You Were Made For Me

by Jenna Guillaume

  Wait, spoilers! We’re not up to that part yet.

  Oh, right. So anyway, by the end of the night Guy understood the fourteen different ways you can use the word ‘mate’, depending on the circumstances.

  Ha, yeah, like there’s ‘mate?’.

  And ‘maaaaaaate’.

  ‘Mate. Mate. Mate.’

  ‘Mate.’

  Ooh yeah, that one is really chilling.

  It was all going great until bedtime, and the extreme awkwardness of trying to figure out who was going to sleep where.

  Loooooooooool.

  Theo has a queen bed, and then a couple of old beanbags, and there was a lot of back and forth about who should get the bed and who would be lumped with the beanbags.

  Guy was practically glitching over his desire to be close to me (still can’t quite believe that’s an actual sentence I’m writing) and his simultaneous selflessness in not wanting to make either me or Theo uncomfortable.

  We went round and round in circles until we finally agreed that Theo and I would share the bed while Guy took the beanbags.

  ‘They’re actually quite comfortable,’ Guy said as he rested his head on one beanbag and his feet on the other. His butt was on the floor.

  ‘Maybe you should take the bed,’ I said, feeling guilty that he was spending his second night on Earth not much better off than his first.

  Theo groaned. ‘Don’t start that again. Just go to sleep.’ He crawled under the covers, still wearing his shorts and a t-shirt. I popped into the bathroom to change into my PJs and wash up, leaving the sink running while I went to the toilet in the hope that Guy wouldn’t hear me peeing. I would have held it in if I possibly could, but I figured it would be more embarrassing to wet the bed in the middle of the night.

  By the time I emerged from the bathroom, Guy was already asleep. I could tell by the way he was breathing. I guess his first full day of being alive had really taken it out of him. I tiptoed past him and slid into bed next to Theo, who grumbled and switched off his lamp.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered to him in the dark, putting my glasses on the bedside table and lying back on the pillow. It smelled strongly of Theo. Like mangoes and aftershave and that distinct boy smell, whatever that is. Probably sweat.

  ‘You always help me when I need it,’ I continued. ‘I know I don’t say it often, but it means a lot.’

  Theo was silent for a moment. ‘You do the same for me,’ he said. His whisper made his voice sound hoarse.

  ‘And I’m sorry about before. About last night. All the confusion and mess and everything . . . it’s been a pretty wild twenty-four hours. My head’s kind of all over the place, you know?’

  He snorted. ‘Yeah. I know. It’s okay, KC. It’s been a big day. Just get some sleep.’

  I turned on my side to face him, clasping my hands together and tucking them under the pillow. ‘Hey, do you remember when we used to build blanket forts in here?’ My conversation with Mum earlier had brought up a lot of memories.

  ‘Yeah.’ I couldn’t really see him, but I could hear the smile in his voice. ‘Remember that one we left up for, like, six weeks?’

  ‘It was forty-seven days. I kept a tally. We were trying to break some record which I’m pretty sure didn’t even exist.’

  Theo chuckled softly. ‘And then my dad came in and pulled it down while I was at school. I didn’t talk to him for days after that.’

  ‘Poor Nick,’ I said. After a minute, I added, ‘I always felt so safe and cosy in those forts . . . I can’t remember the last time I felt that way. Why did we stop building them?’

  ‘I dunno, KC.’ Theo paused. ‘I guess we just grew up.’

  I didn’t say anything after that. I was trying to remember the last blanket fort we’d built. I couldn’t remember if it was before or after Theo’s mum died. That time was such a blur. We stopped hanging out here so much, after. Theo was spending more time at my house instead. My parents were practically overdosing him with affection and food and anything he wanted. Even my brother was sweet to him. His sisters would occasionally come around, too. After the funeral, Theo’s dad had gone straight back to work. He said he had to make up for all the time he’d had off caring for Ella.

  I think they were all just desperately trying to escape this house. The loneliness of her missing presence, even though she hadn’t been there for months anyway.

  I rolled on my back, stretching out my legs, and my toes grazed Theo’s hairy calf. He moved it away immediately, as if my touch had burned.

