourrir.

but I felt cold the way they say that people feel cold before they die.

10. C'était un chemin familier, un chemin que j'avais parcouru maintes fois.

It was a familiar road, and one that I had walked so many times before.

11. Comme si elle avait été envoyée par un dieu cruel pour me punir de mes péchés avec ses charmes.

Like she'd been sent down by some particularly vengeful god to torture me for my sins with her loveliness.

12. Le sang courait dans mes veines, et avec venait une euphorie délicieuse. The blood was pumping through my veins, and with it came a beautiful feeling of euphoria.

13. Katie n'aurait jamais peur de moi.

Katie would never be afraid of me.

14. Ses prochains mots faillirent me briser le coeur.

The next words she uttered nearly broke my heart.

15. "C'est ça que tu se dis quand tu es éveillée dans la nuit?"

Is that what you tell yourself when you're lying awake at night

16. Son visage m'apparut comme un rappel immédiat que ma vie contenait quelque-chose de pur et de beau.

The minute I pictured his face I knew that there was something brilliantly and truthfully beautiful in my life.