Read Online This is Not a Love Story by Suki Fleet - Free Book Online Page B

the blackness of the tunnel, never really sure which direction the train is going to appear from, while Phillippe runs his hand against the dirty white tiles at the back of the busy platform, swirling patterns and drawing pictures.
    We get plenty of backward glances, a few unembarrassed stares. And I stare back. If only they knew how easy it is to fall through the gaps—a few unsteady steps and suddenly you’re gone.
     
     
    P HILLIPPE STANDS behind me as I bang frantically on Gem’s door. It’s a bad move. She thinks it’s trouble and won’t open unless I tell her who it is. Fuck.
    I point at myself and then at Phillippe’s mouth. He shrugs, and I put my head in my hands.
    Just tell her who it is for fuck’s sake , I will him.
    Gem shouts again, threatening to call the police, when Phillippe finally gets it and stutters my name.
    The door swings open.
    “Romeo? What the hell?”
    A less-glamorous-than-usual Gem looks from me to Phillippe and then down the corridor.
    I give a small wave to Joel hiding behind the door to the living room, but I can’t bring myself to smile.
    “Who are you?” Gem demands, dark eyes fixed on Phillippe. I’d never admit it, but she scares me a little bit. “And where’s Jules?”
    Phillippe squeaks his name, but I can’t look her in the eye. I don’t want to break down in front of her. I’m stronger than that.
    I lean my pad against the wall and feeling slightly detached, write, I don’t know. He was taken last night by the people we were staying with .
    She stares at my writing as if the words aren’t quite right and then ushers us both inside, before just about dragging me into the living room.
    “Joel, go play in your room for a minute, yeah?”
    “Can’t I see Romeo?”
    Gem shakes her head firmly. “Not now.”
    Phillippe hovers in the hall until Joel takes his hand and whispers something. Gem watches warily as they walk toward Joel’s bedroom.
    “Joel, take Phillippe to the kitchen. Give him a biscuit and a drink,” she calls, then turns to me. “Your friend out there had better be trustworthy.”
    I nod before letting my legs fold under me and collapse back onto the couch. Gem looks different without a mountain of makeup on, more real, less… something I can’t quite put my finger on. Slowly she lowers herself down next to me, a grim expression on her face.
    “Tell me everything,” she says in a flat, dull voice, as if this is somehow what she has been expecting all this time, as if she’s resigned to Julian having a less-than-pleasant fate.
    All at once I wish I hadn’t come here. She’s not going to reassure me that he’s going to be okay. She’s already accepted that he’s gone. And I can’t deal with that.
    But I write everything down anyway, everything I remember, excluding my dream. At first I’m not even sure she’s reading. She just seems to be staring at the paper so she doesn’t have to look at me. She doesn’t say anything for a long, long time.
    And when she does speak, “Joel’s going to be devastated” is all she says, flatly, quietly.
    A sudden painful thought occurs to me, and I write it down without really thinking.
    Is Julian Joel’s father?
    Joel is lighter skinned than Gem. Julian would have been fourteen, maybe fifteen. Gem is older. It’s not impossible.
    But Gem reads my question with such a look of shock and wonder on her face that I feel stupid and embarrassed. She gasps out a laugh, and I fold my arms protectively across my chest.
    “Please tell me you’re not as innocent as you look, Romeo. You do know how it works, don’t you? A man and a woman… not two….” She sighs, rolling her eyes.
    Of course I fucking know. It wasn’t such a stupid question, and I can’t see why she thought it was.
    I stare sullenly at the glass coffee table and the way the sunlight makes colors shine through the surface to pattern the carpet beneath.
    “Julian wouldn’t have left you, you know that. He would have done anything for