Squashed beside me, I feel Kelly’s head nodding in vigorous agreement at this. “He says Catia would go mad if she knew,” Kendra whispers. “I can always find someone to go out with, and then you can take off with Luigi-”

That I’m the one for him, as much as he is for me.”

And from the way he’s gazing at me, I know with equal certainty that he feels the same. Not if, when you look into the eyes of the boy who means the world to you, you know with absolute certainty that he’s the one. I learn in that moment that you can be attracted to more than one boy at a time, but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I must be the biggest idiot in the world to prefer Luca, sarcastic, shrugging, dismissive, moody Luca, to sweet, even-tempered Evan.

Evan’s come up behind us, towering over me, solid and secure. I know then that my attraction to Evan, nice, down-to-earth Evan, is nothing compared to what I feel for Luca. He’s looking at me with so much longing in his blue eyes that if this were the end of a romantic film I would be tearing across the few feet of pier that separate us, throwing myself into his arms, knowing that they would lock tightly around me and his mouth would come down on mine. For a brief moment he stares at me, and, taken completely by surprise, without a chance to compose his usual cynical, careless expression, I can see his true emotions. Of course, the ones who are both clever and pretty do especially well, but that’s true for everything in life.” The clever girls know this the pretty ones usually don’t, because they tend to rely too much on their looks. Male teachers are usually pretty good at coping with the flirting techniques: the best way to get under their skin, forge a special bond with them, is to share their sense of humor, make them laugh. Little girls follow them around in packs, giggling madly, turning bright red and running away when the teacher turns to look at them older girls wear the shortest skirts and tightest tops they can get away with, and do a lot of what Kelly calls hair-flirting.

There aren’t that many of them in a girls’ school, and unless they look like the back of a bus, they inevitably become huge crush-objects. This, as I’m perfectly aware from years of a girls-only school, is a crucially important quality for male teachers. Either he doesn’t have a sense of humor, or it’s extremely well hidden. I think it’s partly because he’s very serious. I’m not quite sure why we’re mirroring his action, but Luigi is very compelling, more than capable of making four excited girls calm down and concentrate on what he’s telling us. “Luigi, the art teacher, holds up his brush, and we all do the same.

Kisses and lies by lauren henderson