Where Loyalty Lies

By Hannah Valentine

For Faine Hawkes, finding out she was a half vampire was the easy part. The hard part is when she finds herself immersed in their intense and unfathomable world.

Not only does she have to prove herself to The Sénat, the vampire’s ruling board, and cope with the stigma of being the first half-vampire they’ve ever known, but she also has to deal with the affections of Saul. His enthralling nature and handsome face draw her to him, but should she listen to her heart or take the advice of others and keep away?

Faine makes some true friends and formidable enemies but sometimes it's difficult to tell which of those categories her new acquaintances fall into. One thing she does know is that she will have to keep on her toes to survive in this opulent and dangerous new way of life

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hannah Valentine
• Release date: Jan 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301827947

Hannah Valentine

Hannah Valentine lives in West Sussex in the South of England. After leaving school at sixteen she has had numerous jobs where the most important skill she learnt was observing people's personalities and behaviour. This skill combined with her attraction to drama meant that writing a book was almost inevitable.

Book preview

Book 1

By Hannah Valentine

Text copyright © 2012 Hannah Valentine

All Rights Reserved

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To everyone who ever felt like they weren't good enough to achieve their dreams.

You are.

I promise.

Acknowledgements

I have so many people who I need to Thank.

Firstly and most importantly, my better half, Pete. You were the first person I trusted not only to read this book but to tell me if I should pursue with publishing it or not - a terrible position to be in. Your help didn't stop there though. You have encouraged me when my confidence was low and helped me break down every barrier that was in my way. The simple fact is that I would never have gotten this far without you.

My Mum, who loves this book. Getting your stamp of approval means more to me than you know.

My Dad, who always had words of advice. You understood how much this meant to me and you always let me finish work early so that I had time to do it.

My sister, Hayley and her lovely husband, Cook. The work I got done whilst staying in your home was invaluable. You two are living proof that hard work pays off, and are fantastic examples to me.

Katherine Lockwood. We say that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all do. You took a basic idea from me and produced something amazing. You gave my book not only a cover, but a soul.

Vicki Whittington and Francine Scott-Majer. You were part of the very small group I entrusted to read my book and not only did you read it and give me feedback, but your words of support spurred me on when I was really struggling.

Rhea Barnard and Gemma Armstrong . You went above and beyond the call of duty and proved that despite years apart, you are still fabulous friends to have. Your honesty made this book infinitely better.

Pat - My proofreader and copy editor. You put so much hard work into my book and polished it until it shined.

Without all of you this book wouldn't be what it is today.

Thank You.

The Night it all started

I was on autopilot as the words of my prayer spilled out of my mouth. In reality, I was wondering exactly how much time I’d wasted saying these stupid words.

I suppose that, technically, all the ones I’d said up to the age of thirteen didn’t count because I’d actually believed in God and so had really meant them. So that left five years of saying this same prayer twice a day. That was approximately twenty minutes a week, which made one hour and twenty minutes a month, sixteen hours a year; so it worked out at... eighty hours? That couldn’t be right. Surely I couldn’t have wasted eighty whole hours, in the last five years, praying to a God I didn’t believe in, in the hope that the supposed evil in my soul would be removed. My train of thought was cut short as I came to the end of my prayer.

I opened my eyes and stood up beside my bed. Mary was standing in the doorway in her white nightgown that covered every inch of her skin from her neck to her feet. She couldn’t have looked more like the stereotypical, strict Christian woman that she was. Sadly, I was wearing a matching nightgown, but somehow it never made me look innocent or dutiful. From the harsh frown on Mary’s face as she looked me over, I thought she might have been thinking the same thing. If we were both honest, we would have to admit that I was never going to be one of God’s children. She suspected it and I knew it.

She gave me a curt nod. Lights out now.

Then she left, closing the door behind her. No cuddles or kisses, but that wasn’t really surprising as I hadn’t had an ounce of affection from Mary since... long before I could remember.

I climbed into bed, turned off my bedside lamp and counted to one hundred before turning it back on. I crept across the room and lifted one side of my dresser up; it was a perfect demonstration of one of the acts that made Mary think I contained evil. The dresser was solid oak and huge; I should not have been able to lift it.

I kicked my foot around until it found the little bundle that I kept hidden under the dresser, in the hollow under the bottom drawer. It was beyond pathetic that, at the age of eighteen, I still had to hide all my personal belongings where I knew nobody would find them, especially when they were such mundane, everyday items.

