Playlist for a Broken Heart Read Free Page B

hey,’ I managed to get out.
    ‘I hear you’re leaving?’
    I nodded and desperately wished I could think of something witty or interesting to say, but looking into his eyes made my mind go blank. He had such beautiful grey-green eyes.
    ‘So we won’t be playing opposite each other after all?’
    I shook my head. ‘Nuh.’
    He shrugged. ‘Bad timing, hey?’
    I nodded. Words seemed to have totally escaped me.
    Allegra came to my rescue as always. ‘She’s going to live in Bath,’ she said.
    Alex didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘Bath?’
    Allegra moved away a distance. ‘I’ll catch you later,’ she said. ‘I’ve er . . . got a thing.’
    Over Alex’s shoulder, she turned, grinned and gave me the thumbs-up. Alex continued to look into my eyes.
    ‘Yes. Bath. Somerset,’ I managed to get out. ‘We go after Easter.’
    ‘I know Bath. I know it well. Used to live there before we came here and I often go back to see my cousin and mates. You’ll like it. Wow. So soon . . . Well, good luck,
Paige.’
    ‘Uh. Thanks.’ He’s kind to say that I’d like Bath, I thought, though I knew I wouldn’t.
    Alex looked reluctant to go and, as he continued to look into my eyes, I felt an ache of longing. He really did have lovely eyes. He smiled down at me. ‘Parting is such sweet
sorrow,’ he said, quoting Juliet from the play, then looked at me as if he wanted me to finish the line. I knew it so well but the words wouldn’t come.
    ‘That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.’ He finished the line for me. We both smiled and it felt as if we were in a bubble, all alone and away from the rest of the world,
school and its many pupils rushing by us in the corridor. He continued with another quote from the play, this time one of Romeo’s. ‘Farewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll
descend.’
    I suddenly remembered my lines and felt a surge of energy.
    ‘Art thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, husband, friend!
    I must hear from thee every day in the hour,
    For in a minute there are many days:
    O, by this count I shall be much in years
    Ere I again behold my Romeo!’
    I put every bit of what I was feeling into the lines and could see he felt it too.
    ‘Farewell. I will omit no opportunity
    That may convey my greetings, love, to thee,’
    said Alex, continuing as Romeo. His lines were full of the passion that was fitting for the star-crossed lovers and his eyes twinkled as if he was enjoying our exchange.
    ‘O think’st thou we shall ever meet again?’
    I asked. Alex put his hand on my arm.
    ‘I doubt it not; and all these woes shall ser
    For sweet discourses in our time to come.’
    ‘O God, I have an ill-divining soul!’
    I said with a sigh. I was really getting into the part now, finding it so easy to talk to him with someone else’s words.
    ‘Methinks I see thee, now thou art below,
    As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:
    Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale.’
    ‘And trust me, love, in my eye so do you,’ Alex quoted. ‘Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!’
    He reached up and touched my chin, a gesture so gentle and yet it made my heart thud in my chest. Suddenly he grinned. ‘Shame, Paige,’ he said. ‘We’d have been good
together.’
    I nodded and blushed.
We’d
have been good together? Did he mean as a couple? Alex and Paige, or acting Romeo and Juliet?
I guess I’ll never know now
, I thought as
he looked away.
    ‘Take care of yourself,’ he said, then turned, and a second later he was gone.
    I stood there in shock and it wasn’t long before Allegra came back to join me.
    ‘I . . . I just had a moment with Alex. A
moment
moment. There was chemistry.’
    ‘I know,’ said Allegra and she grinned. ‘I saw.’
    On our last day, I felt as if I was floating. Despite the fact that all around me familiar items had disappeared into boxes and cases, a part of me kept thinking something
would happen to make it right, a fairy godmother come to the rescue. If Alex could