The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

She grins at me, and there it is—a traitorous flicker of sensation in my gut. This happens sometimes. Ninety-nine per cent of the time, I think Izzy is the most annoying woman I have ever met, but very occasionally I can’t help noticing how beautiful she is.

I don’t understand how she does this to me, but something about Izzy Jenkins makes me want to behave very badly.

(Ollie suggested we should serve Doritos with Arjun’s forty-eight-hour chilli and has been banned from having opinions).

That I’m heartless. But if I am, then why does my chest hurt at the thought of letting this part of my life go?

I’m human, too, I want to say. When you’re unkind to me, it hurts.

Someone give this man a hug

We are all misled and misdirected from time to time. Perhaps there really is no shame in that, as long as we wake up to it before it’s too late to change.

I want to be the one person who knows every inch of the real Izzy.

if you’re made for each other, you’re made to heal her when she’s hurting.

I have just committed to fully undressing in a room with Izzy without so much as

touching her. This feels like a particularly brutal form of self-torture.

suddenly I also think about how badly I want to hold her. Sling my arm over her shoulder as we head out the door. Kiss her like it’s something we do all the time.

It is a Lucas-specific problem. The worst kind.

His eyes are warm when they meet mine; he’s glad I like it, I think. I look away.

This is what I wanted: to bring together these things that matter to me so much.

I want to look after you. So that you don’t have to do it all, for once.

The look on Izzy’s face is one I want to see every single day. I have to look away.

I can’t think of any more rules. I can’t think of much at all with him touching me.

I’d follow her anywhere these days—maybe I always would have.

She’s not even touching me and this is turning my blood to fire.

I’ve always said that love takes a different shape for everybody. Some of us fall in love the straightforward way, and some of us have a more . . . winding path.”

I would like to believe that I can let a person see me, and that once they have, they might think more of me, not less.

I don’t want to get Izzy out of my system. That is clearer than ever after last night. I want all of her. Her kindness, her commitment, her multicoloured hair, and the way she always puts me in my place. I want to take her home and call her mine.

Lucas you big softie!!

“Lucas,” she says, softly now. “You can relax. It’s just me.” It’s just me. Like she isn’t fucking everything.

We’ve kissed so many times, but not once have we kissed like this, with neither of us holding any part of ourselves back.

I don’t want her to spend a single second thinking I’d want anyone but her.

Sometimes things are lost, and you grieve for them, and they change you, and that’s OK.