Don't Get Me Wrong Read Free

waited for the racket to stop. “She can look after herself.”
    No, she can’t. You have no idea. She’s not as strong as she seems on the surface.
    â€œSome people might say she’s done well for herself,” said Izzie. “He’s rich. He’s good-looking. There isn’t a woman here who’d turn him down.”
    He’s like toilet paper stuck to the sole of her shoe.
    â€œWhat’s he done that makes you hate him?”
    Kim’s head was spitting with so much fury she couldn’t think where to start.
    Izzie sighed. “I know. She’s your sister. No one’s good enough. But if he’s the one she wants, you’re fighting a losing battle. You’re just going to make yourself miserable.”
    The toilet flushed in the next cubicle.
    Izzie stood up. “It’s like the serenity prayer. Change what you can, put up with what you can’t, and be wise enough to know the difference.”
    This made Kim cross. Maybe you should follow your own advice, she thought, and stop trying to change yourself into what you think other people want you to be. But then she felt guilty. Izzie was only trying to help.
    Back downstairs, deafened by shrieks and crashing cutlery, they were flattened against the wall by a waiter carrying a silver tray. “Do you want to swap places?” shouted Izzie. “I could sit next to him if you like.”
    It wouldn’t make any difference, thought Kim as she followed Izzie through the crowded restaurant. Even if he was at the other end of the table. It’s that oozing self-confidence. That conviction he’s right. It seeps into the air like fog. He laughs at everything I care about. He makes me feel small and insignificant—as if I’m scurrying about like a tiny black ant while he strides about like God. The very first time I met him, he blocked out the sun. What was I—thirteen? Lying in the back garden in tatty old shorts and a crop top, the grass long under my fingers, soaking up the first hot day for weeks. Christine next door said the TV weather map had turned completely orange. I could feel my skin burning, tiny prickles of heat. Always stay out of the sun , my mother used to say. So aging. My one act of teenage rebellion—sunbathing.
    â€œKim? This is Harry.”
    The world went dark. An eclipse.
    Eva said, “We’re going to buy ice cream. Do you want some?”
    I couldn’t speak. Half-asleep, dazed by heat, I couldn’t say a word.
    â€œNo ice cream?” A deep voice. A posh boy voice.
    I looked up. But I couldn’t see his face—just shadow, like a cliff, against the glaring white light.
    â€œAre you always this talkative?”
    â€œOh leave her, Harry. She just wants to enjoy the sunshine.”
    I put up my hand to shield my eyes. And now I could see his expression.
    â€œHarry?”
    Laughing at me. His whole face creased up, grinning from ear to ear, as if I was one huge joke.
    â€œHarry? Come on.”
    Then he moved, and the sun blinded me. I sat up, and the world was washed out, like someone had bleached it. I kept staring as they sauntered back to the house. He was a head taller than Eva but thin. Nothing but bones, as Christine would say.
    At the top of the concrete steps, he stopped. “So that’s your baby sister.”
    I waited, very still.
    â€œYou know, she could look quite pretty if she smiled.”
    The hurt. The rage. You’d think the years would make a difference. But they don’t.
    He spent most weekends in our house when I was a teenager. Taking up space. There was no one to stop him. Dad had walked out. Mum was floating about in a cocktail dress and a cloud of Chanel, happy to spend the evening (the week, the weekend) with anyone who asked her. You wouldn’t know Mum had been born above a chip shop in Torquay. From her voice, you’d think she’d grown up in Kensington—in one of those grand white