The Making of Us

by Debbie McGowan

  Leigh’s head came to a rest against my chest; fast pants of air escaped their mouth and heated my shirt as they said, “We have to talk about…it…soon.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  “I want to.”

  “So do I.”

  “But…you know I’m different, right?”

  “You’re you. That’s all I care about.”

  “You can’t say that, Jesse. Not until you understand what it means.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it again and released the breath I’d taken. My instinct was to argue back, tell Leigh they were wrong. It didn’t matter that this was the first real relationship for both of us; I was absolutely certain we were meant to be together. Sure, it was early days; there were lots of things we had yet to discover about each other, and some of those might be hard to deal with, but if we were meant to be, we’d work it out as we went along. But telling Leigh all of that was pointless; they needed to believe it for themself.

  “There’s no rush,” I said.

  “I know. I keep thinking…it’s only been two weeks. Is that too soon?”

  “God knows.” The way people talked, everyone did it on a first date. I couldn’t even imagine how that was possible, unless it was just about the sex, but that had never appealed to me. The kissing, hugging, skin-to-skin contact, that was what I craved. “I guess we should go with the flow, you know…wait for it to happen naturally.” I sighed, because that was where we were at. “When there isn’t a parent with superhuman hearing just across the hallway.”

  “Yeah. You’re right.” Leigh patted my arm and turned to study my Pink poster again. It was time for it to come down. “Badly Drawn Boy.”

  “You’re into him?”

  “Yeah, kind of? I like acoustic stuff, but a doctor once told my Aunty Sheri I looked like a badly drawn boy. It’s a bit tricky to get past that and enjoy his music.”

  “A doctor said that?” The utter bastard. Who did these doctors think they were, that they could violate and insult people to force them to comply? I hope they got sacked, struck off, or whatever it was they did to doctors. I know what I wanted to do to them.

  “You’re squishing me,” Leigh squeaked.

  “Sorry.” I eased off but didn’t let go. “It makes me mad.”

  “I noticed.” They smiled at me over their shoulder. “Do you get what I mean, though?”

  I was still fuming. “Yes, and what I said stands. It doesn’t help, does it? Me getting mad on your behalf.”

  “Hmm…it does a bit. I’m never taking you to meet my doctor.”

  I managed to laugh, even though a part of me wanted to demand Leigh did exactly that, but me yelling at them wasn’t going to change anything—like I’d do that anyway. Reasoning with people, getting them to think about their attitudes—it could take a long time, but surely they had to listen eventually? That was what Pride didn’t do so well: because it started out as the LGBT+ Society, we were still quite insular, which was why Sarah and others were unhappy about accepting allies. We needed to get out there and talk to other groups, challenge attitudes, answer questions…aaaand I needed to update my manifesto.

  I also made a secret promise to stop getting so caught up in my own bodily insecurities. They weren’t going to go away, but we could work through them together, because Leigh had them, too. I’d been blind to that before now; all I saw was a beautiful, perfect person.

  “We’d better go back to Mum before she feels compelled to come and find us.” Reluctantly, I moved away and straightened my clothes; Leigh smoothed their hair. I’d tousled it good style, and I wasn’t sorry.

  They noticed me watching and asked, “Should I dye it pink?” No hiding the teasing there.

  “If you like.”

  “Or rainbow colours.”

  “You should!”

  “Really?”

  “Sure! Why not?”

  Leigh’s mouth tilted upwards on one side, forming a dimple in their cheek. “I might as well dye it yellow.”

  I laughed. “Yep. Or blue.”

  “I’ve done blue already.”

  They took my hand and we left the room. I think they were as relieved as I was that we’d got caught up enough in our kiss to talk a little about what we wanted but not so much that we’d done something we’d regret later.

  “Would she really just walk in?” Leigh asked.

  “Nah. If the door’s closed, she’ll shout first…and then come in.”

  “Oh my god. I’d die of shame.”

  “Yep. I’ve done that a few times. Well, not actually…died…obviously.” I’d given myself the giggles, in part because I was pretty sure my mum would know what we’d been up to. OK, we hadn’t really done anything, but it was more than I could honestly answer ‘Nothing!’ to if she asked ‘What have you been up to?’

