The Girl Before You by Nicola Rayner

Author:Nicola Rayner [Nicola Rayner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2019-05-07T16:00:00+00:00

Kat

May 2000

George’s hand catches on Kat’s hip as he brushes past her. ‘You’re looking sexy tonight,’ he says, waving to greet Dan on the other side of the room.

‘Thanks, George.’ Kat runs a hand through her hair. ‘You don’t scrub up too badly yourself.’ She watches him make his way through the crowded room to Dan.

There’s something sexy about men touching your hips like that, Kat muses; it’s the right distance from the crucial zone. Close enough to be provocative, far enough to leave something to the imagination. Recently, she’s noticed George noticing her, catching her eye across the room at parties. Nothing major – George flirts with a lot of people – but it’s as if Kat has come into his radar.

More than once tonight, she looks up and sees Dan and him, handsome in black tie, looking in her direction. It becomes like a joke: she looks up, they’re watching her, they look away, smiling, almost bashful, as if caught doing something wrong.

Kat takes another glass of champagne from a passing silver tray. She loves the chance to put on a cocktail dress and tonight’s event in the senior common room is a particularly glossy affair. Students more accustomed to Dr Martens and lumberjack shirts have gathered beneath chandeliers, beneath the snooty college deans of old, looking down their noses from oil paintings. Some students seem uncomfortable in black tie, tugging at their necks where the shirt collars dig in or, in the case of the girls, hiding their bodies under baggy cardigans, but Kat loves dressing up, putting on a different persona, teasing her hair into a Fifties do, even painting on a beauty spot. It can be a relief to pretend to be someone else.

Tonight, she is glad of the distraction. It has been a difficult day. She is still finding it hard, after the Easter holidays, to cope with the reality of Ruth and Richard being together. She finds herself thinking of Richard every morning when she wakes up: how he will never be hers now. Worse, on top of that ache, there’s the thought of Richard and Ruth waking at the same sort of time. Limbs curled around each other in Ruth’s tiny single bed. Isn’t the morning the best part of the day when you’re in love? When you remember who you’re with and their face appears crumpled but smiling, their hair all messy, and then one of you might roll towards the other …

Kat runs a hand over her eyes. She has tried so hard to shake off the sadness; Kat is not good at feeling sad, sitting with it. Her head has ached all day, her limbs felt heavy. She even tried to go for a run along the beach, and for a few moments she lost herself in the sound of the sea and her trainers slapping against the wet sand. And then she remembered those times with Richard, walking along the clifftops, and how sometimes – often – in

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