One Thousand Stars and You by Isabelle Broom

Author:Isabelle Broom
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405935531
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

27

Alice could not remember ever feeling so worn out. The muscles in her thighs were tremoring with fatigue and her ankle and knee joints felt stiff and brittle, as if they could snap with ease. The climb up Adam’s Peak had been arduous but fulfilling, while going back down simply felt endless. Even the monkeys, which she had finally spotted peering down at them through the branches of the surrounding trees, did little to perk her up. But Alice knew that it was not only her frazzled body causing her to feel on edge; it was everything spinning around in her head as well.

Max was finding the descent difficult, too. He had not uttered a word of complaint, but she had noticed him wincing as he tackled the steepest steps just below the summit. Moving across to offer him her hand, Alice had been surprised when he shook his head wordlessly to refuse her help. It was ridiculous of her to feel so stung, but that’s what his rebuttal had felt like – the sting of a whip, lashing across her throat and causing it to thicken with hurt. After that she had maintained a small distance, hurrying down the steps until she was twenty or so paces ahead of him.

Had she imagined that moment up on the summit? Did she conjure up the feeling of Max’s lips brushing against her own, and the look in his eyes when he’d held her in his arms? She knew she had not, but now everything between them felt so entirely different, and Alice could not understand what it was she had done wrong.

‘Wait up!’

She turned to find Steph, pink in the face and panting as she jogged down the steps towards her.

‘Sorry.’ Alice waited for her to catch up. ‘I was in the zone, there.’

‘Not like you,’ Steph joked, smiling despite her heaving chest. Then, ‘Do you have anything to tell me?’

Alice frowned.

‘Um …’

Steph folded her arms across her chest.

‘A secret that you’ve been keeping?’

Had she seen Max hug her at the top of the Peak? Could she see inside Alice’s head?

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, I dunno, like the secret of what amazing present you’ve bought me!’

Alice laughed in relief, picturing the tickets to the West End show Steph had wanted to see for months, which were tucked into a side pocket of her backpack back at the guest house.

‘Oh, that. Well, I thought the birthday bumps for starters,’ she said. ‘Unless you’d rather get those from Jamal …’

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no,’ Steph replied, a coy look on her face. ‘And this is already turning into a birthday I will never forget.’ She gestured around them. ‘I mean, what a place to turn thirty.’

‘One of Maur’s better ideas,’ agreed Alice. ‘I feel so bad for her that she’s missing this.’

But thankful, too, she acknowledged guiltily.

‘I thought it would feel weird, you know, reaching the big three-O,’ Steph admitted, following Alice as she started down the next flight of wide steps.

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