Barnaby Rudge: Should be.

Twiggy: Till then, then. Good luck with the phone call!

And then she was gone. I looked down at my phone and saw that Joey had texted me back, telling me some tale of falling into a stream and getting her trousers wet, then having to hold them out of the minibus window all the way back to their hostel so she could dry them off. I laughed out loud and wished, for the umpteenth time, that she were around so I could pour my heart out to her. I was sure about one thing with Joey: she would fully understand.

Chapter Twelve.

The shrill ringing of my phone startled me a few hours after I'd finished talking to Twiggy and had finally gone to bed. I was propped up, trying to concentrate on reading a magazine, even though my mind frequently wandered to Fickle, when the tinny shriek of "Dancing Queen" sounding out from my phone made me jump. I looked down at my phone briefly, watching as the light from it reflected on and off my ceiling.

I quickly snatched up the phone, worried that it would wake my parents, only registering Fickle's name flashing on the screen for a split second as I pressed the Answer button and mumbled into it.

"Hey," I said, stretching my legs out under the duvet.

"Hey yourself." Fickle's voice sounded at the other end. I smiled to myself in the dark, remembering Twiggy's words about hoping Fickle didn't have a squeaky voice. She didn't.

"Do you know how late it is to be ringing?" I propped myself up on one elbow and peered through the darkness at my alarm clock. It was nearly midnight.

"I know, I'm sorry." Fickle spoke softly. "I couldn't sleep."

"I know you said you wanted to ring me, but I didn't think you meant in the dead of night." I laughed quietly, glancing anxiously at the door, hoping that my parents wouldn't be able to hear me talking.

"I didn't mean to disturb you, I'm sorry," Fickle said. "I was lying in bed thinking about you. I thought if I could just talk to you, hear your voice, then I might be able to stop thinking about you for five minutes and actually get some sleep!"

I listened to her voice speaking in hushed tones and felt a million butterflies flutter in my stomach. It was so damned good to hear what she sounded like, after weeks of just communicating with her through typing away on a keyboard or texting her. To finally hear her voice whispering to me down the telephone made me want her now more than I'd ever done.

"You have a lovely voice," I found myself saying.

"So do you," Fickle whispered. "Very sexy, but then I somehow knew you would."

"You think so?" I laughed.

"I do, yeah." Fickle laughed back. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, Immy. I can't stop thinking about our conversation tonight."

"You don't regret it, do you?" I felt panic rising.

"God, no!" Fickle said. "Do you?"

"Not a second of it," I replied truthfully.

"Good. 'Cos I meant it, Immy, everything I said." Fickle lowered her voice. "I really fancy you, you know that?"

There went the butterflies inside me again.

"I really fancy you too, Gem." It sounded weird, me telling someone-a girl!-that I fancied her, but it sounded weird-good. I liked it.

"You're sweet and funny and nice, and I never believed I could ever meet someone like you," Fickle whispered. "I feel very lucky."

"Do you believe in fate, Gem?" I asked.

"I hadn't before I met you, but perhaps I should start believing in it," Fickle replied.

"That's what I think," I said, adjusting my position in bed. "Because if I'd never watched Lovers and Sinners, if I'd never found that website, well, then I'd never have met you, would I?"

"And I think meeting you might just about be the best darned thing that's ever happened to me," Fickle said gently.

"You think?" I ran my hand through my hair.

"Yeah, I think." Fickle laughed, adding, "No, I know!"

There was a bit of an awkward pause before Fickle then said: "Are you in bed?"

"Yeah." I leant back against my pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "Are you?"

"Yeah." Fickle sighed and paused. "I wish I was with you right now."

"I wish you were here too," I said, thinking how great it would be to have Fickle next to me in my bed, stroking her hair, holding her, talking to her in the dead of night.

"I feel really happy." Fickle laughed. "Happy and relaxed. See? I knew all I needed was to hear you and you'd soothe me. I just needed you, Immy."

"You have me, Gem," I whispered.

"I'll text you in the morning, yeah?" I could hear Fickle stifle a yawn, making me want to yawn too. "Will you be on MSN tomorrow night?"

"Of course!" I said. "I'll be on after dinner, okay?"

"I miss you already and you haven't even gone yet," Fickle said quietly.

"I miss you too, Gem," I replied, closing my eyes and picturing her face.

"G'night, Immy. I'm glad you answered your phone. I'm glad I got to talk to you," Fickle said.

"G'night, Gem," I replied. "I'm dead glad I answered too. Sleep well."

"Until tomorrow, yeah?" Fickle stifled another yawn and then was gone.

I stared at my phone, unable to wipe the stupid grin from my face. If I thought I fancied Fickle before tonight, then just hearing her on the phone had made me fancy her a thousand times more! I switched my phone off and shuffled myself down under the duvet, imagining the sound of her voice in my head over and over again until, at last, my eyes finally closed and I fell into a deep, comfortable sleep.

The next morning I awoke to eight texts from Fickle, all sent one after the other, all saying pretty much the same thing: that she couldn't stop thinking about me and she couldn't wait to speak to me again, and that she'd be thinking about me all day until she got a chance to catch up with me later that evening.

I walked to college feeling so different from all the other times I'd walked to college before. I noticed things: people holding hands, couples in cars together, men, women, wondering if they had someone who was as nuts about them as Fickle seemed to be about me. I grinned, plunging my hands into my jacket pockets, and walked with a dumb, loved-up spring in my step.

