Solitaire, Part 3 of 3 by Alice Oseman Page A

stands up straight. “Yes, yes, it is.”
    I sit down on to a stool. He sits at the stool next to mine. I edge away, but don’t say anything. He begins his story.
    “I never forgot anything about you. Every time we drove down your road I would look at your house, pretty much praying that you’d step out of your door at just the right moment. I used to come up with all these scenarios where I would contact you and we would be friends again. Like, we’d find each other on Facebook and start chatting and decide to meet up. Or we’d meet randomly somewhere – in the high street, at a party, I don’t know. When I grew older, you became, like, that one girl. You know? The one girl who I would end up having that great romance with. We start as childhood friends. We’d meet again, older, and that would be it. Happily ever after. Like a film.
    “But you’re not the Victoria I had in my head. I don’t know. You’re someone else. Someone I don’t know, I guess. I don’t know what I was thinking. Look, I’m not a stalker or anything. I came for a tour of Higgs last term to see if I liked it, you know. Michael showed me round. He took me all over the school and the last place I visited was … the common room. And, er, that’s where I saw you. Sitting literally right in front of me.
    “I thought I was going to have a heart attack. You were on a computer, but you had your back to me. You were sitting there at the computer, playing Solitaire.
    “And you looked so – you had one hand on your head and the other just clicking and clicking the mouse, and you looked so
dead
. You looked tired and dead. And under your breath you kept saying over and over, ‘I hate myself, I hate myself, I hate myself.’ Not loud enough for anyone to hear except me.”
    I don’t remember this happening. I don’t remember this day at all.
    “It seems dumb now. I bet you were just stressed about coursework or something. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And then I started to get all these ideas. I thought that maybe you really did hate yourself. And I hated the school for doing that to you.
    “I literally went into rages thinking about it. And that’s when I came up with Solitaire. I talked to a guy I knew from Truham who’d joined Higgs, and we decided to start pulling pranks. I had this crazy,
crazy
idea that just a few small acts of hilarity might bring something bright into your life. And into everyone’s lives.
    “So, yeah, I organised the Ben Hope thing. I was so angry about what had happened to Charlie. Ben deserved that. But then … then the thing at The Clay happened. People got injured.
You
got injured. It got out of control. So after that I quit. I haven’t done
anything
since Sunday. But there’s so many followers now. We made them all take it so seriously, thinking they were anarchists or something, with the posters and the fireworks and the stupid slogans. I don’t know. I don’t know.
    “Michael found me about half an hour ago. I know you’re going to hate me now. But … yeah. He’s right. It’s worse for you if you don’t know.”
    Tears start to drift down his face and I don’t know what to do. Like when we were little. Always silent tears.
    “I am the worst type of human being,” Lucas says and he puts his elbows on the table and looks away from me.
    “Well, you’re not getting any sympathy from me,” I say.
    Because he gave up. Lucas gave up. He let these stupid, imaginary feelings control his life, and he made bad things happen. Very bad things. Which caused other bad things to happen. This is the way the world works. This is why you never let your feelings control your behaviour.
    I’m angry.
    I’m angry that Lucas didn’t fight against his feelings.
    But that’s the way the world works.
    Lucas stands up and I flinch away.
    “Stay away from me,” I find myself saying, like he’s a rabid animal.
    I can’t believe it took until now for me to realise the truth.
    He’s not Lucas Ryan to