  ‘Goodnight,’ he said, and rolled to face the wall.

  ‘’Night,’ I replied. If Theo noticed the crack in my voice, he didn’t say anything.

  I glanced towards Guy. I could just make out the shape of him in the dim moonlight. He seemed to be sleeping soundly. I wondered if he dreamed.

  Eight

  ‘Phwoar, KC, did you murder a small animal in the night?’ Theo’s voice jolted me awake.

  ‘Wha–’ It took me a moment to realise where I was – who I was – as I took in the vintage posters on the wall in front of me and felt Theo shift beside me.

  Theo.

  And then I realised what he’d said. I flipped to face him. ‘What?!’

  ‘I forgot how much you fart in the morning,’ Theo said loudly, projecting his voice as though he was on stage. ‘You really should get your tummy checked. It can’t be healthy.’

  ‘Shut up!’ I hissed. ‘It wasn’t me and you know it!’ I scrambled for my glasses and checked to see if Guy was still sleeping. Theo was busy killing himself laughing.

  I got my glasses on just in time to see Guy’s grinning face as he dive-bombed the bed, bellowing ‘good morning’ and landing across my legs. He rolled so he was in between Theo and me. That was enough to sober Theo up. He coughed and sat up.

  ‘No worries, mate, make yourself at home,’ he said.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Guy said, his face falling. ‘The inflection of the word “mate” indicates you’re not happy with me.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have taught him that, hey?’

  Theo looked down at me and maybe it was the absurdity of the whole situation – wait, no, it was definitely that – but I started laughing.

  Theo’s mouth twitched. I could see he was trying to hold in a laugh, too. Next to me, Guy snuggled into my shoulder and said, ‘I love the way you laugh.’

  Theo turned away then and made a move to get out of bed, but not before –

  ‘Er, am I interrupting?’

  We all looked up to see Alex standing by the door, keys dangling from his hand, a bemused look on his face.

  Theo scrambled out of bed while I quickly sat up. Guy didn’t move, although he did wave at Alex and say another bright ‘good morning’.

  He must have got his morning cheerfulness from Libby’s side of the family.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is, it’s not that,’ I said to Alex.

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  ‘Bro. You don’t even wanna know,’ Theo said as he walked towards the bathroom. He closed the door before he heard Alex’s answer.

  ‘Okay, but I definitely do.’

  Coast is clear, I texted Theo. I was back at home, and had been practically bursting out of my skin waiting for my family to leave the house so Guy could come around. I’d left him ‘jamming’ with Alex and Theo, which mainly involved Theo playing his saxophone and Alex playing his guitar while Guy enthusiastically clapped for both of them. Alex had been shocked when we’d told him our cover story about why Guy was staying at Theo’s.

  ‘Jeez, and I thought my parents were bad,’ he’d said. I was relieved he’d bought the story. Or at least he’d seemed to.

  Meanwhile, I’d been killing time by texting Libby. The problem was, she wasn’t writing back.

  The conversation was one hundred per cent one-sided and looked a little like this:

  Me

  How’s your date going?

  Are you too busy pashing M
ichael to respond?

  Do you think it’s weird that Guy and I still haven’t kissed?

  I mean, he was basically literally created to kiss me and it’s been over a day and we still haven’t?

  . . . Is there something wrong with me?

  I really am a freak, aren’t I?

  Libby, can you stop kissing Michael for five minutes and help me through this crisis?

  Hello?!

  Eventually I gave up and decided to stress-bake. I had my head stuck in the pantry when I heard the back door slide open. I smiled and turned, expecting to see all three guys walking through. But it was just one guy. The Guy.

  My heart lost its rhythm as he smiled his golden smile at me.

  ‘Hey, gorgeous,’ he said. I touched my broken glasses self-consciously, suddenly wishing the jeans-and-a-nice-top outfit I’d spent half an hour agonising over was more glamorous.

