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Sunbathing in Space - by Luiza Allison made her "I'm better and thinner and prettier than you" face. Thin lips cracked with pink gloss, narrowed eyes caked in cheap mascara, hawk-like nose peeling beneath white powder. Trash. I hate you. "I've been thinking it over and I don't think we should be friends anymore." When things like this happen to me I always start shaking. Not from sadness, but from hatred. Actually, not even hatred, it's more like fear. Fear of how someone could spring this upon me now, even though we hate each other. Resentment is one thing, rejection I cannot take. How can she not want to be friends with me when I am perfect? We were half-asleep on a dirty airport floor at three a.m. when we went "our separate ways" (her words not mine), like a married couple. "Why would I want to be friends with you?" I want to shriek, "You anorexic bitch!" "OK", I say, lips trembling. "I've thought it over, it's for the best", she repeats in her nasal whine. "OK." It's not like I even cared, but suddenly these happy memories of dancing to Kenickie rushed through my head and I had to hold on to my knees to stop shaking. I smoked five cigarettes in a row and wished that she would disappear. I am better than you, I am better than you. Bitch, bitch, bitch. I am better than you. So much better that I don't even need to make a face to show it. I spent the whole of Thursday on a deserted shingled beach with Jessie. You never go to shingled beaches, do you? Well, it's never your first choice anyway. When you go on holiday you want to be lying on white sands. I dreamt of this while taking my exams: White sand, clear blue water, yachts, a trashy novel and a pina colada in my hand. It has to be a trashy novel and a pina colada; I don't even like them that much but they're inevitably part of my holiday dreams. In Greece they only make fucking sex on the beaches, so gross and sweet and pink. So I sat by the pool the other day with my sex on the beach, it was 45 degrees and I was surrounded by young men, they were sunburnt, but definitely okay. One of them was gorgeous so I immediately named him Mr. Gorgeous and stared at him through my sunglasses. After 2 minutes I got really fucking bored. My drink was disgusting, Mr. Gorgeous hadn't looked at me once, it was too hot, my book is so crap I can't read more than two pages and Allison was sitting next to me telling sex stories, subtly reassuring me that she is better and prettier and skinnier than me. Back to the shingled beach, that was the best day of the week. We made "art attacks" (big pictures, for those of you who don't watch CITV) of our enemies using pink and grey stones and then learned to play backgammon with some Greeks. Lying on my back I observed my brown tummy, which was dusted with fine sea salt, like doughnuts covered with sugar. For the first time in the week, I wasn't arguing or competing or drinking, I had time to think and I was so happy. We sat in the clear, cool water looking at all the different pebbles and talking about how they were created over thousands of years- they will be here, or on some other beach when we're all dead and gone. comment on this article e-mail this to a friend start a discussion 
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