by Alice Oseman
I mumble something about being fine and close the door. Enough of that.
I start by just walking, my hood pulled as far as it’ll go over my forehead and my phone clutched in one fist. But it doesn’t work.
There are people everywhere. Walking to and from the station, getting in and out of cars and taxis, crossing the road, standing around.
A swarm.
Can’t remember the last time I’ve been around this many normal people at once.
I get a few glances at first. A couple of people catching my eye and realising. Once I’ve walked ten metres or so, someone behind me murmurs, ‘Doesn’t he look like Jimmy Kaga-Ricci?’ Once I’m nearly at the station steps, someone in front of me points and says, ‘Oh my God, that’s Jimmy from The Ark!’
I try not to look and I walk faster.
I’m inside the station.
Someone behind me pulls on my arm, forcing me to a halt. I turn, even though I know I shouldn’t, and it’s a girl asking for a selfie.
‘I can’t, sorry,’ I say, and pull my arm away, only to be faced by five other girls, holding their phones. Someone is videoing. They’re asking for selfies. They’re talking to me. I need to get out.
Another group appear – boys and girls. A woman and her daughter. A group of men in their twenties.
I start just posing for selfies. Like it’s a fucking reflex.
I can’t just leave. I can’t just say no.
They start cramming closer to me. Someone reaches out and brushes their hand down my arm. I feel myself flinch and I hope it doesn’t show.
I’m shaking too.
I’m starting to panic.
Deep breaths.
Don’t let it show.
Don’t let it start.
‘Can I have a selfie, Jimmy?’
‘Your music got me through the whole of school.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I really love you.’
I look up from the very intense game of Rolling Sky on my phone to discover that there is a huge swarm of people converged in the middle of St Pancras.
It can only be Jimmy.
Didn’t he bring a bodyguard with him? What was he thinking coming here by himself? He’s probably one of the most famous people in the entire country, for God’s sake.
What do I do?
Should I try to help?
Should I find a station guard? Security?
Yes. Yes, they’ll be able to help.
I grab my bags and rush out of Starbucks, looking around wildly. Passengers, but no security guards. No policemen, either. Oh, fuck. Do I have time to walk around and find one?
I look over at the group of people again. It’s huge now. It’s a human tornado and he’s at the centre. I can’t see Jimmy at all, so I don’t know for sure whether he’s in there, but a couple of twelve-year-olds walk out of the group staring at their phones and screaming, so I’d say it was a pretty good guess.
I take a deep breath and pull my hood up firmly over my head.
And then I walk straight into the human tornado.
I get cries of annoyance and rude comments as I barge past people, but my height and my boniness does have its advantages. My elbows are probably my greatest weapon. I accidentally gave my brother a black eye with my elbow when I was eight.
It takes a solid minute, and I do end up on the floor at one point, but I’m eventually propelled into the centre of the group, where Jimmy is facing away from me, taking a selfie with someone. I tap him politely on the shoulder and say, ‘Er, Jimmy?’
He turns round. The panic on his face is unmistakable, though he seems to be doing slightly better at containing it than in the bathroom yesterday. His eyes are wide and he’s biting down hard on the insides of his cheeks.
Is he even going to recognise me?
‘Angel,’ he says.
I guess he is.
And then he says, ‘Help me.’
Help him.
I put my arm round his shoulders and shout, ‘OKAY, JIMMY HAS TO GO AND CATCH A TRAIN NOW!’ I start pulling him out of the crowd, but people are following, snapping photos in his face, shouting at me and him. Someone shouts, ‘Who the fuck are you?’ and I say, ‘I’m … his bodyguard,’ which is probably the most unbelievable statement anyone has ever made, since I have the body shape of a twig and look three years younger than I actually am. Probably should have gone with ‘manager’, but too late now.
As we’re forcing our way out of the crowd, Jimmy clutches onto my hoodie with one hand, like a scared toddler. Is this weird? Probably. I love him more than my own fucking life.
And then we’re free.
And that’s twice this week that I’ve saved people from being harassed because they’re famous.
What even is my life?
She appears in the crowd like I’ve conjured her out of the air.
Angel Rahimi.
She’s kind of lanky, with a thin, bony face. A small tuft of black hair shows just beneath her headscarf.
I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe to pay attention to what she’s doing, but suddenly we’re out and walking fast through the station. She’s got one arm round my shoulders but it doesn’t feel constricting. Instead, it feels oddly comforting. Like she’s my mum or older sister.
‘Just … we’ll just keep going until we get somewhere quieter,’ she says, but I don’t think she has any more idea where we’re going than I do. People keep staring, and a couple of people snap photos. Can’t stop them. Can’t do anything.
She walks us all the way through the station until she ducks left into a shop and pulls me right to the back of the room.
‘I think we’ve lost them,’ she says, glancing behind her. Then she laughs. ‘Wow. I’ve always wanted to say that.’ She puts on an American accent. ‘I think we’ve lost ’em.’
Why am I holding on to her hoodie? I quickly drop my hand.
