And then he did something that kinda restored my faith in humanity. He leant over and brushed my sticky, tear-stained cheek with his lips.
‘Everything doesn’t suck,’ he murmured softly. ‘One day you’ll figure that out.’
22nd July
Started my stupid summer job today. I have to stand in the middle of town wearing, oh God I can barely type the words, a chicken outfit, complete with strap-on beak and hand out leaflets for Tallahassee Fried Chicken.
The heat and the man-made fibres I can just about cope with but the endless shouts of ‘I feel like chicken tonight’ from passers-by is doing my head in.
27th July
Ever since that conversation with Toph I’ve sworn off drinking alcohol or going out ever again. I’ve read a lot of improving books and my bedroom has never been so tidy, even though Mum’s very worried and even Poppy has started to feel sorry for me.
This evening she asked me if I wanted to go on a little country break over the August Bank Holiday weekend with her and Jesse and some friends who are renting a cottage. I wonder if Toph is one of those friends. The very thought that he might be one of those friends actually makes me feel like I’m going to throw up so I told Poppy I’d think about it.
31st July
At lunch-time today when my face was shiny with sweat and, oh yeah, I looked like the biggest fluffiest chicken-suit-wearing dork in the world, Toph appeared as if by magic. I had a split second to make a getaway but it’s hard to move quickly when you’re carrying an additional 10kg of stuffing and artificial feathers.
‘Grace?’ he said, with a smile, peering at me as I frantically adjusted my beak.
The ground never opens up and swallows you when you really, really need it to so I just thrust a flyer at him and squawked, ‘Tallahassee Fried Chicken, it’s hoooooot!’
‘Parents forced you to get a summer job, did they?’ he asked sympathetically and I nodded, silently willing him to walk away and bang his head on the nearest lamp-post so he could suffer a convenient but harmless bout of amnesia.
Toph must have got the message that I wasn’t in the mood for small talk and he gave me another friendly smile and walked off. He even turned and waved just before he turned the corner.
Then my foolish heart decided to skip a beat.
8th August
The one good thing about my humiliating summer job is the money I’m earning, money that I’ve just given to my sister for my share of this Bank Holiday cottage. Atsuko reckons with some certainty that neither Toph nor Darby and Jack (who are still together!) are putting in an appearance. Spending an entire four days with Jesse and Poppy isn’t exactly going to be Big Fun but at least I’ll get out of Manchester and my chicken costume.
9th August
There is a God! Tallahassee Fried Chicken got closed down by the council after they found loads of dead cockroaches at the bottom of the deep fat fryer. I’m so glad I always refused my complimentary Tallahassee Tortilla Chicken Wrap and small fries. And in no way can Mum say it was my fault that I got fired. Yay!
12th August
What’s with my parents? They’ve now decided I can spend the rest of the summer filing at Dad’s company. I had to go on hunger strike until Dad agreed to match my meagre wages from Tallahassee Fried Chicken.
13th August
Today was weird in bad and good ways. Dad’s personal assistant who suffers from permanent PMS yelled at me all morning then before I could go to lunch she handed me an envelope to deliver to an office right over the other side of town.
But, sweet, lovely, little diary, it was the office of Toph. And as I looked frantically for someone to give the envelope to, I saw Toph waving at me from across the room.
I had to trudge down the length of this huge office while everyone stared at me and I wished I hadn’t worn a flowery summer dress that made me look about 12.
‘What are you doing here? Is something wrong? Do you want to talk about it?’ Toph asked, like I was some emotional wreck that he was officially sponsoring.
‘No!’ I scowled. ‘Got this letter from er, my da… the solicitor’s office.’
Toph pushed me down in an empty chair and disappeared. I spun round on the chair a couple of times before I realised that people were staring at me like I really was 12, so I stopped spinning in favour of looking at all the stuff on Toph’s desk. He had a collection of Star Wars figures and some cool manga cartoons stuck on the wall and I was just squinting to see what he had in his slightly open drawer, when he came back.
I blushed like I’d been caught doing something wrong and Toph gave me another of those friendly smiles, which were a million times nicer than when he was giving me a look of utter disdain.
‘So you hung up your feathers?’ he asked teasingly.
‘Yeah,’ I said and then when he waited for me to elaborate, I added, ‘I like your desk.’ I am deeply idiotic.
I stood up, nearly knocking over the chair while Toph started going on about something but I wasn’t listening – I wanted to get out of there.
‘I have to go,’ I muttered, tripping over a waste bin and Toph had to grab my arm to stop me from colliding with his printer.
