Yet again, I felt like I was spending my life thinking about Nathan Evans. Was I obsessed? Deluded? Was he winding me up? Messing with my head? I re-lived every time he spoke to me, looked at me, anything. I replayed conversations in my head to try and figure out if I was reading into them wrong. A part of me felt as though he liked me back. Another part of me felt like he was playing a cruel game with me. Maybe he was just one of those boys who flirted with everyone, who liked to charm random girls but had no real interest in them. But he kept striking me as deeper than that. And all those little things I experienced seemed to affect him too. Somehow I couldn't let go of the idea that there was something I didn't know about him and that thing would explain the rest. Either that or I was more pathetic than everyone assumed.
That weekend, Dad was working late shifts so he reluctantly left Gran in charge of things. He did agree to let me have my friends over to watch a film though. At least he was making an effort. They all turned up on Saturday afternoon. Gran prepared a big lunch for us all. It was the first time she had met Amelia but she welcomed her with open arms and even bought some chocolate covered flapjacks for us to nibble on afterwards. Afterwards she went upstairs to give us a bit of space. Joey and Tammie decided to walk back to her house and look for a DVD to watch because apparently nothing in my house was good enough.
Amelia and I curled up on the sofa with the rest of the flapjacks and a pot of raspberry leaf tea, content to flick through music stations until a song we both liked came on. I could see from the corner of my eye that she was glancing at me periodically and twitching her foot anxiously like she wanted to say something or ask a question. Finally I gave up and turned to face her.
"Okay, spit it out already."
She started to deny it but thought better of it and nodded. "Alright, sorry, I know it's none of my business but what's the deal with you and my brother? You seemed to be getting on okay and then yesterday you blanked him completely. Plus, I got the feeling that you were avoiding getting the bus or coming to my house because of him. Did he do something, say something to upset you? Or do you just not like him?" The look that accompanied that last question said plainly that it wasn't possible.
"There is no deal," I said grumpily. Her eyes widened. I couldn't wipe the frown from my face. "Look, I can't talk to you about your brother."
She laughed loudly. "Of course you can! Who better to talk to than me?"
I wanted to say everything that was going through my head but she was his sister, there was something gross about it. Worse still, there was always the chance that she might think I was friendly with her to get to him. Finally I settled for shaking my head. "Just can't talk about it."
"But you like him, right?" she asked in a funny tone of voice, as if it was really important or something. I stared at her, wondering if I was that obvious or if it was because of Tammie's teasing that she came out with it. "You do . . . like him." She was almost insistent about it.
"I can't talk about that stuff with you, Amelia," I said again.
She merely smiled. I doubted she saw things like I did. "It's okay Perdita. You can always talk to me. So what did he do now?"
"He didn't do anything. Just leave it."
"I'm going to ask him if you don't tell me so you might as well."
My mouth gaped open. The idea of her telling him that I was upset with him filled me with dread because then he would know I liked him and that I was mad because I was jealous. That couldn't happen.
"You're so bloody pigheaded," I practically growled at her. "Alright. I had a little bit of a crush on him and I felt like . . . I don't know, I felt like he was leading me on a little bit so I don't want to be around him anymore. That is all. End of story." I turned back to the television.
