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Helen

I sla eyes, butheart needn’t have worried It was only Lizzie She dropped her satchel down by arette

“You’ll get a wet ass sitting out here,” she said, dropping to the floor regardless “Grass is damp”

“And you’ll get suspended if they catch you sarette, and she’d swapped it for my sketchbook before I had time to protest

She flicked to h “And to think a fewto cope? Cold turkey? I’ll take care of you, Helen dearest At least you aren’t going to forget what he looks like You could paper the entire dorm with your little sketch mementos”

“It’s Aberystwyth university, not the moon”

“May as well be the moon”

“Thanks for brightening arette and wrenched my half-finished sketch fro out the brooding darkness of his brows He was concentrating, just like he had been thatto a very unappreciative Harry Sawbridge He’d been nificent, so intuitive, so… brilliant I shaded the perfect contours of his cheekbones and my stomach fluttered at the memory

“Maybe you’ll finally get over him,” Lizzie said “Plenty of hot, creative weirdo students to distract you Even you’ll have to find so”

“Maybe”

Lizzie Thomas could say it as many times as she wanted, and she did She said it all the tih it would somehow turn out to be true But no It would never be true

I’d been crushing on Mr Roberts since the very first day he stood across froh Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory Since he’d sood eye for shade and colour Since he’d taken uided my paintbrush to achieve the perfect curve of the apple on my first still life

I’d been crushing on Mr Roberts since twelve years old, and right now, at eighteen and just a fewhis classes forever, it felt like I’d be crushing over him my entire life Maybe I’d turn into a bitter spinster with twelve cats and just a roos to remember him by

My insides knotted Aberystwyth ht What reason would a freaky, obsessive little weirdo likeinto her brilliant ex art teacher in the holidays?

None

The thought made me feel sick and it must have shown all over my face