This particular bundle consisted of my own pyjamas and a book. I put on the shorts and tank top that I wore to bed and chucked the nightgown in a heap on the floor where it would be suitably wrinkled in the morning. Then I climbed into bed and flipped open my book. It was nothing racy or particularly sinful but, at the age of ten, my copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone had been thrown away by Mary, as she’d thought the hocus-pocus witchcraft would corrupt me; now I didn’t take any chances.

This was my favourite part of the day; the couple of hours I had where I could be myself. With one hand, I pulled the hair-band off the bottom of the long sensible plait that Mary always insisted I wore, and ran my fingers through my hair until it fell in soft chocolate waves over my shoulders.

Just as I was coming to the end of a chapter, I heard a thud and a quiet cry. I strained my ears for further sounds but it was silent. Drumming my fingers on the cover of the book, I stared at my closed door. The noises had come from Mary’s bedroom, two rooms away down the hall. Once again, it wasn’t something I should have been able to do – to hear small noises from this distance. It may have been something innocent but I wouldn’t be able to relax until I knew that she hadn’t fallen or hurt herself, so with a sigh I threw the covers off me, stuffed my book under the pillow and threw the frumpy night gown on over the top of what I was already wearing.

Of course I wouldn’t be able to tell Mary that I’d heard her – I’d long since given up trying to talk to her about my strange differences – but, if I walked past her room on the pretence of going to the bathroom, it would be enough to put my mind at rest.

As I walked down the hall I quickly redid my plait. The first thing I noticed was that Mary’s bedroom door was open. She never slept with it open; I’d always imagined this was because she thought my sin was contagious and she might catch it if we were both to spend all night on the same floor of the house without two closed doors between us.

It was only when I winced in pain and looked down to see that my fists were clenched so tight that my nails had drawn blood in my palms, that I realised something was wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint how I knew it, but the air around me seemed thick with foreboding.

It was then that Mary’s praying filled my ears. It was no more than a whisper but the words were heavy with desperation.

I sucked in a breath and took the last few steps that put me at Mary’s door. Fear smacked into me as I took in the scene. Mary was cowering in the far corner of her room, her hands clasped in prayer and her eyes turned upwards to the ceiling. The reason for her frantic prayers was the figure standing a few feet in front of her. A gasp escaped from my mouth and that small noise was enough for the stranger to spin round to face me. He was wearing a black robe with a hood that hung so low that, in the darkness of the room, I could see nothing of his face. I could tell it was a man, though, because of his build. He had to be at least seven feet tall and had shoulders to match.

Anger boiled up in me. This guy had picked the wrong house. I didn’t care if he had the body of a rugby player, I was still stronger than he was. I charged, throwing my full weight at him, but he merely swiped at me with one hand, like I was no more threat than a fly, and that small movement sent me flying back to crash into the wall.

From a crumpled heap on the floor I gaped up at him in shock. He was stronger than me. That couldn’t be possible. His head was turned towards me but, as I still couldn’t see his face, I had no idea what expression he was wearing.

Just you be a good little girl while I deal with her, he said, inclining his head towards Mary. Then it’s your turn.

He turned back towards Mary and my brain seemed to split into a million pieces. Part of me was holding my body frozen in fear, another part was trying to prepare me for what I was about to witness. I was having a million thoughts a second and none of them were remotely helpful. Seeing the man reach towards Mary broke my temporary paralysis and I stood up and shouted. No coherent words came to mind, though, so all I could manage was a garbled noise. He turned and the light from Mary’s bedside lamp illuminated the bottom half of his face. I didn’t have time to come up with any sort of plan so instead I ran at him again. He smiled at me and I heard a whimper that must have come from my own mouth. What I saw brought me to a screeching halt, as I desperately windmilled my arms so I wouldn’t crash into him. He had fangs, real live fangs. I blinked stupidly.

A couple of seconds which seemed to last a lifetime passed before my senses kicked in. He’s after me, I thought, Mary will be fine if I just get him away from her, and I stopped staring and started running. I tore down the hall and got to the top of the stairs. I couldn’t hear him behind me. Looking back seemed like the most terrifying thing to do but I needed to make sure he was following. He was and he was moving so fast he looked more like a blur than a solid shape.

I hurtled down the stairs, taking four at a time but, before I reached the bottom, he’d grabbed me. I braced myself expecting to fall the rest of the way to the landing but instead I was pinned with my back against the wall. I opened my eyes and wished I hadn’t. His face was only inches from mine, his hood still covering his eyes so that all I could see was that mouth and those fangs. I stared in horror as he ran his tongue over them.

