Playlist for a Broken Heart Read Online Free Page A

how, though normally I can talk
for England. She makes me feel awkward and dumb. I can’t do it. I feel like I’d babble and blush and look a fool.
    My far-away girlfriend. Is she out of my league?

Chapter Five
    My brave face lasted about five minutes once we’d got to Aunt Karen’s. Not that Aunt Karen wasn’t friendly – she was and she greeted each of us with a
big hug then ushered us inside. She’s four years younger than Mum and they’re like chalk and cheese in looks. Mum is impeccable and slim in her classic designer clothes, usually navy
and cream, Aunt Karen is curvier in well-worn jeans, colourful tops and trainers, and her shoulder-length auburn hair is as unruly as Mum’s blonde bob is tamed. Uncle Mike was dressed in a
similar casual style in jeans and a red fleece.
    My four cousins, Tasmin, Jake, Joe and Simon, were squashed on a sofa watching TV. Uncle Mike had tea and biscuits ready for us. I smiled at Tasmin and she gave me a brief nod by way of reply
– a greeting of sorts, but not very friendly considering I’ve known her most of my life and we’d always got on. I hadn’t seen her since a family wedding a few years ago. She
was fresh-faced and chatty and we’d had fun hanging out with the other teens. Since then, she’s got curvier, sulky-looking and, although the same age as me, she looked about twenty.
    The TV programme
Snog, Marry or Avoid
came into my head as I took in her fake tan, false eyelashes, heavily made-up eyes and the dyed long blonde hair that looked like extensions. The
programme shows a before and after beauty treatment where the presenters do a reverse makeover and get girls who overdo the slap to look more like themselves and less like drag artists.
Tasmin
would really benefit from a more natural look
, I thought as Tasmin looked at me with equal dismay. She was dressed in tights, denim shorts, trainers and a tight red top. I guess I looked
super-straight to her in my white shirt and jeans, hair tied back and no make-up apart from a touch of mascara and lip gloss. Mum had drummed it into me that less is more when it comes to
make-up.
    ‘Switch that television off,’ said Aunt Karen to Jake, the eldest. Reluctantly he did as he was told then slumped back on the sofa. They’d obviously all been told to be there
to greet us. Uncle Mike poured tea and Dad looked as miserable as I felt as we sat together on the other sofa in the room making weak attempts at conversation, though Mum looked happy to see her
sister. I noticed that Uncle Mike had odd socks on, one blue, one grey. The room looked lived in, with games, DVDs, books, magazines and school-books on every surface.
    After fifteen minutes of catching up on each other’s latest news, Uncle Mike insisted on taking Dad down to the pub.
    ‘You look like you need a stiff drink, mate,’ he said to him and whisked Dad away, leaving Mum and I to my cousins, more tea and biscuits. The boys were sweet enough – Jake
with his mother’s wavy hair was twelve and clearly going to be a heartbreaker; Joe, who was ten, was more shy than the others; and Simon, the youngest at seven, was full of energy and
enthusiasm for our stay.
    ‘And are you going to stay here forever?’ he asked. ‘Mum said you’re homeless. Have you been sleeping on the streets in London? I have a tent you can borrow if you
like.’
    ‘Shhh, Simon,’ said Aunt Karen. ‘They’re not homeless. They have us.’
    Mum looked at the floor during this exchange while I tried to gauge how my cousin, Tasmin was feeling. It was hard to tell because her face showed nothing but boredom. As Mum and Aunt Karen
caught up with family gossip, the boys began to look restless and soon drifted away upstairs. Tasmin kept looking at her mother, who ignored her. I got the feeling that she’d been told to
stay and be sociable, although she wasn’t making any effort to talk to me and I wasn’t in the mood for being chatty either. I felt shell-shocked at the