My bum had just started going numb from sitting on the hard metal airport chair when I saw someone familiar in the distance. I recognized the walk immediately. Matt has this cool kind of swagger that makesyou think of sexy, lasso-wielding cowboys. Panic seized me and without thinking, I dove straight onto the floor.

"EX-ca-uuuse me!" the woman sitting next to me said. I glancedup and saw she was looking down at me in horror, as if I'd just committed some monumental crime against humanity. As if I was personally responsible for global warming, world poverty and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

"What?" I looked up at her.

"Do. You. Mind?" Her eyes flicked from my face, to my hand,and then back again. I followed them.

"Oh. Sorry, I didn't see it..." I mumbled, removing my hand from off her shopping bag.

She reached down and picked the bag up angrily. "Oh, now look!" she moaned, pulling something out of the bag. "I bought this chocolate for my grandson and you've gone and crushed it."

"Hardly," I said looking at the perfect slab.

"Here." She pointed to the corner of it, where a tiny piece of foil wrapping had been ever-so-slightly disturbed.

"Oh please. I didn't do that."

"Young lady," she said, her voice slightly louder than I would have liked, and I looked up quickly to see where Matt was. He was still walking in my direction and, oh-no, Doctor Samantha had just joined him. What the hell were they doing here so early? Perhaps they'd also had the same thought; try and get on an earlier flight to avoid me?

"You have destroyed my grandson's chocolate." Her voice got even louder and the man sitting across from us glanced in our direction.

"I'm sorry. Here." I pulled out my wallet and handed her a fifty Rand note. "Get him another one."

"It was the last one," she said, but snatched the money anyway.

"Well, I'm sure there're many other chocolates out there." I didn't bother concealing the sarcasm in my voice.

The old woman sat up straight. "Are you sassing me?" Vocal volume really growing now!

"Shhhhh," I hissed at her, putting my finger over my lips in a desperate attempt to silence her.

"Don't you dare shush me. And what on earth are you doing on the floor anyway?" Too loud! Way too loud. People were starting to turn and stare.

I looked up again. Matt and Sam were getting closer, and I started panicking. I needed to get out of there, unseen. So I shot up, grabbed my bag and started power-marching away as fast as I could, hoping that I wouldn't be seen. Only I was.

"Val?" It was Matt.

Shit! My power-march turned into a jog which soon turned into a run as I scuttled across the airport.

"Val. Wait!" he called. And then I heard another voice.

"Matt, what the hell are you doing?" Sam said. "Come back here. Immediately!" She sounded furious. I didn't blame her.

"Val. Stop!" Matt called out again. But I didn't. How the hell was I ever going to look at him again when just the sound of his voice made me so embarrassed and panicky that I wanted to puke? I picked up pace and took a sharp left, and to my absolute joy, found this section of the airport jam packed with hundreds of jostling bodies.

International departures. I pushed my way straight into the dense crowd and started weaving through them, going deeper and deeper into the sea of noisy, moving bodies.

When I was satisfied that I was right in the belly of the beast and that there was no way I could be seen, I took refuge behind a large group of Chinese tourists and let out a long, loud sigh of relief.

Behind me stood a very large man with a sunburnt wife the colorof a lobster. I could tell immediately that they were foreigners who'd come here on safari. She was kitted out head-to-toe in those trinkets you buy from game reserve shops, including two huge elephant head earrings. I was so intrigued by the way they swung so violently every time she moved her head, that when I suddenly found myself at the counter I was shocked.

"Huh?" I looked at the woman behind the counter who was now talking to me. "I didn't get that?" I said.

"Ticket please," she replied.

"Ti... Oh. No. I don't have one," I said, ducking down a little now that my Chinese protectors were gone.

"Ticket please," she repeated. Very slowly this time.

"I'm not really catching a flight," I whispered to her. Her face crunched up, and she looked at me as if I were speaking in ancient tongues.

"I know this is a little odd, but please can I just stand here while you help other people? I'm trying to hide from someone." I rolled my eyes and tried to give her a knowing sisterly look. "You know. Men," I tutted. But my attempts at sisterly bonding were not working on this puckered-lipped waif. She glared at me.

