: A Hopeless Romantic

I love Gareth, but sometimes, I could cheerfully throttle the lad. Upon getting into our car when we were picked up, Gareth announced to our parents that I'd kissed a boy who had then gone on to call me his girlfriend; my mother then told Matty when we arrived home, who told Pascal.

And that was the problem. Pascal is a hopeless romantic. She puts it down to her French heritage and something to do with Paris being the city of love. I can never be bothered to remind her that she's only been to France four times, and Paris once, and that she lived in Canada for the first ten years of her life before her parents divorced, and that the French accent she has is entirely put on (occasionally, when she really loses her temper, she reverts to a proper Canadian accent). I also don't point out that her mother actually comes from Marseille. Anyway, Pascal is a hopeless romantic (and whether it's connected to her French heritage or not doesn't really matter).

So she found this story about Billie insanely cute, but then she looked very confused when I told her I loathed Billie and the thought of being his girlfriend were abominable (or words to that effect).

"Pourquoi?" Pascal asked me, eyebrows dipping into a frown. She cradled her chin in her hand and leaned towards me. "Why?"

"Because..." And then, all the reasons bubbled on my tongue. He's a prick. He thinks he's a god. He picks on me all the time. He's a prick. He leaned me over a shark tank in France. He hates me, too...But instead of saying that to her, I just shrugged.

"Aha!" Pascal jabbed a manicured finger at me, positively glowing. I could almost see the light bulb flashing over her head. "You do not hate him at all."

I glared at her. "I think you'll find I do hate him, Pascal," I said tiredly.

"Oh no. You do not. I think you'll find you are in love with him!" She clapped her hands together.

I vented my frustrations by kicking one of the cushions off the couch onto the floor. Grimm pounced on it and then fled to hide under the chair. Beside me, Gareth snorted, and I turned my scowl towards him.

"This is all your fault," I muttered. "You just had to go and tell Mum..."

"I never told Pascal," Gareth sniggered. "I'll thank Mum for that later."

"I am not in love with Billie," I said firmly, now addressing Pascal. "I can't stand him. Seriously."

"She actually can't," Gareth backed me up. "Or, at least, that's what it seems like sometimes. But you did ask him to kiss you, so..."

I smacked him on the arm. "You're not helping," I hissed. He pulled a face at me.

On the other side of the room, Matty cleared his throat. "Nerys..." he said, running a hand through his curly blonde hair, "I think you should stay away from Billie."

I threw my hands up in the air. "Finally!" I cried. "Someone who talks sense!"

"I mean, you're only a kid," Matty continued, frowning. "You shouldn't be kissing boys at your age. There's plenty of time for it later, you know, when you've finished school and joined a nunnery –"

I threw a cushion at him. It bounced off his head and hit the TV. Once again, Grimm leapt out from her hiding place to attack the offending cushion.

"As if," I growled, now knowing that he only spoke out overprotective brotherliness. "Like I'm going to join a nunnery..." Pascal giggled, and then smoothed a hand over Matty's cheek.

"You are so cute sometimes, Matthew," she clucked, looking much more like an adoring mother than an adoring girlfriend. He smiled lovingly at her, and Gareth mimed being sick.

"Oh, grow up, Gareth," Matty snapped, resurfacing from a particularly amorous kiss with Pascal. "You're so immature sometimes."

"I'm eleven," Gareth reminded him, sticking out his tongue.

Matty opened his mouth to retort angrily, but Pascal cut him off swiftly. "Anyway, back to our discussion. Nerys, you do not hate the boy at all –"

"Um, yes, I do. He leaned me over a shark tank, for God's sake. He picks on me all the time..."

"Oh, Nerys..." Pascal smiled like she knew something I didn't. "Haven't you ever heard? Boys tease the girls that they like..."

"Oh, Lord." I buried my head in my hands. "Beth's already gone down this road with me, Pascal. You don't..."

"Then you already know!" Pascal flicked her fringe out of her eyes. "It is true! Matthew used to tease me when we were just children...It was only when we were fourteen he got the courage to ask me out, but he'd liked me long before that."

Yes, yes, I know, I feel like screaming, because I do know because Pascal tells this story all the time.

"So, it is not just a myth," Pascal says serenely, neatly arranging her skirt, so it lies in a straight line across her knees. "It really happens. And I think that this is what this Billie is doing with you, Nerys."

I didn't bother replying. There was no point; she'd just beat me down with some story involving her, Matthew and their schooldays (for some reason, this was Pascal's argument to everything. And for some reason, it usually worked).

My mother walked in then, carrying a glass of water and a TV magazine tucked under her arm. I quickly stood up off the sofa so she could sit in 'her' seat, and sat on the rug in front of the fire, my legs tucked under me. Mum made a big show of settling down and putting her cup on the coffee table. She eventually sat back and opened the magazine, the pages rustling as she did so.

"Ellen, don't you agree?" Pascal said, sending a wide, pink-lipsticked smile in Ellen's direction. "Don't you think that Billie likes Nerys? He teases her so much..."

"I suppose he could," my mother allowed, turning the page in the magazine. "Oh, look, Nerys, Heroes is back on next week –"

"I don't watch it anymore," I reminded her, which is true. I kind of stopped watching it halfway through the second season. But anyway, that's beside the point.

"Aha, see, Nerys, your mother agrees!" Pascal said triumphantly. I glowered at my mother.