Scream, my brain shouted at me, for God’s sake scream. We lived in a detached house and I had no idea if the neighbours would hear but it might scare him off, might make him falter.

It took a couple of tries before I could remember how to, but then I opened my mouth and screamed as loud as I could. It was so surreal and yet all so horribly urgent.

His hands moved from my shoulders to my neck. In desperation I lashed out with all four of my limbs; I felt them connecting with him but they didn’t do any damage. My hand hit something hard on the wall and the tiny part of my mind that wasn’t consumed by terror, told me that it was the frame of one of the pictures that hung there. I grabbed it and swung it forwards. The corner hit him straight in the face, his hold on me loosened for a split second and that was all I needed. I pulled away and ran down the final stairs. I knew I couldn’t leave the house; he might not follow me and then he’d be here with Mary. Instead I veered through the open doorway into the kitchen. The knife block was sitting on the counter and I quickly snatched up the two that I knew were the biggest and spun so that my back was to the wall.

He was standing in the doorway now. His hood had fallen down and I gripped the knives a little tighter. He was everything a murderous monster should be. His black hair was the standard short back and sides that you usually see on an army sergeant. His jaw was solid and square and the top of his right ear had been ripped clean off. His eyes were black, like they were all pupil and no iris, and they seemed like endless black holes in contrast to the whites of his eyes. If the eyes really were windows to the soul, then this guy’s soul was in hell.

He looked at the knives I was holding in my shaking hands and chuckled. You don’t need to be scared. It will be over quickly.

In a blur of movement he rushed at me. More out of instinct than skill I raised the knife in my right hand and felt it make contact with him and sink into his gut. The sensation and sound of the blade sliding into flesh was so disgusting that I felt bile rise in my throat.

He roared, grabbed my left wrist and squeezed so hard that I yelped and dropped the second knife. Then he pulled the first knife out of his stomach and flung it across the room where it sprayed a trail of blood across the wall and landed with a clatter.

Flashes of colour blotted out my vision as he slammed me back into the wall. When I could finally see straight, I saw his fangs only inches from my face.

Behind him I saw a movement in the doorway and could tell by the white nightgown that it was Mary. I didn’t look at her because I didn’t want to give away that she was there. For a moment she stood and took in the scene and then she turned and headed towards the front door. I bit my trembling lip in despair. Some part of me had hoped that she’d try to help me, but she wasn’t going to. I couldn’t really blame her. If I couldn’t beat this guy then she didn’t stand a chance. No point in us both dying.

Bastard! I yelled, hoping that if I shouted loud enough it would cover any noise that Mary made as she left. I hope you rot in hell.

He opened his mouth to answer but then the front door creaked and in the blink of an eye he was gone. Without his fist around my neck to hold me up, I hit the floor and only just scrambled up in time to see him come back in with Mary. He flung her into the corner where her head hit the corner of the breakfast table with a sickening crack.

I screamed, grabbed the bread knife that I’d dropped and ran at him. I felt his vice-like hands grab me, but desperation drove me into wildness. I twisted and flailed and finally felt the blade make contact. I had no idea what I’d hit until he released me and stepped back. He was covered in blood and a gash stretched down one side of his face, tearing his top lip in half.

I turned to grab Mary in an attempt to pull her up and out of the kitchen but she screamed at me and her thrashing hands came out to scratch my face.

Stop! I shouted. Mary stop, it’s me.

She did stop but before I could be relieved she looked straight at me and screeched, Demon! Child of the devil!

A chuckle sounded behind me and I spun to see that my attacker was just a foot away from me. There was still blood on his face but his cut had gone, even his severed lip was back to normal. I could do nothing but stare at the place where the grisly cut should have been.

No, not the child of the devil, she’s the child of a vampire.

He bared his teeth again to show his fangs and I froze. I wanted to believe he was joking but the fangs were a sure sign that he wasn’t. I had no idea about the qualities of vampires, but I knew he was super fast, super strong, healed in seconds and had fangs. I knew that, whatever he was, it made sense that I was the same because it explained my enhanced strength and speed. I desperately searched my mind to think of some logical reason for everything that was happening but there was none.

Something between a whimper and a sob came out of me and the adrenaline that I’d been running on vanished. He grabbed a fistful of my nightgown and slammed my back down on the wooden table. He kept one hand on my stomach, pinning me down with such force that my ribs felt like they’d snap; in his other hand he pulled out a dagger from under his cloak.

This is silver, he said and, for vampires, that means it’s going to burn like hell so if you have any last words I would say them now because in about five seconds all you’re going to be doing is screaming in agony.

