Love Is for Losers by Wibke Brueggemann (ebook pc reader .txt) 📗

Me (shaking my head):…

Kate: Right. Alex, till. Emma, there’s clothes to steam, and, Phoebe, sit down, because you look like you’re about to pass out.

Me: I’m fine.

Emma (putting down a cup in front of me): I’ve put extra sugar in your tea.

Me: I’m okay.

Kate: Sit down, Phoebe. You do look a bit peaky.

I swear I just stared at the phone while everyone was going about their business for like an hour.

Emma made more tea and gave me five Hobnobs to eat.

When the phone finally rang, I literally jumped out of my skin, and everyone sort of froze and looked at it.

Kate (answering it): Kate Anderson speaking. Yes. Thank you, I’ll hold.

She winked and passed it to me.

There was a lot of nothing for a few seconds, but then something clicked.

Mum: Hello?

I swear my heart actually stopped beating again for a second before pounding back into action so hard I almost vommed.

Me: Mum?

Mum: Phoebe! How are you, baby?

Me: I’m fine. Great. How are you? Where are you?

Mum: I’m fine, everything’s fine. We’re still out here.

Me: Where were you?

Mum: Long and boring story, I’ll tell you when I get back. Are you okay?

Me: Everyone was really worried.

Mum: I’m so sorry, baby. It’s been pretty bad, and we got cut off for a few days, but we were so busy that I couldn’t send smoke signals.

Me: Ha ha, you’re funny.

Mum: I’m sorry we had you all worried. How’s Kate?

Me: She’s great, she’s here. She’s blowing a kiss.

Mum: How are things with Polly?

Me: Great. Polly’s great. Everything’s back to normal. (Total lie, obvs.)

Mum: I’m glad. Tell her I said hello. We’ll hopefully have internet again by the end of the week, so I’ll call you as soon as I can.

Me: Great.

Mum: I have to go now, baby. There’s more people here who need to call their families.

Me: No, wait, don’t go.

Mum: I’m sorry, darling, I have to go, but I love you, Phoebe.

Me: Okay. Talk to you soon.

And then the line went dead.

I looked down, and my hand that was holding the phone was shaking, and I just thought: Why can’t Mum be at home like normal parents? And why couldn’t she even talk to me for five minutes? I know her less and less every day, which is probably why I had such trouble imagining planning her funeral.

I felt a hand squeeze my upper arm, and then Kate knelt down in front of me and was like: “Phoebe, are you okay?”

I looked at her, and suddenly this huge sob traveled up from all the way somewhere down in my innards, and I couldn’t not cry. I’ve never had that before. It was completely out of my control, you know, like projectile vomiting.

Kate hugged me and told me it was okay to be upset, and then Emma came over, too, and suddenly we had a group hug going on, and my face got accidentally buried in Emma’s hair, and my nose touched her neck, and then the steamer, which hadn’t been filled up with water, because Emma had been too busy listening to my phone conversation, made that horrendous raaaaaaaaaaaahhhh noise, and we all flinched, jumped apart, and Kate swore, which made us all laugh.

Then Kate got Starbucks for everyone.

I was like: “Can I have a shot of vodka in mine?” Kate was like: “Single or double? Not really.”

I sorted greeting cards for the rest of the afternoon, and when a customer asked if I worked there, I was like: “No.”

I don’t understand how I feel about Mum. I don’t understand it like I don’t understand Japanese. I can see it written down, but I can’t decipher it.

11:15 P.M.

There are two reasons I’m happy I lied to Mum about Polly:

a)  She’ll finally stop going on about it.

b)  She can tick the “make sure teenage daughter is maintaining positive relationships with her peers” box.

And on that note, I had ten missed calls from Polly, and at ten, the landline rang, and I know it was Polly because Kate was like: “How nice to speak to you. Let me just see if she’s awake.”

I pretended to be asleep, so Kate was like: “I’m sorry, you’ll have to catch up with her tomorrow.”

I bet everyone this afternoon was like: OMG, what happened with Phoebe?

11:55 P.M.

I can still feel Emma’s neck on the tip of my nose.

Friday, April 27 #Tears

I wanted to stay at home today just so Polly would be worried, and yes, I know how massively immature that sounds.

When she saw me, she physically grabbed both my arms and was like: “What’s going on with you? Are you okay?”

I was just like: “Yeah, fine. We thought Mum was dead, but turns out she’s not.”

Her face …

10:00 P.M.

After my minor breakdown yesterday, I researched the mechanics of crying, and according to the internet, there are three different types of tears.

The constant tears that keep your eyeball moist.

The tears that come when you have something in your eye, and your brain is like: Get it out!

The tears that happen to you as an emotional response to something.

Apparently the chemical compound is different in every one of them, and the emotional tears actually contain a natural painkiller.

It’s like your brain is trying to stop your body from hurting by producing these tears.

Which explains my tearfest yesterday. My brain must have been like: Okay, enough of that dull ache you’re feeling about your mother, here are tears to numb it, so you can get on with life.

And today I actually do feel so much better.

PS: Miriam Patel is walking around school like she’s Little Miss Studious.

She now wears glasses, not actual ones, but the nonprescription ones you get from Topshop. And she keeps going on about how “the future starts here.”

I’m not being funny, but GCSEs aren’t exactly Oxford entrance exams.

Last year Rachel Griffin said that she memorized her entire oral French exam, and that she had no idea what any of it actually meant, and that she got an excellent mark. I mean, obviously she’s an actor-y type, but