Seventeen-year old first year college student Josie Clarke would prefer not to blush the colour crimson at every little thing, but Idiopathic Craniofacial Erythema, a chronic facial condition doesn't play fair.
In fact, it's as uncontrollable...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Garlic.
Pasta sheets.
Peppers.
Condoms...?
I draw a line through the last of my supermarket shopping list and push the trolley on past the pharmacy aisle, away from the colourful boxes that make me want to blush bright red.
And I do want to, but I don't, which has to be some kind of miracle.
My last visit here saw me flee, red faced and empty handed after the kind-of-cute (but not so much anymore) cashier had complimented me on my choice of fizzy drink.
And now I'm looking condoms without my facial temperature rising.
This time I'm on a mission, a mini-challenge because not only do I need to get everything I need for tonights impromptu dinner with Max (a lasagna pulled from my mum's Jamie Oliver cook book), I also have to make it out to the checkout. And pay. And bag everything up without being sabotaged by ICE and intense blushing.
It's why I've got my sunglasses on.
Why I'm stomping round the supermarket with purpose. To act busy. So no one will bother me.
I'm under a lot of pressure to not forget anything and get back home before my parents see me load up the fridge with food meant for two. Let's just say they've no idea that the moment they told me they were out all night, in the town over seeing a show, I was on the phone to Max, securing a dinner date and a rare night alone in my house.
And my mum would surely have a heart attack if she knew that I'd not changed the sheets on my bed because I spilt something but because I've hopes that a boy might for the first time actually come up to my room, maybe get into my bed, with me.
I glance back at the aisle left behind, debating why, if I really need to.
I make a snap decision and I loop back, to pick out a small, blue box that I bury beneath the peppers and the pasta sheets.
It feels doubtful I'll have any need for them, I mean I don't think I've even heard the word sex slip from Max's lips yet, but I kind of wish they would. And I want to be safe, if it ever does.
Because even though there's been a lot of distractions recently, especially after the last couple of weeks with most days spent at college and at home revising and the band practices, not to mention Max's BBQ disaster, we actually haven't spent a lot of time alone, just us. But, tonight we are. And once college is over, hopefully more.
