You know how all women think they're ugly and fat, then sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror and think 'hey, I'm not so bad' ? Well I wasn't having one of those days. I was staring at my reflection with utter contempt as I tried in vain to apply eyeliner. Eyeliner is the bane of my life, every other women on the planet can put it on and get the smoky sophisticated look. I end up looking stupid and it always ends up under my eyes create huge dark circles. I tried to move on to mascara, but I put too much on and when I blinked I ended up with big circles around my eyes. Needless to say I swore loudly. I hate make up, I have no idea how I ended up with such an abundance of it. When John knocked on the door I had managed to apply it properly and brush my frizz matic hair (yes, frizz matic is a word I made up, but it suit's the mood my hair was in).

"What, no cap tonight?" he asked.

I fake laughed. "You're so funny! Ever thought of doing stand up?"

"You will stop using sarcasm all the time when I'm through with you."

Please, if my teachers and friends and family couldn't stop it then John had no chance. I invited him into my room and prayed he wouldn't mind that I was using anything but the wardrobe to store my clothes, what can I say? I'm a slob.

"You look nice." he said, trying to sit on the bed with sitting on clothes.

"Please, I'm wearing my fat jeans."

John laughed. "You are not fat."

I let that slide and searched for my sketchers which where already going grey.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"No idea. What are you in the mood for?"

I wasn't an adventurous eater. I liked traditional things and you would never catch me eating a meal prepared by a celebrity chef, you know like a chocolate cake with chilli powder, I swear I've seen that once.

"Italian." I replied, because that meant I could order lasagne or pizza.

"Italian it is."

So we left.

As it turns out, John didn't know any Italian places and I shot down his idea of Thai. We ended up in Denny's, which I didn't mind. As soon as our drinks had arrived, mine being a coke with ice and no JD, he began the whole 'so tell me about yourself' round of questioning that I had heard from my friends was very first dateish.

"You know about me."

"It was you who said I didn't."

"When?"

"When you where drunk."

That explained it.

"Short hand version, I was born and lived in Liverpool all my life until I moved here. I have a younger brother, my parents are still together, my best friend is called Julian and my family are either as mad as hatters, or uptight."

"That's not so interesting." John sounded slightly disappointed.

"I'm not interesting."

"What's your favourite colour?"

"Red."

"Why?"

"Because my football team play in Red."

"Football or soccer?" he asked.

"English football, you're football is rugby, except when we play rugby there's no padding or helmets because the British are tougher then the Americans."

John laughed. "Yeah, I'll humour you."

What did he expect? I was British, I had to stick up for my country, I was use to sticking up from my city. Somehow, years ago the rest of the country had developed a stereotype that everyone from Liverpool lived on council estates, stole things and said 'calm down, calm down' which was pure bullshit. I was frequently threatened whenever I ventured outside the city by people who would laugh at me and say

"Can I have the wheels back on my car?"

And when I didn't laugh they would say

"Calm down, calm down." in an awful faux scouse accent before saying they where going to jump me. British people could be pricks sometimes.

"Do you miss home?" John asked when I hadn't said anything for five minutes.

I didn't now, but to be honest I hadn't been thinking that much about it. When I was there it was just a place where all these bad things happened. I mean obviously all those things would of happened no matter where I lived, but it leaves you with certain feelings about a place. Whenever I visited my Mum, I had to drive past the hospital where I went for counselling and every time I went past it I would be reminded of all sorts of things I didn't like thinking of. I hadn't even reailsed I'd gone all nostalgic until John hit me across the hand with a fork.

"Ow!" I shouted, pulling my hand back.

"Thought I'd lost you. You've been staring into space."

"Sorry. It's a bad habit, one of many."

I finished the rest of my coke in one go and looked for the waiter to order another.

"How did you get into camera work?" John asked. He was starting to struggle to keep the conversation going.

"Well I did Media in school and I despised any other subject so I took it in college too. I wanted to go to University but...I didn't and a local cable station needed camera operators."

"Why didn't you go to University?"

Toby. He didn't forbid it or anything, but with neither set of parents liking the arrangement we needed our own place and even we both of us working at weekends, £4.80 an hour wasn't enough for rent and bills and food and you can see where this is going right?

"I didn't live at home and I needed the money."

It was at that point our food arrived and gladly the messy conversation ended.

John invited me back to his hotel room. I've learnt from friends that this is not a good sign, that the man in question will expect something in return, but if I'd already passed out on his bed and come out unharmed I thought I'd be ok. His room was a lot tidier then mine, but he hadn't been living in hotel rooms for weeks. He turned the television on and I sat on the edge of his bed.

"Kate, you are really something." John told me.

I laughed. "Yeah, nasty, rude, unstable...."

"No. A good something."

Not surprisingly the conversation didn't go any further then that, I left and went back to my own room.