More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It hits me suddenly that this is the last day we’re going to be at the same school. Six entire years of being in the same place every weekday are over. The two years we’ve been a couple at school, two years of eating lunch together, sitting in form, hiding in music rooms, I.T. rooms, P.E. changing rooms, two years of going home together, walking when it’s sunny, getting the bus when it’s cold, Nick drawing faces in the window condensation, me falling asleep on his shoulder. It’s all over. Normally we talk about this stuff – stuff that we get sad about or annoyed about or angry about – but
...more
Coming out as bisexual again is probably the main one – I mean, I have to come out to someone every other day anyway, but new uni friends means a new load of people who are probably going to assume I’m straight. Leaving home’s gonna be scary too. I’m a bit worried about my mum being by herself all the time. And, again, there’s leaving Charlie behind.
roll my window down and turn up the radio, and then I take my disposable camera out of my pocket and quickly take a picture of Charlie, his face all sunlit, his dark hair being blown about by the wind, his body curled up on the passenger seat.
We get that this isn’t, like, normal normal. We think our parents see it’s not normal as well. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re fine with it, but … normal teenage couples don’t sleep round each other’s houses on school nights, do they? They don’t spend every single day with each other, right? I don’t know. We don’t care. *
And every single time he mentions it, it just reminds me that we’re approaching the end of this. That come September, I’m getting left behind. Basically, I’m scared.
I don’t really want to bring this up with Nick because I don’t want him to feel bad for going to university. He’s completely right to be excited about it. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it.
As soon as he’s gone, my bed feels cold and empty again. It’s pretty dumb, really. I sleep alone most of the time.
Then again, Charlie could lie for Britain – he lies to loads of people.
I am aware that I am combatting my feelings about Nick going to university by a) refusing to talk about it and b) flirting with him so hard it’s actually embarrassing, but honestly, I’m this close to punching the next person who even uses the word ‘university’ in a sentence. I have not punched anyone yet in my life, but it’s never too late to start. Oh, and c) I am getting drunk. Very drunk.
‘If one more person mentions leaving school, I’m literally going to cry.’ He pats my cheek. ‘There, there. It’ll all be fine. You’re Nick and Charlie, aren’t you?’ ‘I don’t know what that means,’ I say.
Why would anyone just end a relationship because it’s got to go long distance for a bit? Elle and Tao clearly like each other a lot. They pined over each other for ages before they started dating. Why would anyone do that?
Nick and I aren’t going to do that. Nick thinks long distance will be fine. He doesn’t want to break up with me. Does he? Does he want to break up with me?
turn the engine on but I just end up sitting in my car for twenty minutes, maybe because I’m too scared to drive when I can still hear thunder in the distance, or maybe because I’m hoping Charlie’s going to run out of the house and open the door and say that everything he’d said was a drunken mistake. But he doesn’t. So I just sit there.
On Sunday morning I stay in bed. I start to realise that the reason I feel numb is because I’m in shock. In shock that Charlie would even suggest breaking up.
There’s nothing I can do. Nothing. It is what it is. Charlie wants to break up with me before it gets too painful. Maybe we’d end up breaking up anyway. Maybe we’re just getting it out of the way.
‘Oh, you two’ll get that patched up though, won’t you, love?’ she says, and then leaves the kitchen before I have the chance to say: not necessarily. Maybe not. Maybe this is it.
‘I love you so much, baby. You’ll be okay.’ ‘Love you, Mum.’ But I don’t think I’ll be okay. Ever. I don’t think I’ll ever be okay ever again.
‘No, but –’ he shakes his head – ‘you’re Nick and Charlie.’ I laugh. ‘What does that mean?’ ‘It’s …’ He laughs too, a nervous expulsion of air. ‘You’re … it’s hard to explain. It’s like, if you had to provide evidence for soul mates, everyone would pick you two.’ I snort. ‘There’s no such thing as soul mates.’ ‘Maybe. But you two present a pretty convincing argument.’
‘By the way, I found this stuffed between the sofa cushions.’ She picks up something next to her and holds out Nick’s disposable camera. ‘Is it yours?’ I take it from her. ‘Oh, that’s Nick’s.’ ‘Oh. He might want it back then.’ ‘Yeah.’ I walk slowly out of the room. The number on the tiny screen at the back is at zero – I didn’t even know Nick had taken that many pictures. When did he take them all? He could only have left the camera here two weeks ago while we were getting ready for the party, and I didn’t see him take any then. So it must have been the day before that.
As I flick through the rest of the photos, I start to realise that they’re all sort of like that, all tinged purple and blue and orange, muted colours, a little blurry, like polaroids at an art-school exhibition.
There are so many of just me. Me. Nick just took a ton of photos of me. Nick’s not a hugely creative person. He’s never been interested in photography or art or anything like that. I think he just took them because he wanted to remember what this was like. What our life is like now. Chilling round each other’s houses, going on walks, eating together, sleeping together. It sounds boring but it’s so wonderful. It is. I feel myself tear up just looking at our life together. I love this. I love us. I love our weird, boring life. I take my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of our
...more
You can communicate by just looking at each other! Trust me, I’ve played board games with you two.’
remember the exact moment I decided to take it, walking into my room after getting a glass of water to find Charlie curled up so beautifully in my bed, the orange street-lamp light shining on his skin, and I felt like if I was going to die, this would be what I wanted to see last.
By the end, we’re both sitting on the asphalt with our backs against the fence, the sun shining off the court and the white of our shoes.
‘Sorry I shouted at you. And didn’t drive you home.’ ‘Sorry I got drunk and made out with you in front of everyone. And cried.’ ‘Sorry I called you a dick.’ ‘Sorry I told you to leave.’ ‘Sorry for talking about uni all the time.’ ‘Sorry for getting pissed off with you talking about uni all the time.’
He laughs, an amazing, boyish, Nick laugh.
He brings a hand up to my cheek and I don’t think things have gone back to normal – instead, we’ve entered an entirely new era, one where we’re better, surer, stronger together.
We sit at the end of the pier again and watch the sunset, because that’s what you’ve got to do on days like this. The clouds turn pink and purple, the sky orange, and then everything is dark blue.
We spend the whole day talking about us and what it’s going to be like when we’re long distance and it honestly only makes me believe even harder that we’re going to be fine, that everything’s going to be okay.
And then one minute we’re lying there and the next we’re kissing, and it’s not like this is anything particularly new, but it feels new. It feels like we’ve been forced apart for a century and this is our reunion, a mix of relief and desperation, both of us clinging to each other on his bed, and when Nick breaks away to kiss my neck I just stop thinking entirely. How is it that this still makes me so … How have two years gone by and I still feel like this in his arms? We kiss for a long time, like it’s two years ago and we’re on Nick’s lounge sofa trying to watch a film. Impossible.
Nick touches me like he’s scared that any minute I could disintegrate forever.
