Starcrossed Read Free

tricking. They look nothing alike!” Georgia snapped, and her mother shot her a warning look.  “Sorry,” she muttered. “Anyway, there are probably hundreds of necklaces like that.  Thousands, even.”
    “Not with the bent wing,” Emily said, smug again.  “That’s how I knew it was yours.  The wing is bent from when you caught it in the drawer that time.  You cried then, too.”
    Georgia ignored her sister.  She moved to the arm chair so she could see, and fixed her gaze on the television again as TJ prepared to sing. 
    “How come he never called you?”  Emily asked.
    Georgia gritted her teeth.  “Because we didn’t swap phone numbers.”   Or addresses, or even last names.  There had been too much else to talk about – music and art and books and films.  They’d thought they had more time to get to all those mundane little details.
    “Maybe he just didn’t like you,” Emily snickered.
    “Emily, leave her alone.  I’m sure out of all the Pegasus pendants in the world, Georgia’s isn’t the only one with a bent wing.”  Mum sipped her tea and tried to change the subject.  “Georgia, love, you’re good with crosswords, what’s a word that means lost and found?”
    Tom, thought Georgia.   “Um, I don’t know, sorry.”  She wasn’t interested in the crossword and suddenly she couldn’t watch Star Factory any more.  As Tom, or TJ, began to sing a pop song that had been popular for two weeks last Christmas, the old fault line in her heart tore wide open.  She got up and went back to her room.
    Tom hated pop music.
    He loved the blues and Mozart, the Beatles and Bach, and an Icelandic punk band Georgia had never heard of.  But right now he was singing about a girl who was his groove baby, with the all the right moves, baby.  His voice drifted up the hall to her room. 
    The fan magazine was still in her hands.  With shaking fingers, she sat on the bed and started flicking through the pages, past the other contestants, until she found him. 
    There were about a dozen small photos of him; posing on his own, with the other contestants, in the studio, in a park, looking pensive, looking silly. She stared at the pictures of TJ in his cool clothes and hip hairstyle, and remembered Tom’s frayed jeans and faded t-shirts.  She looked closer at the photos, trying to find him in there somewhere.
    The publicity blurb talked about his star sign and his favourite foods, but it never mentioned his guitar, or his violin, or the music he wrote .  Or how he hoped to study at the London Academy of Music. There was nothing about his dreams; to perform his own compositions at the Royal Albert Hall – just him and his guitar.  And maybe one day play his violin with the London Symphony Orchestra.
    The only thing that seemed right, was his age.  Twenty.  That was how old he’d be now.
    “What’s happened to you?” she whispered, as a single tear trekked its way down her cheek.  “What is all this?” 
    It was obvious she hadn’t know him at all.  And why should she?  They’d only had three days together after all.  It was clear now that she’d built their romance up to be something it wasn’t.
    How could she have got it so wrong?
    Suddenly, Georgia felt all sorts of stupid.  And angry.  Had he been leading her on?  Telling her what she wanted to hear in the hope he might get in her pants? 
    She threw the magazine across the room and it hit the wall and fell to the floor.  It landed open at the middle page spread, with a mini-poster sized photo of TJ.  He was grinning.  And he was wearing a University of Georgia sweatshirt.
    “Oh my God,” she whispered, staring at her name across his chest.  Then she remembered that he’d kept her pendant, like she’d kept his sheet music. And tonight on the show he’d talked about moonlit walks along the beach.
    Georgia knew then that she hadn’t been wrong.  She’d been right all along.  Right from the very start.
    Tom had been