Sarra Manning - Lets Get Lost

a note from the author

I started Lets Get Lost about three months after my mum died. I never got a chance to saygood-bye to her, so I wrote this book instead. Three years and about ten different drafts later, Ifinished it and hope that its a fitting tribute to an amazing woman who nurtured my love ofreading and gave me all the opportunities she never had. Without her, Id never have become awriter.

There are no words left, so Ill just point out that Isabels badges came from the wonderful mymy.girlswirl.net/ and that Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl is by Broken Social Scenefrom their very brilliant album You Forgot It in People .

So, Im sorry that I havent been here for ages.

A lots happened but I guess you probably know that. Im not sure how it works. Like, can you see me all the time? If you can, thats weird and slightly icky, especially if Im doing something rude. But, anyway, things were bad for quite a while. Disaster movie bad. I dont even want to get into it, not because Im being avoidy but its in the past and Ive moved on.

I got into another car crash a few months ago. Ive really screwed up my arm so I guess that Im not going to be a brain surgeon or a concert violinist. I think I needed to be really hurt on the outside so the hurt on the inside would realize that it wasnt on its own and that it had to come out.

Dad was amazing. I told him everything, and he didnt get really cold and sarcastic like he doesyou remember? He pulled me out of school immediately, wouldnt take any crap from Mrs. Greenwood or the governors. Im going to go to college in September and maybe Ill squeeze my A-levels into one year, maybe I wont.

I havent seen the others. Even Dot. She kept calling, and Dad said I had to be straight with her and tell her why I didnt want to see her ever again. I miss her sometimes but I dont want to be that girl any more. I never did. Not deep down.

Its been really nice to just chill. Grandmas talking to me again, she taught me how to knit because its good therapy for my hand, and I made a cover for my iPod and I made one for Smith, too. Ill tell you about him later. But mostly this year, Ive been working with Dad. Or, like, Ive been working for Dad because, yeah, hes been amazing but he was really pissed off that I hurt all his books and he wanted compensation. And a new filing system. Paybacks a bitch.

I go to the university with him some days and sit at the back while he lectures and hear his students moan about him. Then I come home and make these really exotic meals. And I taught Felix, who says hi by the way, how to bake so weve been having a lot of cake.

What else? I did some volunteering at an old peoples home, but I gave it up because I didnt like the old people. They smelled funny and most of them were loopy. Oh, come on! I havent suddenly sprouted wings. Im still me.

Dads taking the summer off and hes rented a place in Devon with a swimming pool. He says hes going to write a book about some dead American novelist, no surprises there, and that Smith can keep me out of trouble. Yup, Smiths coming, too. As my sort-of-not-boyfriend.

Im not sure what he is, but we kissed the other night for the first time in ages and maybe Ive finally wriggled back into his good graces. Its taken a lot of effort, not just in knitted iPod covers or Victoria sponges. Takes more than that to make someone trust you again. Dad was easy compared with Smith.

All his friends hated me for making him miserable and lying to him. Even when I was at my most forlorn with my plaster cast accessory, theyd walk out of the room when I walked into it. I guess I deserved it, but I think theyre warming to me. Well, Molly is and she might come down to Devon while were there.

Jane is always going to hate my guts and the feelings pretty mutual and Smith... hes like my best

friend, and maybe now that were getting kissy again, he might be my best friend with, like, benefits.

Should probably stop getting fixated on one kiss. Smith says that we went too far and too fast last time and that we have to slow down I have to slow down. I think Ill be eighty before we ever have sex again. And I still love him. I cant help it. I wish I could sometimes, because it hurts when he wont say it back. He says that he needs more time. I wonder if he sneaks into my room when Im asleep and whispers it in my ear while I dream about you.

Yeah, I always dream about you. Good dreams. I wish I didnt have to wake up. But I always do and the pains still there, but I dont ever want it to go away because then it means that youve gone away.

But youre not ever going to leave me, I know that now.

Everyone was right when they said Id carry a piece of you in my heart and I do. And it burns so bright, the tiny corner of my heart thats exclusively yours, that its turned all the terrible things we said that day into ash and all thats left is the good stuff.

I see you all around me. I see you in Felix when hes concentrating on his homework and his tongue pokes out the corner of his mouth. I feel you in the way my hands rub the butter and flour together when Im baking, like you taught me. I hear you every time Dad calls me Belle, like you used to. A million times in a million different ways, youre there in my heart. Dont ever stop. Dont ever leave.

I love you, Mum. Always.

I knew theparty was going to suck. Parties usually do, but I still had this half excited, half scared fluttering in my tummy, like there was a baby bird in there, flapping its wings and trying to take a left just under my rib cage.

I had a bath and exfoliated and shaved and moisturized, then I tried to figure out what the hell I could do with my hair. Id had this disastrous experiment with a pair of scissors and, well, it had said Starry Night on the box and Id been hoping that when Id finished (after getting black splotches over every towel we possessed) Id look like a mysterious girl from a French film who had lots of lovers and spent a lot of time in cafs debating the meaning of life. Instead I ended up looking like a total goth. I had to hack six inches off, leaving me with a ragged bob that was more Amlie than Emily Strange. In the right light.

There still wasnt even enough hair to scoop into a ponytail, so I fashioned two bunches and fixed them with sparkly hair bobbles that I found lurking in the back of the bathroom cabinet. I sort of liked the finished effect in a strange way. It was edgy. It was striking. God, it was really time to book myself a hair appointment.

But that was merely the tip of my style dilemma as I stood in my daisy-patterned underwear in front of my bulging wardrobe and tried to decide who I wanted to be that night. I love to explore the possibilities of transforming myself from a lanky sixteen-year-old into somebody thrilling. I could do the Kate Moss boho thing. Or my Topshop version of Marissa Cooper. Rock chick was so very last year, and what had I been thinking when I bought that vintage lace dress with the rip under the arm?

I took a deep breath and padded into my parents bedroom. If Id stopped to inhale, which I didnt, I knew Id still be able to smell the faint aroma of Calvin Kleins Eternity. I really dont know how he can bear to sleep in here every night, which is why he usually passes out in the study.

All her clothes were neatly arranged by color. A rainbow array of dresses and skirts hanging there with no place to go. I was doing them a huge public service just by rifling through the rails. Eventually, I found a plain black dress, which I dont think I ever saw her wear. It was regulation-issue, with three-quarter-length sleeves that fashion magazines would describe as understated and chic. Maybe I could do understated and chic, I thought as I wriggled into it. It was meant to hug my curves, but I didnt have much to hug, so it kinda skimmed over them and ended up somewhere just above my knees, which was odd because shed been taller than me. But then Id grown a lot over the summer. I dug a pair of fishnets out of one of her drawers, which accessorized perfectly with my pink kitten heels, and stole some