Sarra Manning - Diary of A Crush Trilogy 1 French Kiss

French Kiss

Diary of a Crush book 1

Manchester Diary One: September - March

TOTALLY PRIVATE!!!

Name: Edie Wheeler

Age: Sixteen

Lives: Manchester via Brighton

Height: 160 cm

Weight: Fifty-eight to sixty-eight kg (depending on how much ice cream I've eaten in a twenty-four hour period)

Hair: Getting blonder with every application of Clairol Golden Honey Eyes: Blue

Favourite book: Emma by Jane Austen

Favourite film: Ghostworld, Bring It On and Breakfast At Tiffany's (it's impossible to pick just one)

Favourite TV show: Alias (spies kick ass, quite literally) Lust object: Jake Gyllenhall, Dean Speed from The Hormones and Dylan Girl hero: Drew Barrymore

Favourite website: www.ratemykitten.com

Favourite thing in the world: My vintage Dior handbag I bought off Ebay Make-up item I couldn't live without: Lancome Juicy Tubes Ambition: For Dylan to fall wildly and passionately in love with me and take me on a road trip across America

14th September

Do you ever get the feeling that you're waiting for your life to begin? I feel like I invented that feeling. Cause today is all about shiny, new things. Scary, shiny new things. And instead of jumping out of bed, ready to dazzle the world with my brightest smile and my cute new hairslides, I'm huddled under my duvet, scribbling into my Emily Strange notebook.

I mean, I guess I should be rising to the challenge but, y'know, not so much. It's my first day at college so, officially, I'm not a schoolgirl any more. And, OK, I might be doing A-levels but I'm doing 'em at a college where there are art students and drama students and everyone (apart from the savage, psycho Barbies studying Hairdressing who laughed at me in the canteen on the day I had my interview) is achingly cool.

So, how come I know that I'm going to feel so young and phoney compared to everyone else? Like, someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and say, 'Hey kid, you don't belong here, back to school.' But school and my friends are miles and miles away.

Why did Dad have to get a new job and decide to transfer me, Mum and Pudding halfway across the country? Because he's hellbent on ruining my life and destroying what little self esteem I have, that's why. Did my heart love 'til now?

22nd September

I got this massive lecture from the parents at breakfast about 'making more of an effort to fit in' and 'we know the move was hard on you but it's been four weeks and you should have adjusted by now'. I'm sure they've taken lessons in how to make me feel like a socially dysfunctional freak of nature. They don't understand though. All the people in my classes at college were at school/youth club/Brownies together and they just completely ignore me. And, besides, it's really hard to just crowbar myself into someone's conversation, like, 'Me too! I love The Thrills. Isn't the lead singer just the dreamiest?' insert retching noises. I just can't do stuff like that.

But I knew I wouldn't hear the end of this (my mother is the missing link between Rottweilers and rat-catchers) so I got pro-active and signed up for a Photography course that starts next week. I might not make any friends but at least I'll learn how to take arty, grainy black 'n' white shots of dead trees and stuff.

So, directly after scribbling my name onto the sign-up sheet on the noticeboard, I was ambling down the corridor, nothing on my mind but whether I should have another packet of Skips, when five minutes later my entire life changed! one moment it sucked and then the next, nothing was going to be the same again. No warning, no stirring music. There I was in the canteen scraping a plastic stirry thing through the hot chocolate granules at the bottom of my cup and hoping no-one would notice me sitting there all alone, when I looked up, locked into a pair of deep blue eyes, and felt my spiritual self shift into orbit.

His face was all hard planes and angles, cheekbones and jawline softened only by these pillowy lips. His hair was equally confused and couldn't decide whether it was a fin or a mullet or just really messy or all of the above. But it was the colour of liquorice, or maybe that really dark chocolate that I can only eat in tiny amounts because it's too rich. He was wearing jeans that were faded on the knees and dark blue everywhere else, a striped shirt and a suit jacket. All of him was in chaos and it was hard to work out whether he was beautifully odd or oddly beautiful but this one was.

Then he kinda looked beyond me and frowned as if he was annoyed at my audacity for daring to be in his line of vision. Boys that look like that always reckon they can get away with that kind of behaviour. He's probably an arrogant dickweed but what the hell, he's a drop-dead gorgeous, arrogant dickweed.

I saw him again, later that afternoon, striding across the college lawn like the hounds of hell were snapping at his heels. It was like everything around him slowed down and then I heard someone shout, 'Dylan!' and he turned round. His name's Dylan. Of course, he's called Dylan. How could he be called anything else?

25th September

This is what I've found out about Dylan, or the heir to my heart, as I now think of him:

He's on the Art Foundation course, and he's 19. He's three years older than me. Age gaps are very sexy.

That means he's done his A-levels already.

He's one of the in-crowd, along with his two friends, Paul (bleached streaks, old-skool trainers and a Carhatt T-shirt) and Simon (really tall, goatee-d, always wears a black turtle-neck.)

They spend a large proportion of each day in the cafe across the road, but upstairs, which apparently is far more socially acceptable than downstairs with all the housewives.

Dylan works in Rhythm Records on Wednesday afternoons and all day Saturday.

How do I know all this? Because, I was incredibly brave today and actually spoke to this girl, called Mia, who is on my course.

I was sitting in our English class with an empty desk on other side of me and an animated, 'I'm just waiting for all fifty of my closest friends to suddenly materialise'

expression on my face, when this girl plonked herself down next to me.

I glanced at her but she was rummaging about in her bag so I went back to doodling Dylan's name all over my notebook.

'I like your nail varnish.'

No-one has ever spoken to me at college apart from the teachers, so it took me a moment to process the information that this was actually talking. To me. I looked at a sparkly red nail and then at her. She gave me a look like she thought I was possibly mentally challenged.

'Um, thanks. I didn't realise you were speaking to me,' I muttered.

She nodded impatiently. 'So, are you from Manchester Girls' School' I don't recognise you.'

It was strange. Like, she wasn't actually being rude but there was something in her tone of voice that wasn't far off it.

'No, I'm from Brighton,' I said, and I've never been more aware of my posh Southern accent. 'My dad got transferred here over the summer. My name's Edie.'

'Eddie?'

'No, Edie. It's short for Edith,' I mumbled the last bit because I hate the evil joke that my parents decided to put on my birth certificate.

'I'm Mia,' the girl announced. 'I was named after this actress called Mia Farrow.'