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Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

Maybe she wants to kiss me on Millennium Bridge, St Paul’s Cathedral watching over us and the Thames beneath our feet. Or while we’re strolling through Borough Market, sharing street food. Or on the London Eye. Maybe she’ll wait until we’re at the very top even though she’s terrified of heights and can’t look out, only at me. Or maybe she wants to do it in the V&A, on the blue-cheese marble steps. All those places I’ve daydreamed about being kissed every time the coach passes them when I’m on a school trip to somewhere infinitely less exciting.

I don’t know.

All I know is that if Poppy asked me to go with her to London right now, I would.

‘Come on,’ she says, squeezing my hand again. But she doesn’t lead me into the station, she leads me past it and down Trafalgar Street – down, down, underneath the station – past the graffiti-bruised walls dotted with pigeon shit towards the creepy Toy and Model Museum.

I wonder where she’s taking me when I remember that the Real Patisserie is near here and I can’t stop myself from smiling as I remember the day we met on the boat and I thought I’d never see her again. That she’d be just some girl I’d think of sometimes when I looked out at the wind farm or when I ate a croissant. But here she is and here I am and when she turns to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes even brighter in the dim light as we head under the bridge, I know that I’d follow her off the edge of the fucking earth.

Finally, she stops, but before I can ask why, she looks up. I do the same to find that someone has spray-painted JUST KISS HER under the bridge. I look at her and there’s this moment, this moment where my whole world divides into Before Poppy and After Poppy and I know then that I will spend the rest of my life comparing the two.

That’s when she reaches for me and I hear myself gasp as she pulls me to her, one hand fisted in the lapel of my leather jacket, the other on my face. My eyelids stutter shut as our mouths meet in a kiss that makes me reach for her as well, fingers digging into her hips and holding on as though I may float away if I don’t, the trains rolling away in the distance, almost as loud as my heart.

Seven

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SEVEN