I felt very special; the day felt special. Man, LIFE FELT SPECIAL! I was still grinning as I flung open the door to the canteen and heard the muffled ringing of my phone from somewhere deep inside my bag. It was Fickle.

"Hey!" I said happily, wandering over to the coffee machine and fishing in my bag for some loose change so I could buy myself what the machine reliably advertised as being a cappuccino, but which tasted something more like hot chocolate.

"Hey, you." Fickle's voice sounded at the other end. "I just wanted to hear your voice again."

I glanced round the canteen, sure that everyone could hear what I could hear. I shook my head and smiled.

"I woke up thinking about you this morning," I said in hushed tones, looking up and down the list of coffees on the front of the machine.

"Me too. Woke up thinking about you, I mean." Fickle laughed. "What are you doing to me, Immy? You're all I can think about! I've got a shitload of work to get through today and all I can think about is you!"

I bit my lip. Fickle was saying everything I wanted to hear from her. I loved that she couldn't concentrate for thinking about me, I loved that she was making me feel so special. I leaned my head against the glass of the coffee machine.

"It's crazy," I whispered to her down the phone. "Crazy how you make me feel, Gem."

"I've never felt like this about anyone, Immy," Fickle whispered back. She paused. "Ah shit, I'm sorry, I've gotta go. I'm sorry."

"S'ok," I said, leaning back from the machine. "I've gotta go too."

"I just wanted to hear your voice, thassall," Fickle said, "And let you know that I'm counting the hours till I can talk to you again later."

"Me too," I said, tracing my finger up and down the glass of the coffee machine. "It's gonna be a long day," I added, groaning.

"I'll speak to you later, yeah?" Fickle said. I could hear the sound of a door opening at the other end of the phone followed by the muffled noise of voices.

"Laters," I said, snapping my phone shut and staring at it for a second, a stupid smile on my face.

"Someone looks happy." A voice sounded next to me and I jumped as I felt an arm being casually flung round my shoulders.

I turned my head and saw Beth peering in through the glass of the coffee machine, then watched as she screwed up her nose and pulled a face.

"All tastes like shit but they still charge you two quid for it." She glanced over to the bar and grabbed my hand. "For an extra 50p we might as well have something that tastes like it's had a coffee bean run through it. Come on. I'll buy you a latte if you tell me who or what's put that stupid grin on your face."

Before I could answer, she'd dragged me over to the counter and had ordered us two skinny lattes, fishing a five pound note out of her bag and hungrily eyeing up the cakes.

"D'you s'pose eight in the morning's too early for a doughnut or two?" she asked, more to herself than to me.

"Nah, just the lattes, please, mate." She jerked her head at the spotty guy serving behind the counter, her decision made, and handed him the fiver.

We turned away from the counter and she slung her arm round my shoulder again, pulling me in to her, making me spill a drop of my coffee on the linoleum floor.

"I don't have a stupid grin on my face," I said as we sat down at a table near the door.

"You so did, though." Beth grabbed a sachet of sugar from a cup on the table and opened it.

"So maybe I'm in a good mood?" I said, kinda defensively.

"Did you get back with Matt, then?" Beth's voice was high, almost anxious.

I snorted.

"News does travel fast, doesn't it?" I gave her a wry look.

"Emily wasn't gossiping, honest!" Beth put her hands up in the air. "She just happened to mention it. I suppose she kinda thought you might have told me too."

"It's no biggie." I stirred my coffee, then tapped the spoon on the side of the cup. "I only told Emily 'cos I saw her the day after it'd happened and I was still feeling a bit weird about it all."

"I wasn't surprised, I have to say." Beth studied me over the top of her cup, the steam from her coffee masking her face slightly.

"No?" I cupped my mug with both hands and blew gently into it, making the liquid inside ripple.

"Nope." Beth sipped her coffee. "I always figured he was way more into you than you were him."

"You were right."

"Although I did find it strange 'cos he seems like the ideal guy, but I guess we're all different, huh?"

"There was nothing wrong with Matt," I said slowly. "It was me, not him."

"That's what they all say!" Beth laughed.

"But it really was all me, nothing to do with him," I persisted, part of me wanting Beth to push me further. She didn't.

"I heard on the grapevine that Sarah Burgess has been sniffing round him already." Beth studied my face carefully.

"Then she'll be a lucky girl if she gets him," I replied truthfully.

"You wouldn't be hurt if he moved on so quickly?" Beth raised her eyebrow.

"No," I replied. "I wouldn't. In fact, I'd be pleased for him."

"Yeah, right!" Beth turned and looked away briefly before turning back to me. "You only say that to make yourself feel better for dumping a prize guy!"

"No, really." I put my coffee cup down and leant back in my chair, folding my arms across my chest. "In fact, I'd actively encourage him to find someone who would be better for him than I was. He deserves someone nicer than me."

"That sounds a little self-pitying, don't you think?" Beth placed her coffee down in front of her and gave it another quick stir.

"I was a bit shit to him, to be honest." I shrugged. "Could have been more enthusiastic than I was, I s'pose."

"I'm sure you did your best." Beth picked her coffee cup up again. "No point in flogging a dead donkey, though, was there, as my old gran used to say."

"No, not when it wasn't him I wanted," I found myself saying.

"You wanted someone else?" Beth put her cup down again and leaned over the table. "You dark horse! You never said!"

"I didn't dump him for someone else, though," I said. "Well, not technically."