‘Thanks,’ I say, but it comes out all croaky and weird.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks. There’s genuine concern in her eyes. ‘That was pretty intense.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, but I’m not fine, not really. My heart is still racing and my hands are sweaty and shaky. Typical. Why am I like this? ‘Are … you okay?’
‘Dude, I’m fine.’ She shakes her head in amazement. She’s bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. ‘That was ridiculous, though. Why didn’t you bring a bodyguard with you?’
‘I …’
What the fuck have I done?
The contract. The recording. Rowan. Lister. I just up and left.
Angel holds up both of her hands. ‘Don’t worry, sorry, you don’t have to explain any of it. Like, I’m one to talk, aren’t I? I’m the most ridiculous person alive.’
She doesn’t give me time to say anything in response. She swings her bag off her shoulders and opens it up, then withdraws a jumper.
It’s in there. Oh, thank God. She’s got it. She wasn’t lying.
It’s not lost.
‘Probably best not to … get it out in the middle of a train station,’ she says, grinning, and then laughs at herself. ‘That sounded like a euphemism.’ She holds out the jumper. ‘Just … just keep the jumper. It’s old. I don’t need it.’
I cautiously take the jumper from her. I can feel the knife inside it. I can feel the exact shape of the handle.
Thank God.
‘Okay … I’ll … I’ll leave you alone now,’ she says, still smiling. She steps back slightly and slings her rucksack back on. ‘It was …’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I know this was probably very awkward for you but … I’m really happy that I got to meet you and talk to you.’
The sincerity in her voice is different to how the normal fans sound. It’s different from the screeching way they say our names, from the forced extremeness that they think that we changed their lives.
‘I’m really glad I got to help you,’ she says. ‘After all you’ve done to help me.’
‘I … haven’t done anything,’ I mutter.
‘You have,’ she says, smiling. ‘I promise you have.’
And then she nods and turns away.
And I find myself grabbing her hoodie sleeve again.
‘Wait,’ I say.
She turns back, confused. ‘Y-yes?’
‘Can you just … stay with me for a bit?’
‘Yes … yeah, sure …’ She stays very still. I drop my hand from her arm.
‘I … don’t want to be on my own,’ I say.
‘That’s okay,’ she says. ‘I hate being on my own too.’
We stand still for a moment.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asks.
I hug the jumper against my chest.
‘Not really,’ I say.
‘Could you … could you call someone?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘What do you want to do?’
What do I want to do?
And then it hits me.
Grandad.
‘I want to go home,’ I say.
‘Home?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘Like … like your apartment?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Home. My actual home. Where I grew up.’
‘Oh,’ she says, surprised. But then she’s nodding like it’s the best thing I’ve ever said. ‘Yes. Yeah. Of course. You should do that.’
‘Will you come with me?’
I ask the question before I’ve thought about it properly.
It just comes out, like a reflex.
I want Angel to come with me. I don’t know why, but I do. Is it because I know I won’t be able to get out of here alone? Maybe. Is it because I just feel drawn to her? I don’t know. I don’t know why I feel anything any more. Maybe it’s just because she’s the only fan in the world who knows who I really am.
I don’t want to just say goodbye and never see her again.
‘Of course,’ says Angel, her eyes wide and unblinking, as if she wouldn’t mind if I wanted to go to Australia. To Pluto. To Heaven itself. ‘Wherever.’
‘You’re not busy?’
‘Busy,’ she scoffs, as if the notion is ridiculous. Then her expression turns serious again. ‘Does … does anyone know where you are?’
‘You mean apart from the hundred people that just mobbed me?’ I laugh bitterly.
‘I mean … like Rowan and Lister. Or your manager?’
‘No. No, they don’t know.’
I don’t want to think about them right now. I don’t want to think about any of that.
‘Can we go?’ I ask.
She straightens out her hoodie and nods.
‘Yeah. Let’s go.’
Somehow I have ended up on a train to Kent with my son, Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.
I jokingly refer to him as my ‘son’ online all the time, but the more time I spend with him, the more I’m starting to feel like his actual parent. My sunglasses are massive on his head when I suggest he uses them as a disguise. I have to buy our train tickets for us using his card because he’s too nervous to talk to anyone.
Also, he seems to be going through some sort of emotional breakdown.
I mean, I think I might be as well.
I only remember once we’ve been on the train for ten minutes that I should probably text Dad and tell him I’m not coming home after all.
Is everything okay? he texts back.
I send him a thumbs-up emoji.
Jimmy doesn’t talk much. Hardly at all, in fact. The soft, smiley persona from all the videos and photos I’ve seen appears to be imaginary.
But, despite everything, he’s still Jimmy Kaga-Ricci.
Before we leave, he says, ‘You don’t have to come with me.’
But I’d go anywhere with him, wouldn’t I?
I love him. I don’t know how else to describe the feeling I have for Jimmy Kaga-Ricci. It’s not a crush. Not infatuation. I mean love in the ‘I will think about you every day for my whole life’ sense. Love, like the desperate ache to hold on to something useless, even though you know that if you threw it away, nothing would change.
