Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

recent examples in no particular order:
    1.
    MUM : Well, I really think your so-called friend Natalie could have—
    Mid-Sentence Stop.
    ME : What? Prevented everything from happening? So it’s her fault? We can lay everything at the door of Natalie Dexter?
    MUM : Don’t overreact, Audrey. I wasn’t going to
say
that.
    2.
    MUM : I’ve bought you some facial wash. Look, it’s especially formulated for teenage skin.
    ME (reading label): For problem skin breakouts. You think I have problem skin?
    MUM : Of course not, darling. But you have to admit that sometimes it’s a little—
    Mid-Sentence Stop.
    ME : What? Rank? Gross? Like, I should walk around with a bag over my head?
    MUM : Don’t overreact, Audrey. I wasn’t going to
say
that.
    Anyway, so I’m quite attuned to the Mid-Sentence Stop. And Linus just stopped, totally mid-sentence, and I know what he was going to say. He was going to say:
She’s crazy like you’re crazy
.
    He’s repulsed by me. I knew it. He’s only come by here because it’s like entertainment, like a freak show. The girl in the dark glasses – roll up, roll up, see her cower in the corner!
    The silence is going on and on, and someone has to break it, so I say tightly, ‘It’s fine. I’m crazy. Whatever.’
    ‘No!’ Linus sounds really shocked. Shocked, embarrassed, discomfited. Kind of mortified. Like he can’t believe I would say that. (I’m getting all this from one syllable, you understand.)
    ‘You’re nothing like my granny,’ he adds, and he gives this little laugh, like he’s enjoying a private joke. ‘If you met her you’d understand.’
    Linus’s voice is kind of easy. Not like Frank’s, which sounds like a harsh battering ram most of the time. He laughs again and I feel like this swooshing of relief. If he can laugh, then he’s not repulsed, right?
    ‘So I guess I won’t be round again till Frank’s ban is lifted.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘Your mum thinks I’m a bad influence.’
    ‘My mum thinks
everything
is a bad influence.’ I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see.
    ‘So do you ever go out or anything?’
    He hasn’t stopped mid-sentence, but still the air feels prickly. At least, the air around me feels prickly.
Go out or anything
. I feel an urge to curl up and shut my eyes.
    ‘No. Not really.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘I mean, I’m supposed to go to Starbucks.’
    ‘Awesome. When are you going to go?’
    ‘I’m not.’ I say it roughly, without even meaning to. ‘It’s . . . I can’t.’
    There’s another silence. I’m hunched away even further. I can sense his questions circulating around the silence like more vocab words:
Why? How come? What’s going on?
    ‘I’m supposed to do, like, exposure therapy,’ I say in a miserable rush. ‘Like, you do a little bit at a time. But Starbucks isn’t a little bit. It’s huge. I just can’t. So.’
    With every revelation, I’m expecting him to leave. But he’s still here.
    ‘Like allergies,’ he says, sounding fascinated. ‘Like, you’re allergic to Starbucks.’
    ‘I guess.’ This conversation is starting to wear away at my brain. I’m clutching a cushion for comfort; the tendons are standing up on my hands.
    ‘So, you’re allergic to eye contact.’
    ‘I’m allergic to everything contact.’
    ‘No you’re not,’ he says at once. ‘You’re not allergic to
brain
contact. I mean, you write notes. You talk. You still want to talk to people, you just can’t. So your body needs to catch up with your brain.’
    I’m silent for a while. No one’s put it like that before.
    ‘I suppose,’ I say at last.
    ‘What about shoe contact?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Shoe contact!’
    ‘What’s
shoe
contact?’ I’d laugh, only my stupid lizard brain has disabled the laugh button for now. I’m too frozen up with tension.
    I am owed so much laughter. Sometimes I hope I’m building up a stockpile of missing laughs, and when I’ve recovered, they’ll all come exploding out in one gigantic fit that