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

for her head.

She made the best face ever when she saw it, with her jaw literally hitting the floor, and then she just kept her mouth wide open.

Me: I know.

Emma: Ouch.

Me: I have to sleep on my front.

Emma: Can I touch it?

Me: No. Why would you want to touch it?

Emma: No reason.

And then her face disappeared.

Maybe she gets off on other people’s pain, who knows.

Today she smiled a lot.

Maybe it’s because I confronted the shoplifter.

Or maybe it’s because the donation of the week is a book called Painting with Cats: How You Can Help Your Felines Express Themselves.

Kate picked it up, and was like: “Oh…”

But Emma and I were like: “No!”

When we were leaving, Emma asked me to send her updates of Richard and the bruise regularly.

I’m currently lying on my front, and Kate’s put a bag of frozen peas on my arse.

From hero to zero.

Sunday, May 20 #BirthdayWishes

Mum WhatsApped me and gave me another GCSE pep talk.

Then I showed her my bruise and she laughed.

She also said I have to decide what I want to do for my birthday.

I can’t believe it’s my birthday again. I only just had one literally yesterday.

Looks like I’m going to deliver on my promise to turn sixteen gracefully, as I’m not in love and crazy.

I’ve got sociology tomorrow, but I need to actually study for English literature, which is on Tuesday.

Get this, the definition of sociology is: “The study of the development, structure, and functioning of human society.” But I swear all we ever discuss is the destruction, chaos, and malfunctioning of human society.

Monday, May 21 #IHateExams

I was directly behind Ben Carmichael in today’s exam, and he wouldn’t stop bouncing his foot up and down, and it was right in my eye line when I was writing, and it drove me absolutely crazy. I ended up twisting my body into such a weird angle in order to not see him that I gave myself a back problem and a crick in the neck. Not to mention the agony of having to sit on my bruise.

I was just willing time to hurry up, because I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

This afternoon I was supposed to study for English, but I ended up messaging with Emma.

Me: Hello.

Emma: Hello. How are you?

Me: Fine.

Emma: How’s the bruise?

Me: Still big.

Emma: What ya doing?

Me: Messaging you.

Emma: Ha ha.

Me: Studying, but I’ve got brain ache. I’m also thinking about what I want to do in life.

Emma: As in what job?

Me: Yes.

Emma: And?

Me: Don’t know.

Emma: I want to do what your mum does.

Me: Have a child and leave it with your best friend?

Emma: Harsh.

Me: Fact.

Emma: I’d like to help people. Maybe be a doctor. But I don’t know if I’m clever enough.

Me: I think you’re clever.

Emma: Thanks, we’ll see. Or maybe I’ll become a counselor or something.

Me: I hate people, and I don’t want to help anyone.

Emma: LOL.

Me: I don’t mean you, BTW. I don’t hate you.

Emma: Thanks. It’s good to be tolerated.

Me: OMG, whatever. You know I think you’re great.

Emma: And how would I know that?

Me: Why else would I want to spend time with you, and message you, and take kitten pictures, and walk you home, and show you my bruise?

Emma: Why indeed …

And then she went off-line.

No goodbye, no nothing.

Is that weird?

Am I overthinking it?

Maybe I’m overthinking it.

I knew I shouldn’t have messaged her. I knew it even before I messaged her, but apparently I just couldn’t help myself.

It’s like eating a whole pack of Percy Pigs. You know it’s going to make you feel sick, but you keep shoving them down your throat anyway, in some sort of compulsive frenzy.

10:05 P.M.

If I was working to Miriam Patel’s study schedule, I’d still have fifty-five minutes of studying time left, so I will look at English.

10:15 P.M.

Get these questions:

How does Sampson provoke the Montague servants?

What impression does the audience get from the Nurse?

What does Lady Capulet think of Paris?

Question number 4 should be: And why does any of this matter?

I’m going to bed; this is stupid.

Tuesday, May 22 #WhyIndeed

I am so exhausted, I can’t even.

English killed me.

I think I finally understand what Polly goes through when she looks at numbers and fails to see how they make sense, because I had to read the questions, like, three times to understand them.

Afterwards Polly and I went to the park for lunch. We were lying on the grass, and I was telling her that I have no idea what to do in life, was literally pouring my heart out to her, and then I realized that she’d gone to sleep.

I bet she doesn’t fall asleep on Tristan.

She even started snoring, but I only woke her when it was time to take Geography 1, and she didn’t even apologize, she was just like: “I think I needed that.”

OMG.

Tonight I was like: Okay, so instead of making an endless list of all the things I hate, why don’t I make a list of things I actually like in regards to long-term employment prospects, and here it is:

solitude

people not talking at me about meaningless crap all day

numbers

clever people/possibly the absence of stupid people altogether

being allowed to have original thought

Let’s see where this leads me.

Everyone at school is suddenly like: OMG, if I fuck up my GSCEs, life is going to be over, and I’m never going to be able to go to university (even though, why does everybody need to go to university anyway?).

Bill said that anyone who wants to train as a plumber has more of a lifetime guarantee of having a decent income than someone who goes to university and studies some meaningless bollocks like Post World War Two Japanese Felt-Tip Pen Art.

Sadly, I can’t be a plumber, because I’d have to speak to people all day, and that’s, like, the first thing on my list of things to avoid.

The search continues.

Wednesday, May 23 #NASA

Result.

I’m going to become an astronaut.

This occurred to me during Physics 1, which pretty much kick-started my gone-sluggish, sievelike