"There is one thing that I want to know about this whole thing, though." My mother's eyes never left her magazine. "Because, you know, I don't want my only daughter breeding with some ugly bloke. It'll ruin any future family photographs."

I felt my face flame, and Matty made an annoyed noise. "Mum!" he snapped. "Nerys will not be doing any breeding!"

"Oh, Matty. Act your age. Sex is nothing to be ashamed of."

"She's fourteen!"

"I'm fifteen in December," I reminded him. "Anyway, loads of kids – well, one or two – are having sex in my year –"

He held up his hands for silence. "I don't want to know," he said curtly. "Just as long as it's not you having sex..."

"Anyway, Nerys." Mum finally rested the magazine down on the arm of the sofa and picked up her glass of water. She took a sip and then held the glass against her chest. "This Billie...would you?"

Oh, dear Lord, I thought. The Would You Game. My mother brings this up sometimes whenever some vaguely good-looking man appears on a film or a TV show. If it's an obvious man, then she'll turn to me and say, "You would." If it's not so obvious and she just wants my opinion, she'll say, "Would you?" These phrases, if you don't understand, basically mean "You would sleep with him" or "Would you sleep with him?"

Example: Johnny Depp's in the film we're watching, and she'll say, "You would." Some random Welsh bloke on some new TV show, and she'll say, "Would you?" And so on.

I groaned. "Mu-um!" I cried. "Billie is not would-you material, I swear! That phrase is only appropriate for people like Hugh Jackman or Aden off Home and Away!"

"Most girls at our school would disagree with you, Nerys," Gareth pointed out, stretching his arms above his head. "Siân certainly would."

"Siân doesn't count," I reminded him. "If it has a penis, she's all over it. And anyway, girls only like Billie because he's on the basketball team."

"Oh? So he's a sportsman," Mum smiled. "He must be in good shape, then."

"He is," I replied grudgingly. "He does have a six pack," I added. Matty groaned, and Pascal's smile stretched wider.

"How do you know of this?" she asked me. She looked like someone had just told her Christmas had come early.

"In France," I explained, "It was really hot, so most of the lads took their shirts off. Honestly, most of his friends had six packs. Apart from Joe West, but there are no surprises there."

"Does he speak French?" Pascal demanded, eyes widening.

"Well, yeah. He was a Year 10, then, so the only way he could go on that trip was because he took it for his GCSEs..." I trailed off. "Um, Gwen's cousin Mari said he was practically fluent."

"Well, that just completes things," Pascal said dreamily. "He has a six pack, and he speaks French. What more could you want?"

"Someone who speaks Welsh?" I suggested. "Billie's not from Wales. He doesn't even have a Welsh accent."

"Bah. Forget the Welsh. Think about the French!"

"I don't care if he can speak French," I said exasperatedly. "I'm taking GCSE Spanish; I hardly understand any French!"

"Fool." Pascal had already made her views on my choice to study Spanish very clear in the past, so I just glared at her.

"I think," Pascal said a few moments later, pushing a hand through her hair, "that you are just very silly and very stubborn. This Billie clearly likes you, Nerys. You might be surprised by what you find if you become his girlfriend."

"I won't," I promised her.

"You might," she argued.

"I won't."

"You might."

"He's a prick."

"He's probably not a prick, Nerys."

"He picks on me."

"He picks on you because he likes you."

"He's an awful kisser."

"I think you're lying."

"Trust me, Pascal, I'm not."

"You're doing that weird thing with your eyes. You know, that thing you do when you're lying...Honestly, you're like Matty. He does that smile when he lies."

"I'm not lying; he was a shit kisser."

"Nerys," my mother interrupted our conversation, "Watch your language. It's not appropriate for a young lady such as yourself."

"Neither is kissing random boys at shopping centres," Matty scowled.

"Hush, Matthew, it's perfectly normal for a girl her age," Pascal responded soothingly. "I and you were kissing when we were younger than her."

"We," he snapped, "Were going out. And we liked each other. Nerys clearly doesn't like this Billie bloke."

"Nerys does like him," Pascal insisted in a serene voice, smoothing a particularly errant curl on Matthew's head. "She's just too silly and stubborn to realize it yet."

"I am not silly or stubborn," I growled. Everyone looked at me.

"You are pretty stubborn, Nerys," Matty said. I grabbed one of the cushions that had been thrown by me earlier and chucked it at his head. He grabbed it before it could hit home and threw it straight back; it hit me square in the face, causing me to splutter indignantly for a few seconds.

I finally regained some semblance of control and took a deep breath before speaking. "Look, Pascal." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and continued. "I do not like Billie, and he does not like me." She opened her mouth to argue, but I held up my hand for silence. "We are not going out, and we never will go out. And that's the end of it."

"Hmph." Pascal flopped back in her seat, a scowl gracing her normally pretty features. She folded her arms over her chest, and silence reigned for a few moments before a tiny, tiny smile played on her overly lipsticked lips.

And she sang, in a surprisingly tuneful voice, a few lines from the chorus of the song 'Denial' by the Sugababes.

"Oh, shut up," I snapped, scrambling to my feet and stomping towards the door. Before I left, however, I looked over my shoulder and told my sister-in-law-to-be, "By the way, you've got lipstick on your teeth."

And with that, I left the room.