Expect Nothing Less [Tom Daley Love Story]

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I bit my lip in anticipation of the results of the quiz I had just taken. I had tried to answer each question as best I could, but there were always those few that tried to throw you off. I did want to do well. I mean, it wasn’t the world to me but I didn’t want a result that would compel me to throw myself off a bridge.  

Not that I ever would. 

‘You sure you answered each question truthfully?’ 

I nodded impatiently. Of course I had. It would have been obvious if I had cheated anyway. 

‘Okay, you scored a 92,’ my room-mate, Kate, said. She flicked onto the next page and starting reading out loud.  

‘You are far too uptight for your own good. You need to respond to situations in a calmer and more outgoing manner. Your attitude can be too upfront at times and not compassionate enough. You should try to lighten up. Try to relax by taking a yoga class, painting…’ 

I snorted at my results. It was fortunate that the editors of Cosmopolitan were miles away in New York. Otherwise, I would have paid them a visit and given them a piece of my mind.  

‘What a bunch of crap!’ I said. 

‘I think the quiz was extremely accurate,’ Kate said, smirking as she did so. 

‘I’m not about to give heed to the advice of a magazine which prints articles such as ‘Are your boobs too big?’ and ‘How to catch a rich man in forty steps’,’ I scoffed. 

Kate rolls her eyes at me and then continues to flick through the magazine. 

It was a Sunday morning. We had decided to spend the day inside our dorm room, too tired from going out the night before to do anything productive. Besides, it had started to get rather chilly outside as fall had already started mingling with winter. Already edgy from three cups of coffee (which were black as crude oil), I haughtily dismissed the results of the quiz.  

Of course, if I had received a more endearing result then I would have claimed it accurate. However, that wasn’t the case. 

I rummaged through one of my drawers to find a hair clip. My blonde hair had turned slightly brown as it always did after I washed it. I didn’t mind this. The only colour change I did mind was when after swimming in a pool. My hair would turn a subtle shade of green because of something to do with the chlorine. Let me just say, I’ve never agreed with the Mermaid Barbie look. 

As I was fixing my hair, my cell phone rang really loudly and scared me half to death.  

‘Hello?’ I said, sounding slightly shaken. 

‘Hey Ivy! What’s wrong with you, you scared of me?’ said an upbeat voice. 

‘No. My cell was on max volume. Freaked me out when it rang, that’s all.’ 

It was Ivana, an old friend from my boarding school days. I hadn’t seen her in a long time and I suspected she was about invite me to visit her. In fact, the last time I saw her was in New York. She was buying new furniture for her dorm room at Plymouth University. (Quick AN: It's actually a college :).)  When I had asked her why she didn’t just buy stuff in England she gave me a spiel on how she refused to sacrifice design and culture for convenience. Whatever that meant.  

‘What are you up to?’ she asked. 

‘Nothing.’  

Hey, it was the truth.  

‘Ha! Big night last night, then.’ 

‘Maybe.’  

‘Why don’t you come visit me, next week?’ 

‘Um…’ 

‘Oh come on, don’t tell me you were planning to go to New York City. That’s soooo boring,’ she whined. 

‘No, it’s not. There's a lot of good food there.’ 

That was the best I could come up with at the time. I think I dropped twenty IQ points with that one sentence. Maybe thirty. 

‘Yeah, okay…I’m not convinced. Come on, we haven’t seen each other for ages!’ 

I suspected there were good reasons for that. She and I didn’t really have much in common anymore. I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go visit her or not. I didn’t really feel like ditching my own Harvard buddies to go on a week trip to England (considering I had had everything planned out), but I had been putting off going to see Ivana for a while now. I did feel sort of guilty. 

‘Erm…’ 

‘You know you want to! Besides, there are really hot guys here,’ she said, as if that were enough to convince me. 

‘So, what, you want me to fly to England?’ I asked, in this tone that suggested that I thought this would involve going through hectic airports and annoying flights. 

‘Do whatever. Just get over here! And don’t act like you can’t afford it. Stop being such a loser.’ 

I hate the way so many of my friends try to coax me into doing things by offending me first.  

‘Well…’ 

‘So, I’ll see you next week!’ 

‘Okay, I guess.’ 

‘Yay!’  

Then she hung up. 

I sat there on my bed for a few moments, staring at my cell suspiciously. I didn’t even really know where Plymouth was. I think I did look it up on a map back in high school but that was for her information, not mine. I didn’t even know whether she wanted me to stay at her dorm at the University or if I was meant to make my own arrangements. Probably the former.  

I guessed that Kate would probably want to come with me. She had rid herself of her flavor of the week. I couldn’t even remember his name. It was likely she couldn’t either. Good riddance. I hadn’t even bothered asking for the details.  

I reached for my BlackBerry. It was time to change some plans. 

‘Want to go to Plymouth with me next week?’ I asked Kate. 

‘Plymouth? You mean where the Mayflower was docked or something?"  

‘Uh, no. Plymouth as in Plymouth, England.' 

‘What?’ 

‘England.’ 

‘Why would I want to go there?’ 

‘Fine, don’t come.’ 

‘Hey wait,’ Kate backtracked. ‘Are you chasing some random guy, or something? Cos what’s in England that’s so special?’ 

I guess I was about to find out.