‘I swear to GOD the postman could see me that time,’ I say stridently, but she just rolls her eyes. We both jump as the bell goes again, and Sam picks up her phone and opens the app.
‘Who is it?’ I ask her, my eyes wild. She looks up at me – she’s frowning. ‘Who?’ I ask again, suddenly feeling afraid.
She takes a deep breath. ‘It’s Justin.’
CHAPTER FIVE
It has only been – I check my watch, god, seriously? – about thirteen hours since we last saw one another. Thirteen hours since I finally stormed out of that restaurant still shouting about his mum. Thirteen hours since my life became pure turd. But I feel like I haven’t seen Justin’s face for aeons. I study it now on the phone screen, drinking him in as he waits patiently outside our building. His long, straight nose, his thick eyebrows. He pushes his hair away from his face now; a habit I once adored. Still do, actually.
‘Let’s ignore it,’ Sam says firmly, and I gasp.
‘We can’t do that,’ I tell her. ‘He’s come to see if I’m okay. This issosweet.’ I cling to a sudden hope. ‘Maybe all of this can be undone, Sam! He’ll take back his dumping and tell the world we were just messing about in that video. We’ll show everyone how very in love we are – he might even propose for real now! – and Spencer frog-face will forget allabout this silly therapy idea. Everything will be good again. We can undo this!’
Sam squints at me. ‘You are majorly in denial, Tiramisu Girl. This arse-knobdumpedyou. The whole world has seen it. And just because he’s here doing the halfway decent thing of checking you’re all right after something awful happened, it doesn’t make him a good guy. It makes him a human being at its most basic level.’ She grins. ‘Plus, it’s funnier to ignore him. Look at his stupid face getting more and more irate.’
I tut at her, hitting the buzzer and telling Justin in my nicest voice that he should come on up.
A light tap on our front door comes a minute later and I quickly check my reflection in the hallway mirror. Jools’ make-up is holding firm and everything looks good, apart from the missing eyebrows. Ah well. Justin has seen me without eyebrows before. Never without mascara, but a few times minus eyebrows. It was quite funny actually. He knew something was wrong with my face and I kept catching him examining me curiously, but it was obvious he couldn’t figure out what. Men and eyebrows, LOL.
‘Justin,’ I say breathlessly as I yank open the door.
‘Er, hi.’ He nods nervously.
‘Justin,’ Sam acknowledges archly from over my shoulder. He gives her wings a quizzical look. She doesn’t offer an explanation, and he doesn’t ask.
‘Come in,’ I tell him warmly, and he steps awkwardly over the threshold.
‘Umm, Samira.’ I turn to her. ‘Can you…’ I gesture for her to go away, and she rolls her eyes.
‘No fair!’ she pouts. ‘I want to listen.’ We glare at one another for a long second, before she sighs. ‘Fine, I get it. I’ll give you guys some space.’ She stays standing there for another moment, glaring at Justin, before finally turning in the direction of her room. She hops awkwardly along the hallway, then glances back at me.
‘What? I don’t know how a daddy long-legs would walk,’ she explains as she continues to hobble-jump out of sight. I try not to laugh as I turn my attention back to Justin.
‘Is she…?’ He peers after her, his eyebrows knitted together with confusion. ‘What is…’
‘She’s a daddy long-legs,’ I tell him simply.
He frowns. ‘Daddy long… Aren’t you scared of them?’ he asks, and my heart gets all warm. He remembers. See, hedoescare about me.
Although, I suppose it probably helped that I talked about thema lot. One of our most in-depth chats ever was about what happens with a plural or singular daddy long-legs. Is it a daddy long-leg or are they daddy long-legses?
I smile and he clears his throat. ‘I messaged but you didn’t reply…’ he begins.
‘I haven’t looked at my phone.’ I shrug apologetically. ‘I was avoiding it. For obvious reasons.’
‘Right.’ He swallows. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Not really,’ I admit. ‘It’s been pretty awful. My boss isgoing mad, my phone is radioactive.’ I sigh. ‘I can’t believe those restaurant dickheads did this…’
He frowns. ‘Wait, what? Why would your boss be angry? What’s the restaurant got to do with it?’ His eyes narrow. ‘Are they charging you for getting cheesecake all over the tablecloth? And damaging that spoon with your nail?’
I stare at him. ‘Er, Spencer’s upset about the… y’know, the videos.’
Justin stares back. ‘What videos?’ He shakes his head. ‘I thought you were upset about the break-up – avoiding your phone because of me. I thought this was about me du—’ He swallows the words, but I know what he was going to say.I thought this was about me dumping you.
Jesus.
I take a deep breath. So, he doesn’t know about Tiramisu Girl and the viral videos of me. Ofus. How is that possible? I suppose it was mostly zoomed in on my face and I’m the one on TV, maybe no one’s recognised him yet.
