Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best romance books of all time txt) 📗

Her knees were shaking as she forced herself to stand and then hurry back to the car, her breath jagged, catching in her throat. She sliced through a cloud of midges that hung in the air. No, no, no. Fred had this wrong. He had to have it wrong. Jake having an affair with Jennifer? She would know that about her husband. She would have found out. People who had affairs were always found out, weren’t they? The thought was ludicrous because as it formed in her head, she simultaneously realized that was exactly what had just happened. She had found out. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to scream. Pull out her hair. Lie on the road. She flung herself into the driver’s seat and fought the urge to bang her head against the steering wheel, over and over again, until she could gain some clarity. She did not. Instead, she slowly turned the key in the ignition and drove away.

CHAPTER 29

Emily

Saturday, May 25

I am wearing a pair of bed shorts that I got from Jack Wills when I was about twelve. Back then, Mum chose nearly all my clothes and she bought everything big and comfortable.

Now they are tight, like a second skin, but I still like them even though they are frayed and faded. I wish Mum had not washed Ridley’s hoodie. He left it at my house just before we broke up because he had been kicking a ball around in the garden with Logan and then they used their hoodies for goalposts. He went home in his T-shirt and forgot all about the grubby hoodie. Mum popped it in the wash along with my clothes, but now I wish I had stopped her because I miss the smell of him. I wear it at night anyway. But it doesn’t smell of him now, it smells of me. Sweat from restless nights where sleep eludes. Although my smell is strangely unfamiliar to me. Am I imagining it or is there a strange new hormone?

Oh hell.

Oh, bloody hell.

Bloody, bloody hell. How can this be happening?

I can’t sleep at night or through the day. In a way I’m glad I can’t. If I did, I’d have to wake up and remember the reality all over again. My reality.

The win—yippee! A baby—fuck me!

I can’t have a baby. I’m a baby myself. I know this. Not just because Mum calls me her baby, but because I just am. But how do I stop having it? I mean, I know about abortions and stuff. I’m not a fucking idiot. But how do I go to a doctor and tell them that’s what I need?

I am a fucking idiot.

Will he be prosecuted? Technically underage sex isn’t just that anymore, is it? It’s pedo stuff. It’s a big deal. I don’t want Ridley to go to prison, but on the other hand if he was in prison, he couldn’t do the things he used to do with me to anyone else. But even so, no. I don’t want him to go to prison.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! I just want this to go away. I can’t think about it right now. I won’t. I just won’t.

I get up, pull off my bedclothes and climb into my costume. I check how I look in the long mirror. In our old house I had to stand on my bed to get a look at my outfit because my mirror was only face height and not very big. Now I have an honest-to-God dressing room with two full-length mirrors facing each other, so there are an infinite number of me—stretching into the distance, getting smaller and smaller until I disappear. My outfit rocks. I spent ages on Amazon trying to source a Zendaya outfit. I wanted a really cool version, not some cheap polyester crap that meant I was in real danger of going up in flames if I stood too close to a hot light. In the end, Sara had an exact replica made for me. It’s so gorgeous! A silky tiny cami and velvet hot pants. It’s sweet and flattering in a girl-next-door way. Sara thought that I might regret going too subtle, so she also had an exact replica made of Zendaya’s purple performance outfit, too. It is so much more glam and sexy! It has a sheer neckline that is cut to the waist, gold boots, even a pink wig. I take off the sweet number and climb into the purple. I zip up the boots, stand tall. Place the wig carefully on my head. Check my reflection again. Transformed. It’s a relief to step out of me. Mum is going to hate it. It’s awesome! I smooth my hands over my stomach, still flat. I’m not sure when you start to show, but I’m glad it’s not tonight. Tonight, I have to be hot and cute and perfect. Which means a flat stomach.

The late-afternoon sun floods into my new übercool bedroom. I only have to flick a switch and the electric blinds would close, but I don’t. I like the way the warmth and light falls into the room, onto my body, which is sticky and hot. I move my hands across my hips, my bottom, my waist, remembering the pleasure we once gifted each other that was beyond words. I’d never felt that way before Ridley. I didn’t know people could make each other feel like that. What if I never feel that way again? What if no one’s touch can ever bring me to life like that again? I knew everything about Ridley’s body before we started to have sex. Or so I thought. I had shared bubble baths and paddling pools with him as a toddler. That stopped as we got to school age, but still we were in and out of one another’s homes, tents, gardens, kitchens, lives. So I knew that there are tiny blue veins on his eyelids that you can only see