His hand was warm against my skin and I looked at his long tanned fingers curled round my freckled flesh and they looked so right there. I must have zoned out because all of a sudden Toph was gently shaking me.
‘Grace, did you hear me? Are you driving down to the cottage with Jesse and Poppy or are you going to get the train with the rest of us?’
24th August
So I am in the countryside staying at this stupid cottage with these horrible people. Poppy and Jesse are doing their usual Ways To Make Grace’s Life Hell 12 Step programme and keep calling me ‘Dis-Grace’ though she promised Mum that she would never, ever do it again. Jack and Darby spend all their time swishing saliva back and forth between each other’s mouths, Atsuko’s sucking face with Mort from Jesse and Toph’s band and Toph hangs out with anyone who’s not me. The only good thing is that it’s so hot today that I’m sitting in the middle of a flowery meadow reading Jane Austen (summer homework sucks) and feeling like a girl in a perfume ad. ’Cept without the pretentious voiceover.
24th August (later)
So, all that pollen and Pride and Prejudice-ing made me feel sleepy and then I woke up with a start. There was a shadow looming over me where the sun should be.
‘Didn’t mean to wake you up,’ Toph said and then threw himself down next to me and stretched out like we were sunbathing buddies.
‘I was dozing,’ I muttered and sat up to rummage in my bag for my SPF50 sunblock so I didn’t have to make stilted conversation.
Toph had already picked up my Jane Austen and was leafing through it. ‘I always thought Lydia was the coolest Bennet sister,’ he remarked. ‘She was like a Regency wild child.’
‘Elizabeth is much cooler,’ I protested, lying down again because it was too hot not to. ‘She’s all bonnet and attitude and “you suck, Mr Darcy”.’
Toph laughed. ‘You realise we’re having an actual conversation about literature,’ he murmured lazily.
‘Like that would ever happen,’ I sniffed absently and Toph laughed again. He rolled onto his side and inched closer towards me so I could see the little bridge of freckles across his nose and a speck of glitter at the corner of his mouth. It was very distracting.
‘You’re a hard girl to have a conversation with,’ Toph said. ‘Unless you’re, y’know, upset or drunk.’
I could feel a monstrous blush heating up my skin. ‘I don’t drink any more.’
‘Good,’ said Toph firmly.
Then he didn’t say anything for a while and I must have dozed off again because the next thing I remember is this soft stroking against my cheek.
‘Grace. Grace!’ I groaned and tried to brush the thing on my face away and then I realised it was Toph’s fingers. He was leaning over me with a smile on his face. ‘You need to put some more sunblock on,’ he
pointed out.
I must have still been dopey with sleep because I pressed a finger to that annoying piece of glitter.
And Toph must have been high from the pollen fumes or something because he turned his head so he could capture my fingertip between his teeth and nibble it gently.
And we both must have gone slightly mad because he was suddenly swooping down and I was arching up and our lips collided somewhere in the middle.
I don’t know how long I lay there in Toph’s arms as he did things to my mouth that I don’t even have words to describe. Even now, a few hours later, I have complete sense memory of the way his hands fluttered in my hair and the smell of soap and sunblock and the starbursts in front of my eyes and the taste of him. Toph tasted like butterscotch.
Eventually Toph managed to stop. I don’t know how because I’d suddenly decided what to do with the rest of my life and it involved kissing Toph.
‘You still need to put some sunblock on,’ he reminded me and then spent the next two minutes smoothing it onto my face while I stared at him in wonderment.
‘You’re strange,’ I said at last and it didn’t come out right but Toph smiled.
‘You’re stranger,’ he insisted. ‘This… us… is… I wasn’t expecting this.’
‘But…’ I prompted ’cause whole sentences have never been my strong point and it was easier to get Toph to speak than work out how I felt.
‘But I’m glad it did and maybe we should get to know each other better,’ he decided. ‘Go out when we’re back in Manchester.’
‘On a date?’ I blurted out.
‘Yes, on a date!’
‘OK.’
‘Hey, what happened to us being able to have a conversation?’ Toph wanted to know but it was better to kiss than to talk and when I wound my arms round his neck, he seemed to agree.
No, it couldn’t have happened. I must have been dreaming.
* * *
So, there you have it: after Edie and Dylan came Grace and Toph. But this is where the story finishes, because the Diary of a Crush column – where my characters found their voices long before the books were published – was axed and a few months later J17 magazine folded.
But, dear reader, you now have every bit of Diary of a Crush that there is to have.
And now I must definitively write:
THE END
Sarra Manning
Sarra Manning, Diary of a Grace
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