How did that happen to me?
‘Man, how far out is this house?’ asks Angel, as we’re sitting in another taxi, driving through Kent. We’ve long since left Rochester station, and we’ve been driving for at least half an hour. Grandad lives in the countryside.
She’s peering out of the window, though we can barely see anything through the rain.
‘It’s far,’ I say.
Angel shoots me a look. ‘How mysterious.’
‘I’m not gonna give you the address. Sorry. It’s not safe.’
‘Ha, d’you wanna blindfold me as well? Like they do in the movies? Okay, yeah, that would make this way creepier than it already is.’
I don’t reply.
‘You kids picked the wrong day to come down the moors,’ says the taxi driver, an older woman with a different but as strong an accent as Gary. ‘They say flooding’s on its way.’
I say nothing again, so Angel, who seems to be literally incapable of putting up with a conversation pause, says, ‘No way, is the rain that bad?’
She’s got this fake voice. It’s easy to tell the difference between the things she really means and the things she’s just saying to be polite, or to make people like her, or to carry on a conversation.
They talk about the weather for a bit and I zone out. My phone has run out of battery.
‘Where d’you want dropping off, kids?’ asks the taxi driver when we enter the village. It’s pretty small, bordered by thick woodland and rolling fields, and the houses are all custom-built, each one markedly different from its neighbours. Grandad’s house is on the other side of the village, about a ten-minute walk. My house, I mean.
Angel looks at me, waiting for me to respond, since she has no idea where we’re actually going.
‘Just here is fine,’ I say. Don’t want her knowing exactly where my house is. Just in case.
I pay her and we get out of the car. Angel seems almost cheerful. I think it might be an act.
I think everything she does might be an act, really.
It’s not dark yet, but the sky is so grey that the streetlamps have come on. The pavement and the road are dotted with puddles, and after a couple of minutes we’re completely soaked. Neither of us has an umbrella, or even a coat. My jeans are freezing and sticking to my skin. Angel keeps tentatively adjusting her hijab. I offer to carry one of her bags for her, but she flat out refuses to let me.
She talks the entire while we’re walking.
Most of the time she doesn’t seem to require a response. She talks about so many things and so quickly too, jumping from family holidays to school trips to old friends to internet videos without any pause. Is it a sort of nervous tic? Is she just attention-seeking? I don’t think I’ve met anyone who talks so much.
It’s vaguely comforting, I guess. I’d rather this than silence and my thoughts.
‘So your family lives here, right?’ she asks, after she’s flown through twenty different topics.
‘Just my grandad,’ I mumble.
‘Where do the rest of your family live?’ she asks.
I pause, but then say, ‘Not near here.’
She realises she’s touched on something she shouldn’t, so there’s a rare pause while she tries to come up with a different topic. It’s kind of funny, really. She seems to be terrified of angering me.
‘My family live in a big town, so seeing this sort of place is so nice—’
‘My grandma’s dead,’ I say.
She stops talking.
‘My mum and dad have always worked. They’re divorced and they’ve both got big business careers that take them all over the world, which is why I’ve lived with my grandparents since I was little. But because of that I’ve never been close to them. They don’t really care about me that much so I don’t speak to them very often.’
She doesn’t talk. Our shoes splash
against the road.
‘My older sister goes to university in America. We don’t really talk. She doesn’t like people knowing that we’re related.’
‘I didn’t know you had a sister,’ says Angel.
‘No,’ I say.
We walk past the village’s only bus stop – the one I used to wait at every morning before school. Feels like an alternate reality.
‘So you only have your grandad, really?’ she asks.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
That silences her for a full minute.
‘I’d … just like to take a detour, if that’s okay,’ I say, as we pass the village pub and turn a corner.
‘You’re not going to murder me, are you?’ she asks.
I look at her. She laughs, but also sort of looks like she’s genuinely asking.
‘No?’ I say.
‘Okay,’ she says, and laughs again.
‘Why did you come with me if you think I’m going to murder you?’ I ask.
‘I don’t actually think that,’ she scoffs.
I look at her. She glances at me, and laughs when she sees my expression.
‘I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think getting murdered would be that bad if you were the one killing me.’ She seems to realise how weird the statement is just after it leaves her mouth. ‘Er, I mean … I …’
‘Are you all like this?’
‘Who? And like what?’
‘Fangirls. Are you all, like … Would you just do whatever I said?’
She thinks about it.
‘No, I don’t think everyone would,’ she says, and leaves it at that. ‘Where did you want to detour to?’
‘Oh … I just wanted to go to the church.’ I point up ahead at a church partially hidden behind some willow trees. It’s a tiny tenth-century crumbling building, but it’s pretty much the only church I have left.
Angel seems to only just notice that it’s there. ‘Ah, yeah, sure. Cool.’
‘I won’t be long. You don’t have to come in if you don’t want to.’
‘Nah, I’ll come in. No one will mind, will they?’
‘No.’
‘Cool. I’ve never been inside a church.’
