The Wake-Up Call

by Beth O'Leary

I like Dinah. She never goes the extra mile – she goes just far enough, and I have a lot of respect for that.

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.

If this were a Christmas movie, she’d have put us up in her spare room, and we’d have stayed up all night talking. It would have been cosy and gorgeous. But it’s not a Christmas movie, and so Lucas and I end up sitting outside WHSmith at Waterloo, staring morosely at the departure boards, still stewing from our latest argument.

I glance at Lucas. He is eating a sandwich angrily, which I didn’t know was possible, but he’s really managing with aplomb.

There’s a reason it’s harder for women to approach men than the other way around – when the world tells you your worth is about men desiring you, it’s hard to take it when they don’t, and we’re scared to be rejected.

‘You’ll know what to do. If you really like her, it’ll come to you, because if you’re made for each other, you’re made to heal her when she’s hurting.

What she said about me raising my voice struck me hard, because that’s how discussions happen at my uncle’s house. Everyone is always snapping and shouting. I hadn’t realised quite how much of that I had absorbed.

to live and work in this strange, wet, awkward little country that I have fallen so unexpectedly in love with.

(Why is it that when men sweat, it’s sexy, but when I sweat, I look like I’ve been crossbred with a tomato?)

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

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.

He was sweet, at first, and I’ve always gone for sweet guys – they’re safe and comforting, like milk chocolate or boots with a two-inch heel. Nothing remarkable, but no risk of breaking an ankle, either.

‘Argh, pheasant! Bloody New Forest wildlife!’ I shout. ‘These animals have no respect for an epic love story!’ ‘Maybe that bird is on his way to his one great love,’ Jem says. ‘Always remember you never know what kind of day someone else is having.’