  Guy himself was wearing fresh clothes (finally). He had on a pair of jeans that Theo had said he’d bought at an op shop, intending to chop them up along with another pair of jeans that didn’t fit him anymore to create a custom pair. He was always doing weird stuff like that with old clothes. He told me once he could never find anything he liked that actually fitted him, so he had to get creative. But I didn’t quite buy that. He’d always loved playing around with his style, even when we were little kids. Like the six-month period when he wore bow ties with every outfit – including t-shirts and yes, even his pyjamas. He’d go with his mum every other weekend to find new ones, and they’d get milkshakes together afterwards. I suspected part of his passion for all things vintage these days was a way to feel close to her still.

  So there was Guy in Theo’s reject jeans, looking like he’d stepped off some kind of runway. They fitted him perfectly. And I mean perfectly. They hugged his hips and thighs tightly . . . and don’t even get me started on his butt. Theo had also given Guy a shirt to wear. It looked like it was from the ’80s, with what my mum would call a ‘funky’ print. It was loose on Guy, but he – or, I guess, Theo – had tucked it into his jeans, rolled up the sleeves to show off his biceps/triceps/whatever the hell those muscles are up there, and left the buttons undone down to his chest, allowing a bit of man cleavage to peek through.

  It shouldn’t have looked as good as it did.

  But hoo, boy, did it look good.

  Thank you, Theo. If his music dreams fell through, he could definitely have a successful career as a stylist. I made a mental note to tell him so later.

  For now, though, my mind was dedicated to Guy.

  Who I was finally alone with.

  Who was looking at me with soft eyes and a smile playing on his lips.

  I moved towards him, my heart racing in my chest. Max beat me to him, shaking and yelping with excitement, his tail wagging faster than I’d ever seen it wag before.

  ‘Whoa, he really loves you.’

  ‘Aw, I really love him,’ Guy said in this baby voice that just about made my heart burst. Guy looked up at me over Max’s furry head and the warmth in his eyes made my heart actually stop for a moment.

  Your poor old heart is getting quite the workout here. Beating out of rhythm, racing, bursting, STOPPING altogether.

  What can I say? It’s the Guy effect.

  It’s just getting a little repetitive is all.

  Oh, I’m sorry. Would you like me to describe the way he was affecting other areas of my body?

  On second thoughts . . . stick to your heart.

  Guy and I were making cupcakes –

  Oh! You’ve skipped ahead. Good job, you’re learning.

  – and it was like something out of a rom-com. Cheesier than the cheese boards my mum puts together whenever her friends come around.

  Max was safely tucked away in the corner with a Kong toy full of peanut butter. It seemed that even Guy wasn’t strong enough to tempt him away from his one true love (that’d be the peanut butter).

  I was showing Guy how to stir the cupcake batter when I turned the electric mixer on too fast and a cloud of flour puffed up from the bowl right into our faces.

  We both broke into giggles. Guy reached up to wipe my face, and our laughter subsided as his thumb gently and slowly moved along my cheekbone. I don’t know that he was actually getting any of the flour off – but in that moment, I didn’t particularly care.

  My breath was shallow.

  My skin was on fire.

  Is this it? I thought. Oh my god, this is it.

  It was everything I’d been dreaming of. I’d been waiting for this moment my whole life. I suddenly understood that movie effect where the person is still but everything around them moves and shifts very rapidly. That’s exactly how I felt. It was absolutely surreal.

  I tried to ignore the nerves making my stomach bubble and fizz.

  Guy leaned in. I closed my eyes.

  And –

  And –

  And –

  Come on, Libby, I set that up perfectly. The one time I want you to interrupt me and you’re not even paying attention.

  Sorry, I couldn’t focus, you lost me somewhere in that puff of flour.

  Let’s try again.

  Guy leaned in. I closed my eyes.

  And –

  And –

  AND I KNOCKED ON THE FRONT DOOR AND INTERRUPTED THE WHOLE THING.

  That’s what you wanted me to say, right? Because that’s what happened.

  YES. See, for once your interrupting fits into the narrative!

  Glad to know I’m good for something.

  You know you’re good for many things.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said.