"No, this would not be all right," she spat. Her pitch-black hair was scraped back into a perfect ballerina bun. It was so tight that it looked like it was pulling her eyes and forehead back, DIY Botox. Her lips were stained a deep mauve color—very on fleek—and her eyelashes were as long as a cow's.

"Ticket please!" She sounded like a stuck record now. I bit my lip and shook my head, refusing to move.

"Hey, lady!" the American with the lobster wife shouted out. His deep voice was so loud and booming, that once again a few people turned.

"Miss, I must insist that if you do not have a ticket, you must leave the line immediately." The woman spoke again, her mauve lips enunciating the words.

"Yeah!" The American agreed, and suddenly two other people joined in and the general volume of the conversation increased several more decibels. I looked around nervously and then, much to my horror, I saw Matt again. I turned my back on him and lowered my head to the counter.

"Well?" the woman at the counter asked.

"I... I..." Terror washed over me in violent waves that made me start sweating.

"Oh, for God's sake, you're holding up the whole queue,"someone else from the crowd shouted.

"I'm going to miss my flight if this carries on," another person chipped in.

"Yeah!" the American seconded. "And then I'll have to sue youand the airline."

"Ticket!" the woman behind the counter pressed.

I looked around, everyone was staring at me and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Matt's head turn. Shit! Our eyes locked for a second and then he started moving towards me. I turned quickly.

"Ticket, I want one. NOW!" I yelled in her face.

"Which flight?" she asked.

"I don't care," I hissed at the woman. "Just get me on the next flight to, to..."

"Val!" Matt was shouting now. I vaguely heard the woman behind the desk mutter something about some island somewhere. I didn't care.

"Yes! That one. That flight! Hurry, hurry, hurry."

I turned and watched in jaw-dropping horror as Matt started getting closer and closer, pushing his way through the thick crowd.

"Move it, move it, move it!" I tapped my hand on the counter as the woman typed.

"That will be—"

"I don't care," I cut her off, thrusting my credit and passport at her. Who the hell cared what it cost? I needed to get out of here.

"Luggage to check in?"

"No. Carry-on."

"Okay, then enjoy your—"

"VAL!" he screamed. I grabbed the ticket from the woman's hands and ran through the international security gates as fast as I bloody could, not stopping to look behind me.

[#]

[DIARY ENTRY]

20 Aug.

Dear Diary,

I know it's been a while. But I've been so busy and this Matt thing is all I can think about. It's driving me fucking crazy. It's like I have a song stuck on repeat in my head. And I don't know how many hints I'm meant to drop either? There is only so much laughing and leaning and staring and touching a girl can do before she comes across as a total creep. The only thing I haven't tried yet is taking actual clothing off and cartwheeling in front of him with my lady parts in the air!

I'm starting to wonder if he's even picking up on my signals. My friends think he is and is deliberately shying away from them, because he knows how intense our connection is and that scares him.

But I've watched the movie He's Just Not That Into You. Isn't that just a thing that friends are meant to say to each other? So as not to hurt your feelings? Although, I do take some comfort from the fact that Ginnifer Goodwin's character got together with that love-cynical bartender guy. But, on the other hand, Jennifer Connelly's character did end up alone (But that was because Bradley Cooper had an affair with Scarlett Johannsson, I mean... who wouldn't? Look at her! I digress!)

At least this has all given me an idea for work. Have been doing research for a new article "Real friends tell you the ugly truth, not the pretty little lies"—it's about the lies we tell our friends, but shouldn't.

1. She tells you that your new haircut is cute, "you can totally pull off the pixie cut" even when it makes you look like a boy

2. When she changes her profile pic to one that she thinks makes her look sexy, but it's just a little too slutty and try-hard.3. You tell her you totally like your new boyfriend because you don't want to hurt her feelings, but clearly the guy is a loser and totally beneath her.

[/LIST]

Need to run and think of four more lies we tell our friends. Have managed to get lists of seven past editors at the moment. YAY! Anyhoooo...

More later...

P.S. I AM SO IN LOVE WITH MATT

P.P.S. I HAVE NEVER EVER FELT THIS WAY ABOUT ANYONE BEFORE