I was trembling all over now. I turned my head to see Mary but she sat as still as a statue with her eyes closed. I looked back up at the man who was going to kill me. This was it, my life was about to end and I’d never done anything. I’d never achieved anything, never been abroad, never had a proper job, never had a serious boyfriend, never done anything other than pretend to be someone I wasn’t. What a complete waste of a life.

Fuck you, I hissed at him, determined to at least go out with courage. He just smiled and, in a blur, I saw his arm swing and heard the crack as the blade hit the table underneath me. There was no pain. He’d stabbed me hard enough for the blade to go right through me and into the table but there was no pain. I glanced down and saw why. The dagger was about an inch away from my side. He’d missed. I looked at him in shock. How the hell had he missed?

He lowered his face to mine, grabbed my chin and twisted my head to the side. I struggled, thinking he was going to bite my neck but then I realised he was making me look at Mary and the fight left my body. Her eyes were still closed but there was a strange look on her face. She didn’t look scared or upset, in fact she was almost smiling.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, my attacker said, but that looks an awful lot like relief to me.

Mary’s eyes opened and she didn’t even have the civility to look guilty. She didn’t look ashamed that she was comforted by the thought of my imminent death. Somehow, out of the whole nightmare that was this evening, that hurt me the most. I felt my eyes well up with tears and I turned my head so that I didn’t have to look at her anymore. The monster smiled down at me.

Just thought I’d make the last moments of your life a little more special. Now that’s enough playing.

I didn’t even struggle as he yanked the dagger out the table and raised his hand again. I closed my eyes and didn’t pray.

There was a crashing and another roar and I was knocked off the table and onto the floor. I scrambled away from the blurring mess that had taken over the kitchen. The movement was so fast it looked like a tornado. Suddenly it stopped and I saw that there were two of them. The new one was wearing black trousers and a white shirt and he had my attacker pinned down on the floor. He looked up at me and I could see he had the same black eyes and fangs. The look he gave me wasn’t hostile though. There was dirt smudged on his face and he had bits of plant stuck in his choppy brown hair.

Go! he shouted. Get out of here.

I wanted to but my legs wouldn’t move. They’d stopped listening to what I was telling them to do.

GO! he yelled, and the sheer volume of his voice was enough to jump-start me. I grabbed Mary, ignoring her protests and attempts at pushing me away, and with one last look at the man who’d saved me, I ran.

* * *

Faine.

At the sound of my name I looked up. Simon Clark was sitting next to me on the front steps of one of the neighbour’s houses. It was where I’d collapsed when I’d finally got Mary into the safety of the neighbour’s house. After that I must have gone into shock because I had no recollection of what had happened between then and now. I hadn’t even seen Simon arrive. He was a police officer, well known in this town for his handsome young face and his fair attitude. He was giving me a patient look and I got the impression he’d been calling my name for some time. I blinked a few times and tried to focus my attention on him.

Faine, can you hear me? he said.

I nodded.

Can you tell me what happened?

I thought I would burst into tears but there was nothing, just enveloping numbness that made me feel heavy. I fidgeted just to see if I was able to control my body and found that, at some point, someone had draped a blanket over me.

Can you tell me what happened? Simon said again.

Yes. My voice sounded croaky and my throat felt raw after so much screaming, but the seriousness of the situation came back to me and I cleared my throat and tried again. He tried to kill us.

Simon looked confused. Who?

I don’t know. He was there in her room and he tried to kill us... I trailed off, aware that I was repeating myself. Get a grip Faine. I heard a noise and, when I went to see if Mary was okay, there was a man there. I tried to stop him and he chased me and then he tried to kill me but someone else came and stopped him.

Simon frowned and cast a look around; there was nobody close to us but he lowered his voice anyway. Are you sure that’s what happened, Faine? How did the fire start?

I stared at him for a long time. Fire? What fire?

The house was on fire. It was put out before it could spread, so it’s just the kitchen that’s been really damaged. There aren’t any bodies there. He cast another look around and then spoke in a whisper. Mary’s ranting about you being the devil and the blood on her fingernails looks pretty consistent with the scratches on your face.

I raised a hand and felt a series of scratches down one side of my face. Realisation dawned on me and I knew what people were thinking. Simon tried a few more times to ask me questions but I shut down and, after a time, he seemed to realise it. I watched as he walked over to a small group of policemen. He didn’t tell them my story, just that I was in shock and needed time to calm down. I couldn’t blame him, after all who would believe my story? I’d even left out the crazy part about the fangs and the black eyes and he still didn’t believe me.

