Read Online Soulmates by Holly Bourne - Free Book Online

Lizzie said, tears in her eyes. “You two are so funny.”
    Amanda looked at her in dismay.
    “You really are,” Ruth added. “You’re like the two shyest people I’ve ever come across in my whole seventeen years. How you even got together is a miracle of science.”
    Amanda looked like she was going to cry. I could see the angry comebacks forming in her mind, never to be expelled. Then she shook her head and grinned.
    “Shut up,” she said. “Okay, I know we’re both a little…repressed…”
    Her choice of word made us lose control again.
    “But we’ll get there. Anyway…” She struggled to build the courage to say the next sentence. “…At least I’ve got a boyfriend.”
    Ruth, Lizzie and I looked at each other, still laughing and raised our eyebrows.
    “Now that is true,” I said, moving into Johnno’s seat and putting my arm around her. “We shouldn’t mock you. You are, after all, the only one who’s found somebody.”
    “I find somebody about once a week,” Ruth said and the hysterics began again.
    The girls at the table next to us looked at us like we were mad, which only made us laugh harder.
    When we had finally regained our self-control, I turned to Amanda again. “So, are you coming?”
    She gulped but I knew she was going to give in. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go to the pub.”
    “Brilliant.” I stood and looked at the clock. I had less than five minutes to get across campus to my next lesson. “Meet you all outside the gates after college.”
    They nodded, and I turned and made my way towards class.

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty quickly.
    I feigned concentration during Psychology, and double Photography took me through to the end of the day. I hid myself away in the calming red light of the darkroom and listened to my iPod while I processed some David Bailey-style photos I’d taken of Ruth. The mixture of music and darkness soothed me as images came to life in the developer liquid. But my calmness evaporated the moment the final bell went. I ran to the girls’ toilets, poured out the contents of my make-up bag into the sink and got to work making myself semi-presentable. Five minutes later and I was…improved. On the outside at least. My insides still felt like unset jelly.
    I worked on my game plan as I made my way to the gates. It consisted of two words: “stay cool”. So easy in theory, without Noah there to distract me. Ruth, Amanda and Lizzie were waiting for me at the entrance. They all looked slightly more made-up than at lunchtime, so I obviously wasn’t the only one who’d made a last-minute dash to the ladies’.
    “You ready?” I said, linking arms with Lizzie.
    “Of course, of course,” she replied.
    I grabbed Amanda’s arm, who was already linking with Ruth, and wondered if girls ever grew out of the arm-link. I hoped we wouldn’t.
    “I can’t wait to get my hands on that bassist,” Ruth said. “I decided to seduce him while I was bored in Travel and Tourism.”
    “Honestly, woman. You are such a perv,” Lizzie said, mock-outraged.
    Ruth shrugged her shoulders. “Just treating men like they’ve been treating us since the dawn of time. It’s role reversal. It’s empowerment. It’s feminism.”
    I laughed. “All valid points, Ruth, but I’m with Lizzie. You’re just a perv – using half-baked ideals about equality to cover up your bad habit.”
    Ruth looked proud of herself. “Maybe.”
    We flip-flopped our way towards the pub, the sun still shining high in the sky. When we arrived, the band wasn’t there yet. We shuffled in nervously, using Ruth as our confidence. The Lock and Key was an overly trendy pub, very typical of Middletown. It had supposedly groovy purple lighting and high bar stools with red velvet covers. The place attracted up-themselves young professionals – the sort who liked to roll their shirtsleeves up and laugh loudly while necking a four pound bottle of beer with an “edgy” label. We usually avoided