‘Is it the fruit bowl?’ he asked, still leaning over, his face just inches from Jasmine’s. She made the mistake of looking up and their eyes locked. For the first time she noticed his eyes properly; they were grey with a deep blue ring around the outside. Her pulse quickened, but Tim broke eye contact first and slumped back in the seat, taking the apple from the top of the bowl, the one she was sketching. She was drawn to his mouth as he bit into the apple, his lips moistening with the juice. She snapped her eyes away and stood up. Jasmine left her soggy muesli on the table, grabbed her art homework and stuffed it into her bag, suddenly wanting to get out of the house. When she looked back he was smiling, a different kind of smile this time. He pulled her bowl of muesli over and started to eat it.

Chapter Eight

At dinner that night, Jasmine’s parents talked about the group they usually went away with for the summer holidays. Guyana had been picked as their destination this year. Jasmine had never been there before. It was never much of a holiday for her family, if she was honest, as they went to do charitable work in underprivileged communities. Both of her parents saved up their annual leave and they usually stayed for several weeks and helped with the completion of a charity project – they’d been every year since before Jasmine was born. This year they couldn’t go, though, because her father had had hip replacement surgery earlier that summer and the doctor had advised against a long-haul flight. Jasmine knew he was devastated to cause them to miss their trip. He had always been so active and full of energy that she felt sorry for him. He had spent several months in pain before finally conceding to going in for the operation and his posture hadn’t seemed to have recovered. It hadn’t helped that he had a fear of hospitals that they didn’t really talk about, something from his childhood that had left an emotional scar. This was the first time she had really considered his age; seen the way his stature had changed in just the last year. He wasn’t a tall man to begin with and he had lost a little weight so it seemed he’d almost shrunk somehow.

‘How’s your drama club going? What’s the big play that you’re doing this year?’ Frank said, asking the obligatory parental questions about her interests.

‘Drama is going well. I might even get a part in the college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this year, what with us not going away. Lots of rehearsals going on over the summer.’