  ‘Good to see you, too,’ Libby said flatly, pushing past me into the house and flopping down on the lounge. She looked tired. Guy waved at her from the kitchen with a flour-covered hand.

  ‘I thought you were hanging out with Michael?’ I said.

  Libby didn’t answer me. She had her head low as she bent to pat Max, who’d got up to greet her. I returned to Guy’s side, nudging him with my hip.

  ‘Did a flour bomb explode in here or something?’ Libby said a few minutes later when she joined us in the kitchen. She rubbed at her eyes.

  I giggled. ‘Uh, no, we’re just . . . making cupcakes.’ Guy and I looked at each other, and I could feel the goofy grin on my face matching the one on his own.

  ‘Right,’ Libby said. She walked to the sink and splashed cold water on her face.

  ‘Are you hot, Libby?’ Guy said.

  ‘No,’ she said from where she was still leaning over the sink. Her voice sounded strained.

  ‘You got hayfever or something?’ I asked her as I held up the batter-covered wooden spoon to Guy’s lips. ‘Here, try this,’ I said to him with a smile.

  His eyes widened as his mouth enveloped the spoon. ‘That,’ he said, licking his lips, ‘is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.’

  Libby cleared her throat. ‘Katie, could I, um, could I talk to you for a sec?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, not looking away from Guy. From Guy’s lips, in particular.

  ‘In private?’ Libby added.

  I finally tore my gaze away. ‘Huh?’

  Libby raised her eyebrows at me and turned to walk out of the kitchen.

  ‘Guess I better see what she wants,’ I whispered to Guy, and he winked at me.

  As soon as we were in my room, I grabbed Libby’s arm. ‘Oh my god, we almost kissed! I think it might be finally going to happen. Today. I’m going to be kissed by the end of the day! But what if I’m terrible? Oh my god, how do you even kiss someone? I mean, I’ve thought about it before. A lot. I even looked up tutorials on YouTube. But that doesn’t mean I can do it. What if I suck? What if after one kiss he decides I’m not worth the effort? What do we do with him then? Should we –’

  ‘Oh my god, shut up,’ Libby broke in. She had pulled away from me in the middle of this word vomit and was staring at my wall. It was covered with prints from some of my favourite artists,
quotes that I loved and a couple of sketches I’d done myself. I’d put them up mostly to remind myself how far I had to go.

  ‘I – what?’ I was taken aback by Libby’s outburst, waiting for her to break the tension with a joke to let me know she was just teasing.

  But she just shook her head. ‘Sometimes I really don’t get you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s funny,’ she said, in a tone that indicated nothing was remotely funny. She brushed her fingers over a sketch of the two of us that I’d based on a photo taken when we were in Year 2. Libby was doing bunny ears behind my head and we both were grinning, half-toothless and happy. ‘You always go on about how nothing you do ever matches up to the picture you have in your head.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, not really sure where she was going with this. ‘It’s like in my head I see Chanel, but when I try to put that on paper all I get is the Reject Shop.’

  Libby huffed and turned to me. ‘But what about Guy?’

  ‘What about Guy?’

  ‘We created him. You created him. How does he match up to the picture you had in your head?’

  I paused. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. ‘He . . . he’s so much better, actually. He’s perfect.’

  Libby sat down on my bed. ‘See. All that striving for perfection, and you did it. You actually did it.’

  Did I? It was still hard to believe.

  ‘I mean, Jesus. We created a person, Katie! An actual human being. But all you can think about is when he’s going to take your mouth virginity.’

  I crossed my arms, the anger in her voice getting my defences up. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  She sighed and looked down. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘No, tell me. Is this why you wanted to talk? To make me feel guilty about wanting Guy to kiss me? I mean . . . isn’t that why we created him?’

  Libby snorted. ‘I created him because I was trying to prove to you that the perfect guy – perfection in general – doesn’t exist. That you have to let go of this ridiculous picture in your head and make the best of the reality.’ She shrugged, a bitter smile on her face. ‘Guess that backfired on me, didn’t it?’ More quietly, almost as if she were just talking to herself, she said, ‘Why does everything have to be perfect?’