One of the policemen had left the flashing lights on his patrol car on, and the blue lights seemed to have drawn everyone in the street out of their homes.

My attention was drawn to a group of gossiping women, all huddled together. I focused on them to find out how much they knew.

I heard Mary found her trying to burn all the Bibles and the fire got out of control, one woman said.

I scoffed. They lived for gossip and that was the best they could come up with? A Bible-burning sinner? But then another woman spoke and it made me freeze.

No, I heard she flipped out and tried to burn the house down while Mary was sleeping. That’s how she got the scratches; she was trying to stop Mary from escaping.

That was met with gasps and a few of them turned to look at me. I stared at the ground.

Of course. Murder was much more interesting than an accident and who better to blame than the slightly odd girl who’d been left on Mary’s doorstep as a baby? The girl who, despite having lived here for all of her eighteen years and despite her attempts to keep her head down, never did quite fit in.

I’d have dismissed it as the poisonous gossip it was, but I noticed that the police officers were all giving me similar looks. I tuned into their conversation and, to my disgust, found that it was along similar lines. They wanted to take me in for questioning. Only Simon didn’t join in with them. He was giving me an odd look and I realised that he knew I could hear them, despite the fact that they were fifty feet away.

I stared back at the ground beneath my feet. I had no idea what Mary would say but I knew that, whatever she did say, it wasn’t going to offer me any hope. She’d seen those men, she’d seen that they had the same strange abilities as me, she’d heard what they’d said I was. Did she believe them? Did I believe them?

Questions buzzed around my head. There was nobody I could talk to, nobody I could ask for help. I was on my own with nobody to stand up for me. My nightgown was covered in blood, some of it was from my own cuts but I knew that some of it would be that evil man’s. If the police sent it off to be tested, it would come back and prove me right and Mary wrong. But what was the point? I could give them the gown now and prove that someone else had been there, but I was certain that Mary wouldn’t be coming anywhere near me from now on, and definitely wouldn’t be allowing me to live with her again. In a village the size of this one, everyone would have heard the gossip within the next day or two, so there was no chance of anyone else letting me stay with them. And, even if I did stay until the test results came back, people would still choose to hate me.

There was nothing here for me anymore. No, that wasn’t true. There was a man here who’d tried to kill me. I didn’t know what had happened to him. Had he escaped or had he died? There was also the one who’d saved my life. In any other situation, I’d have thought he was my hero but the truth was that he was just as scary as the first guy. I had no idea why either of them had come here and I had no idea if they’d come back, but I wasn’t going to find out.

It was time for me to disappear.

Three Years Later

Chapter 1

I woke with a start, just like I always did when I overslept. I jumped out of bed scowling at my alarm clock for not having woken me up but, if I was honest, I did have a hazy memory of it going off at six and me beating it into silence.

The fact that I only ever wore jeans and tops made it easy for me to conjure up an outfit without too much fumbling. Then, in a fantastic show of multi-tasking, I brushed my teeth, pinned back my hair, applied minimal make-up and located both of my black boots which had somehow ended up on opposite sides of the room.

Eight minutes after my eyes had opened, I was out of my front door and pretty pleased with myself; I’d shaved a whole minute off my best time.

The weather was gloomy and threatening rain. It was the sort of weather that most people hated but I always found it promising. There was nothing better than a full-on thunder storm. Dark grey clouds filling up the sky was a sure sign that one was coming.

If I ran to work at full speed I’d get there twice as fast but it would attract too much attention, so instead I set off at a casual half-jog, half-run. I arrived only slightly out of breath and fifteen minutes late. Through the glass window at the front of the café, I could see Lisa behind the counter taking orders from the customers who wanted their fry-ups before starting their working days.

Lisa looked exactly like a cafe manager should look; slightly too large to be called curvy and with a worn-down attitude that made her civil but not overly friendly. Her mousy brown hair was, as always, pulled back in a ponytail and, despite it being only quarter past seven in the morning, her white apron already had black smudges on it.

A frown and slight puckering of her lips was the only acknowledgement she gave of my lateness. I put on my own white apron and set about filling plates and delivering them to tables. The smells of sausage, eggs and bacon filled my nose and made my stomach lurch. Any other time of day, I’d be longing to join the customers and dig in, but I could never eat before nine.

For a couple of hours we were rushed off our feet until ten when we slowed to a steady trickle that would take us up to lunch when we’d be busy again.

