was as if our friendship was something perfect that I was too scared to touch in case it shattered and broke.
Lying in bed some nights after we’d spent the day together, I’d mentally kick myself for being such a wussabout the whole thing, but then I’d see Ella the next day and it would be just the same. I’d sit there thinking about how well we got on, how smart and amazing she was. I’d read and inject hidden meanings into everything she said—come on, we’ve all done it, right? Like, if we were down in HQ and she made me a coffee while I was working on something on my laptop, setting it down next to me with a chocolate Hobnob and patting me on the shoulder, I’d be thinking, yes, she really cares about me. She didn’t make a coffee for Sai or Austin or Ava. She didn’t offer them a chocolate Hobnob, just me. When the truth of the matter was probably that she couldn’t be bothered to make five coffees, or there weren’t enough bloody biscuits left in the packet. Or the time she said something like “I love working with you, Jack, I hope we can keep doing it.” Well, I sort of heard that as “Will you marry me, Jack?” OK, OK, not literally, but you get my drift, right?
It wasn’t easy, and although I’d put that vital sentence together in my head a hundred times those past few weeks, the actual words “Would you like to go out on a date with me, Ella?” or anything bearing any resemblance to that had not been forthcoming. Instead I spent hours checking her Instagram feed and wondering just how many times it was acceptable to text a person in a twenty-four-hour period. It was strange; I’d fancied girls before, of course I had, but I’d never felt anything like this crazy longing to be around someone. It was likegoing slightly insane but with the most beautiful kind of insanity I could imagine.
Now she’d been AWOL for an entire weekend and I was obsessing. In fact, it was pretty much all I could think about as Sai, Austin, Ava and I sat up on the roof of the block of flats where Sai lived. The rooftop was Sai’s private little sanctuary, as hardly anyone else ever went up there; he loved it, and I could see why. It was so peaceful, and you felt like you were somehow disconnected from the rest of the world. It was getting dark by the time we’d headed up there that evening, and the lights of the town were waking up and starting to shimmer below us. Truth is, we were all a little bit burned out because we’d been working so hard on the website, as well as revising, so nobody was saying much. I broke the silence eventually, bringing up the subject of Ella, of course.
“Where do you think she’s been hiding?”
Austin and Sai both groaned.
“You haven’t even asked her out,” Austin said. “We’ve been working together for weeks and you always seem like you’re just treading water, waiting for the right moment, but it never seems to come. What’s the matter with you?”
“Do you know what, Austin? I like Ella so much that the thought of asking her out and then getting knocked back is doing my head in.”
“So you’re basically bricking it,” Ava said.
“Pretty much.”
Sai was very quiet on the subject, but looked as though he was dying to say something.
“What do you think, Sai?” I asked. “You look like you’re a wise man where women are concerned.” Actually he didn’t at all.
“It’s just that . . . What I’m saying is, like . . .” Sai stopped in the middle of his garbled sentence.
“Spit it out if you have an opinion,” I said.
“Well I think you need to be careful around that situation,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“What situation?” Why did I think there was something he wasn’t telling me?
“What Sai is trying to say is that if you have these feelings for Ella, you need to act now,” Ava said. “Tell her the next opportunity you get.”
“Actually that wasn’t what I was saying at all,” Sai argued.
“Look,” Ava said,
Lying in bed some nights after we’d spent the day together, I’d mentally kick myself for being such a wussabout the whole thing, but then I’d see Ella the next day and it would be just the same. I’d sit there thinking about how well we got on, how smart and amazing she was. I’d read and inject hidden meanings into everything she said—come on, we’ve all done it, right? Like, if we were down in HQ and she made me a coffee while I was working on something on my laptop, setting it down next to me with a chocolate Hobnob and patting me on the shoulder, I’d be thinking, yes, she really cares about me. She didn’t make a coffee for Sai or Austin or Ava. She didn’t offer them a chocolate Hobnob, just me. When the truth of the matter was probably that she couldn’t be bothered to make five coffees, or there weren’t enough bloody biscuits left in the packet. Or the time she said something like “I love working with you, Jack, I hope we can keep doing it.” Well, I sort of heard that as “Will you marry me, Jack?” OK, OK, not literally, but you get my drift, right?
It wasn’t easy, and although I’d put that vital sentence together in my head a hundred times those past few weeks, the actual words “Would you like to go out on a date with me, Ella?” or anything bearing any resemblance to that had not been forthcoming. Instead I spent hours checking her Instagram feed and wondering just how many times it was acceptable to text a person in a twenty-four-hour period. It was strange; I’d fancied girls before, of course I had, but I’d never felt anything like this crazy longing to be around someone. It was likegoing slightly insane but with the most beautiful kind of insanity I could imagine.
Now she’d been AWOL for an entire weekend and I was obsessing. In fact, it was pretty much all I could think about as Sai, Austin, Ava and I sat up on the roof of the block of flats where Sai lived. The rooftop was Sai’s private little sanctuary, as hardly anyone else ever went up there; he loved it, and I could see why. It was so peaceful, and you felt like you were somehow disconnected from the rest of the world. It was getting dark by the time we’d headed up there that evening, and the lights of the town were waking up and starting to shimmer below us. Truth is, we were all a little bit burned out because we’d been working so hard on the website, as well as revising, so nobody was saying much. I broke the silence eventually, bringing up the subject of Ella, of course.
“Where do you think she’s been hiding?”
Austin and Sai both groaned.
“You haven’t even asked her out,” Austin said. “We’ve been working together for weeks and you always seem like you’re just treading water, waiting for the right moment, but it never seems to come. What’s the matter with you?”
“Do you know what, Austin? I like Ella so much that the thought of asking her out and then getting knocked back is doing my head in.”
“So you’re basically bricking it,” Ava said.
“Pretty much.”
Sai was very quiet on the subject, but looked as though he was dying to say something.
“What do you think, Sai?” I asked. “You look like you’re a wise man where women are concerned.” Actually he didn’t at all.
“It’s just that . . . What I’m saying is, like . . .” Sai stopped in the middle of his garbled sentence.
“Spit it out if you have an opinion,” I said.
“Well I think you need to be careful around that situation,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“What situation?” Why did I think there was something he wasn’t telling me?
“What Sai is trying to say is that if you have these feelings for Ella, you need to act now,” Ava said. “Tell her the next opportunity you get.”
“Actually that wasn’t what I was saying at all,” Sai argued.
“Look,” Ava said,
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