Page 74 of Actually Yours

“The Christmas card? What did she say?”

She looks at me, her eyes widening as she takes in my nervous breakdown in progress. “Let me rewind.”

We watch the scene going backward, coming to a halt when the Christmas card is in view. We listen to the voice of Natalie again, reading out the words written on her card: “Particularly because (if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you eh?)—I’m actually yours. With love, your Natalie.”

“That’s it.”

Bella pauses the movie, turning her body to face me. “What’s it?”

“All this time…” I mutter under my breath, the hamster wheel in my head turning furiously.

“All this time what?” She’s impatient.

“All this time, I was actually his.” I look at her, imploring her to understand.

She doesn’t. “Actually whose?”

I think back on that first night, the way my heart raced when our eyes connected, the way I prayed he was my match, the way my brain stuttered to a halt at his mere presence. It was him. It’s always been him.

“Jake. I’ve always been his.”

Bella grins at me, a smile so wide it looks like it hurts. “Really?”

A smile grows on my face. “I’m so dumb. It’s been him all along.”

“This makes me so happy!”

My smile drops, panic replacing my joy. “I’m actually his.” I repeat the words, absorbing the enormity behind them. It’s not about a crush, or even just liking him, he’s it for me. I’m his.

“OK, good, you’re actually his.” Bella runs a soothing hand over my arm, her touch anchoring me in place. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

I pick my phone up off the table, almost in slow motion, and tap on my text message chain with Jake.

AMELIA: Can we talk?

CHAPTER 15

Jake

Can we talk?

These three words glare out at me from my mobile phone screen, replacing the other three words that had been plaguing me for the last eighteen hours and twenty-three minutes.

Amelia kissed me. Amelia kissed me. Amelia kissed me.

And now she wants to talk. Those three words together mean nothing good and I put my phone down on the highest shelf away from me, hoping if I can’t see it, I won’t have to deal with it.

For those brief moments when Amelia’s lips wereon mine—finally—everything was perfect. The stars were aligned; the angels were singing. I’d found my bliss. And then…she’d panicked. I could see it clear as day on her face. One minute we’d been lost in each other and the next she was withdrawing from me, running from me, like I’ve seen her do before. And now she wants to talk.

“It can’t be good,” I tell my TV friend Gina, a contestant onAlone: The Australian Wilderness,who’s currently running naked into the freezing ocean waters of the Bass Strait, which arejust south of where I live. “No one shares a kiss with a guy and then wants ‘to talk’ and it ends up being a good thing.”

Gina continues on her delirious way to hypothermia, and I focus on the fact that I’m becoming a little nutty as well. Talking to a reality show contestant, instead of to the person I want to spend all my days talking to. I guess I’m just too afraid of what she might say, that she may declare us over before we’d even begun.

“Tea,” I mutter, pausing the TV and walking to the kitchen. “That should help.”

I fill the kettle up and get down the box of Melbourne Breakfast Tea Leaves I’d bought soon after Amelia started dating Robby. I’d overheard her asking for a cup of tea, only for Robby to make her a cup of coffee instead. He really is the worst. After that time, I’d casually asked her what sort of tea she liked the best, and she’d lit up like my taking an interest in something as small as her tea preference was a gift. She’d babbled on and on about her favourite tea shop,T2, which stocks all kinds of tea paraphernalia and after she’d eventually told me the one she likes the best—Melbourne Breakfast—I’d sought out this shop and bought a few boxes. For the next time she wanted tea,notcoffee.

This is just one of the many details I’d learnt about Amelia during those awful months she was dating my brother. Some were obvious, like her deep love for that cheesy show,Gilmore Girls(which I secretly loved!) and her obsessive need to change her hair colour every few weeks. But others were only obvious to anyone who was actually paying attention (so, not Robby). I noticed she scrunches her nose up when she’s listening to something or someone intently, and how she can’t lie to save herself. Most people look to the left when they lie, but Amelia, she closes her eyes completely. And I don’t think she realises it. Even if it’s a small, white lie, she blinks for a really long time,until she’s finished and then she just looks guilty, waiting to be caught out. It’s incredibly adorable and speaks to how pure her heart is. Lying does not come easily to Amelia.

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