When I had time between cooking food, serving customers, washing up and wiping tables, I found other duties to fill my time, hoping that doing jobs that weren’t technically mine would make up for my being late. Again.

That was the trouble with doing two jobs; I was always so tired that I was constantly running late. I worked at the cafe from seven until three and then I went home and crashed for a couple of hours so that I could go to my second job at a pub from six until midnight. Both jobs paid the minimum wage so it would have made more sense for me to find a normal nine-to-five job with decent pay, but it was impossible to get one of those that paid cash-in-hand and didn’t need a contract.

Just before lunch I ran out of things to do and I leant up against the counter, trying to rest my feet before the rush.

You’ll do yourself in, if you keep burning the candle at both ends, Lisa said from where she was perched on a stool behind the till. She gave me a studying look from over the top of her romance novel.

I smiled. I never told Lisa that the reason I was always so knackered was because I had two jobs. For some reason, I thought she would be less tolerant of my lateness if she knew it was because I was working elsewhere rather than going out partying like twenty-one year-olds were supposed to do.

If I don’t do it now, I never will, I said. Lisa gave a non-committal shrug and went back to her steamy fantasy.

Another stable boy? I asked, studying the shirtless blonde guy straddling a bale of straw on the front cover of Lisa’s book. The look on his face said, Sitting in this position shows off all my muscles and don’t I just know it.

Actually he’s the only son of the wealthy Baron Von Smythe in South Carolina and he’s fallen in love with the eldest daughter of one of the local fishermen who’s struggling to feed his family because the Baron’s shipping business is over-running the dockyard.

I looked at the girl on the front cover and snorted, Well, that explains why she can only afford to cover herself with a scrap of cloth.

Lisa studied the cover for a few seconds before shrugging again. If I had a body like that, then I’d be tempted to only wear a scrap of cloth myself.

An image of an almost naked Lisa, draped over the lap of the wealthy Baron Boy, threatened to invade my mind and I quickly changed the topic before I couldn’t look her in the eyes without blushing.

I don’t know why you read that crap. I mean, surely it gets boring reading what’s essentially just the same plot-line over and over again, just with different people? Boy meets girl from a different class, they fall in love despite knowing that it’s against society’s rules and then, when said society does find out and do what they can to tear the couple apart, it just pushes the couple closer together because they know that, as long as they have each other, that’s all they need in life.

They aren’t all like that, Lisa insisted. Besides, the characters are good.

Oh please, I bet the males are all strong, tough guys on the outside but, around the love of their life, they open up and share all their thoughts and feelings. And I bet the females are all doe-eyed and innocent and just idolise the man that they love.

Actually, that’s not true; Savannah just told her father that she doesn’t care about his demands and that she’ll live her life how she wants to, with or without his blessing, Lisa stated, a slight huffiness to her tone.

I couldn’t help but let out a sarcastic chuckle. Yeah, I bet Savannah’s gonna be a real hell-raiser.

A sharp look from Lisa told me that I was very close to crossing the line from friendly banter into insulting my boss.

Ah look, that table needs clearing, I said, hurrying away before Lisa remembered that the back-up grill could use a good clean.

As I cleared the plates and wiped down the table, I contemplated for the millionth time why Lisa’s reading choices always seemed to irritate me so much. I liked to tell myself that it was because the books promoted such stereotypical characters, that in a modern society like ours we should want more open-mindedness. But, if I was honest, it was because I always felt like any book or film that contained that image of true, perfect love was a real up yours at me. They basically pointed out that two people from almost any background could fall in love, conquer all obstacles and spend their lives together. I didn’t care that they were fictional; I hated it being made to sound so simple when I could never get it right.

I knew the reason Lisa read those books was because she liked to dream that, one day, one of the guys from one of those books would march in here, sweep her off her feet and take her somewhere where she’d never have to see a fried egg again. Lisa’s dream was for a guy to fall madly in love with her and spend his life doting on her. My problem was the opposite. Men were crazy about me – crazy being a very appropriate word.

About a month after my fifteenth birthday, I started to notice that men looked at me differently. It was like some invisible switch inside me had flipped and suddenly I went from being a completely average teenager to someone that boys and men of all ages started noticing when I walked into a room. Most guys just looked, but others seemed compelled to come and talk to me. To the devastation of all the popular girls at school, half the boys in our school year asked me to the end of school party, which ironically scared me enough to put me off going altogether. As much as becoming a guy-magnet overnight sounds like a great thing to happen, all it did for me was to send me into a spiral of paranoia. I was sensible enough to know that there was something very unnatural about