Meant to Be by Lauren Morrill

thankyouverymuch.
    “Ah, Julia, then,” he says, taking a sip of beer. His blond hair is starting to fall over his eyes. He reminds me a little bit of Mark, which sets my mind drifting to Phoebe’s text message, wondering what the “Mark news” could be.
    Avery does one of those casual hair flips that boys do, saying, “That was a pretty crazy scene in there. You didn’t cut yourself, did you?”
    “Oh, I’m fine,” I reply. “No big deal. He just came on a bit too strong is all.”
    “Gabe’s an arse,” he says. “But at least you can defend yourself.”
    “Oh, I’m ready for battle at a moment’s notice.” I flex my bicep, which I realize is shockingly defined from my regimen of laps and push-ups. I let my arm drop awkwardly before he mistakes me for some kind of she-hulk and runs away.
    “So you’re single, then?” he asks, his dark brown eyes looking at me expectantly.
    “What?” I shift in my heels, trying to dislodge one of the leather straps from my pinkie toe while I attempt to untangle the rather abrupt change of conversational direction.
    “I mean, if you don’t need defending,” he says, a little bit of red creeping into his cheeks, but on him it only gives that ruddy, athletic look of a rugby player. “I mean, er, well, I meant you don’t have someone to defend you. I guess. Well, that made very little sense. I was tryingto be sly and find out if you had a boyfriend, but that was the opposite of sly, eh?”
    My mind is experiencing a thousand mini explosions. I have an Abercrombie ad standing in front of me, and he’s nervous. Talking to me . I try to be calm, but my hands flutter from my hair to my skirt to my purse. I take a deep breath, rest my hand on my hip, and get control of myself.
    “No worries,” I reply coolly. (Coolly?) “I do have a boyfriend, actually, but he’s back in the States. Hence the self-defense.” The lie comes effortlessly. I’ll have to thank Phoebe for dragging me to that week of drama camp at the community rec center.
    Shockingly, he looks disappointed . But he continues with questions. “So you’re from America, then?”
    “You couldn’t tell from the accent?”
    “First impressions often lie,” he says. (Oh, if only he knew …) “Where in the States?”
    “Boston,” I reply, which sounds much more cosmopolitan than Newton, a suburb of Boston that is basically the most boring place you can live and still see the skyline. But somehow even Boston doesn’t seem to fit, so I go on. “But I’m living in Manhattan right now.”
    “Wow,” he says, taking another sip of his beer. “I’ve always wanted to go to New York. What do you do there?”
    For a second my mind goes blank; I’m not sure which is more distracting: his gorgeous accent or his chiseled jawline. Then I remember the giraffe-like girls at the baggage claim, their coffee and their rolling bags and their shiny sedans. I remember the beauty Jason was chatting up at the curb. “Modeling,” I blurt out, rising up on my four-inch heels in hopes that he won’t notice that I’m more suited to join the Lollipop Guild than the cast of America’s Next Top Model . He appears to be buzzed enough to buy it, so I go on. “I’ve got a place downtown. I live with some of the other girls.”
    “That’s awesome,” he says, his eyes growing wide. I see him clutch his glass tighter. “Is that why you’re in London?”
    “Oh yeah,” I say, studying my nails. “I’m here for fashion week and doing a little print work.” Print work? Where the hell did I come up with that one? The lies have rolled off my tongue effortlessly, and I can already picture Mark in the role of my handsome American boyfriend who is oh so supportive of my modeling career but still misses me desperately when I travel. Avery hands me a heavy beer bottle, which makes my storytelling even more vivid. I’m talking about a Vogue spread when he pulls out his phone and asks me for my number. Old Julia screams in my