Chapter 1:
"Eek! I'm so relieved and excited at the same time!"
Lottie squirmed in the passenger seat next to me as I drove us back home. Okay, technically it wasn't her home as she didn't officially live with my dad, mum and me, but she might as well have done. Charlotte 'Lottie' Davis was my best friend and had been since we first met 14 year years ago back on our first day of school.
I remember it as clearly as yesterday. My mum dropped me off with an awful lot of hugs and tears and "I can't believe my little Thomas is going off to big boy school already! Where has the time gone?!" Looking back on it, it was a fairly prolonged and embarrassing goodbye, but hey I was only 4. The teacher was a nice older lady with grey hair. She tried her best to put me at ease with the whole situation but she also had about 25 other kids to meet and appease so she showed me over to a sandpit and left me to wallow in my abandonment. I sat there sobbing for a few minutes before a girl plonked herself down opposite me. She stared at me with her big green emerald eyes for a second before speaking.
"Hello." She said.
"Hello." I replied, rubbing my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper.
"I'm Lottie." She said, flicking her red hair over her shoulder and out of the way.
"My name is Thomas."
"Can I call you Tom?" She asked.
No one had called me Tom before. Everyone used my full name. "Sure."
And from that moment on we have always been friends. Over the primary school years we grew closer, so much so that our parents also became friends and it wasn't rare that once or twice a month we would sleep over the other's house, especially if our parents went away. We told each other everything.
Then, when we were 10, Lottie's dad died. Freak plane accident in Asia when he was away on business. Everyone on board was killed. Lottie was taken out of school by her mum the day she found out. I didn't know until after school when my dad picked me up and told me what had happened. He also told me that they were our guests for the next couple of days and that I was to make sure Lottie had everything she needed. Neither of us had any brothers or sisters and I remember that night our parents just left us to our own devices as they digested what had happened. They even let us sleep in the same room, but we were far too young to get up to anything naughty so they probably didn't give it a second thought. I just remember spending the whole night trying to cheer my best friend up. I acted the fool, I told her jokes, and I let her play with my favourite toys. In the end we watched a film while I comforted her.
After that day we truly became inseparable. Which was convenient for our mums because so had they. The death of Lottie's dad had made our mother's as close as sisters – they were always chatting away together, either in person or on the phone. We even started holidaying together. Not that Lottie and I minded of course. We thought it was brilliant, just another excuse to spend some time together and hang out.
A couple of years later, her mother got some big time promotion at work. She was a lawyer and became head of the firm or something. It started earning her serious money but also meant that her workload increased and her hours became incredibly unsocial. To the point where Lottie was walking home with me from school and staying at our house as late as 8 or 9pm several nights a week.
We both finished school with good grades and went onto 6th form; me to study Maths, Physics and Chemistry and her to study Maths, Physics and Further Maths. Today we had both had our last ever A level exam. It was an amazing feeling. The weight had finally lifted from our shoulders and we now had a nice long stretch of several months holiday before going off to University. Life was good.
"Mm!" Lottie said as she ran her hands through her hair. I glanced over at her quickly and saw that she was relaxing, eyes closed, back into the seat.
"What?" I asked.
She opened her eyes and turned her gaze on me. She smiled. "Oh nothing. I was just thinking about how much I'm looking forward to this summer! We have the 6th form prom next week, and then we're going on holiday with our parents the week after. Then when we get back we will still have over two months before University starts."
"I bet you we get bored out of our brains." I muttered turning my attention back to the road.
"Oh, I'm sure we'll find one or two ways to entertain ourselves."
The way she said it made me look at her again. It used to be that I could take one look at her and know exactly what she was thinking by her expression, but more and more recently I was finding her harder to read. "Why? What do you have in mind?"
She smiled and turned away from me in her seat to look out the passenger window. When I continued to stare she shrugged and said, "I just don't think we'll get bored. Anyway," She said brightly, changing the subject, "what do you fancy doing for the rest of today? I was thinking swimming."
I rolled my eyes. "You know I hate swimming!" No one understood where my dislike of swimming came from. It wasn't as if I had some childhood trauma or fear. It wasn't even as if I disliked exercise. I kept myself in pretty decent shape by jogging and going to the gym. I just didn't like swimming.
"Yes. But I don't." She countered.
"Sorry Lottie. But I couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm taking us home then meeting up with Richard, Harry and the guys. We're celebrating the end of exams by getting hammered."
She looked at me. "And you didn't invite me?"
"I didn't think you'd want to come!" I protested. "You don't like half of my other friends."
She turned back to the window and shook her head. "All they do is leer at me like I'm some piece of meat."
"Well if you didn't dress so provocatively –" As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I'd said the wrong thing. She whipped her head round so fast that I half expected her to get whiplash and stared at me open mouthed.
"Provocatively?!" She repeated in anger. "When have I ever dressed provocatively?!"
"I err..." I was at a loss. I knew in my heart that she didn't dress at all in that way. It just wasn't her. But I had dug so far down this hole that I was damn well getting myself out.
"You can't think of a single time, can you?" Her eyes glowered, daring me to answer. Keeping one eye on the road I looked at what she was wearing for inspiration. It was a simple red dress with a high neckline, sleeveless and floaty whilst at the same time hinting that she had some curves underneath. It finished just above her knees.
"You get your legs out a lot!" I jumped on what small evidence I had.
"You mean I wear dresses?!" Her irritation spiked.
"Yes! And the lads have noticed! They like your legs."
