Crushing

Contents
 
 
 Dedication
 Contents
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Chapter Thirty-Nine
 Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
 Chapter Forty-Two
 Acknowledgements
 About the Author
 Also by Genevieve Novak
 Copyright
 
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Contents
 Chapter One
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 DEDICATION For Taylor, of course. CONTENTS Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Acknowledgements About the Author Also by Genevieve Novak Copyright CHAPTER ONE Dumped. Effectively homeless. Failing to black out on the only booze in Nicola’s pantry (note to the wounded: when you think you’ve hit rock bottom, straight gin is the shovel that digs you deeper). Rapidly losing viable eggs. Enemy Number One in this sedate suburban cul de sac, owing to five straight hours of blasting Joni Mitchell’s Blue album and disturbing the innate peace of the outer suburbs. And for fifteen more minutes, it was my twenty-eighth birthday: the age by which my mother had two kids, a husband, a master’s degree and a manageable mortgage in an area where houses now cost north of seven figures. I had none of that. Eddie had even kept the dog. Sweetie, our greyhound, had watched with pitying eyes as the elevator doors closed on me and my bags, while my boyfriend — ex-boyfriend — tried to nudge her back inside. He had explained the problem in excruciating detail as he sobbed in my lap, so overcome with guilt about his decision that I had to be the one to comfort him through it. He had tried, he said, red-faced and sick with himself, he’d really, really tried, but he didn’t love me anymore. Then he put on an Ed Sheeran song to try to better articulate his feelings, while I sat on the couch we’d picked out together and waited for the feeling to return to my extremities. He’d been having doubts about the forever of it all, he said, squeezing my forearms while I tried to think of all the things I loved, but maybe wouldn’t love forever. Really high waisted denim. A drizzle of chai syrup in my coffee. Binge-watching shows about amateur bakers. Three years together, and he loved me like a collapsed genoise sponge. Now I was laying on Nicola’s living room floor. The baby — Layla, my niece — had been lulled to sleep by the dulcet drone of ‘A Case of You’. She had no choice. I wouldn’t turn it off. This was my heartbreak party, which made me the boss of the music, entitled me to an entire bottle of gin, and demanded my sister’s bottomless sympathy. Mitch, my brother-in-law, had been banished to his little man cave in solidarity. I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t emotionally resilient enough for my mum’s cloying pity. My only friends, really, were the girlfriends of Eddie’s friends, and we weren’t close enough that I could get away with crashing on