  That was only my paranoia, though, because she didn’t say a word, or not beyond, “Those cookies should be cool by now.” I dutifully went to get them, and the three of us sat watching TV, eating cookies and drinking tea until Adam arrived to pick Leigh up.

  “Thank you for having me, Sue,” Leigh said and gave my mum a hug. Mum’s smile was huge.

  “Anytime, Leigh,” she said, and then, “See you soon.”

  I walked Leigh downstairs, the pair of us pausing inside the door to say goodbye. The way we clung to each other, anyone would think Leigh was going away for months, but we’d be meeting up for lunch on Tuesday, as usual, if we didn’t see each other before then. That depended, in part, on how ‘sick’ Noah was.

  “Is it weird how much I miss you?” I asked.

  “Definitely not, because I was thinking the same.”

  “Or we’re both weird?”

  “I’m all for being weird together.” Leigh slowly backed away from me. “Enjoy your Sunday.”

  “Yeah. You, too.”

  I watched them all the way to the car, where they paused and called back, “Rainbow, yeah?”

  I laughed. “Yeah.”

  “OK. Night.”

  “Night.” I waved and waited until the car disappeared from view before I returned to the flat, where Mum had already changed back into her dressing gown. I said, “You know Leigh would’ve been fine with you wearing that, don’t you?”

  She pursed her lips and gave me a look that told me exactly what she thought of that idea.

  “I’ll go wash up and get some work done, I think.” I picked up the empty mugs and the plate of cookies—all two that remained—and took them through to the kitchen.

  “Have you eaten tonight?” Mum called.

  “Yeah.”

  “I mean apart from popcorn and cookies.”

  “No, but I’m not hungry.”

  “You should eat something before you go to bed.”

  I clenched my teeth and concentrated on not arguing back. There were so many diets out there, all offering competing advice—listen to your body, only eat if you’re hungry, don’t let your body go into starvation mode, stick to a set number of calories a day, avoid this food, eat plenty of that—I had no way of knowing if I was doing it right. But I was going to make the most of not feeling hungry. Who knew when that food ogre in my belly would start making its demands again?

  * * * * *

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Delete it.”

  Jazz put her camera down and started counting to ten.

  “Seriously, it’s terrible. I look like a sumo wrestler.”

  “Jesse, this is about the fiftieth I’ve taken…”

  “The next one, I promise. That’ll be it.”

  Jazz snatched up her camera again and marched towards the door. “Come on.”

  I sighed and wearily followed her. “Where are we going?”

  To the back garden, apparently. Jazz shared a house with three other students, none of whom were up yet, and it was past midday. She hated living there, and I could understand why. The kitchen…well, someone must’ve had an accident with a pan of spaghetti at some point—it
was stuck to the ceiling—and every single dish, plate, glass, mug and piece of cutlery was piled high on the draining board and in the sink, empty drawers left half-open, wrappers discarded on the floor.

  It was awful, and Jazz had asked me at least a dozen times if I fancied renting a flat with her. If I’d lived away from home, I’d have agreed in a heartbeat, but there was no point in me moving out when I lived so close to uni.

  On the plus side, her messy housemates evidently hadn’t discovered the garden, which was overgrown and in desperate need of some TLC, but at least there was no junk.

  “What are we doing out here?”

  “Photo shoot.”

  “Are you—”

  “I swear to God, if you don’t just get over there and smile, I’ll shove this camera so far up—”

  “OK, OK!” I clambered through the knee-high grass and dandelions to the spot Jazz had indicated, under a very large weeping willow. “There’s not much light here,” I said.

  “And your point is?” She aimed the camera at me but didn’t hold it up to her face. That felt a little less intimidating. “Tell me about the plants.”

  “Plants?” I laughed. “They’re all weeds.”

  “They can’t all be weeds.”

  I looked around, stretching on tiptoes to see over the nettles, down to the far end of the garden. “That’s honeysuckle.” And in need of a damn good prune, too. “That’s a, um…” I clicked my fingers, trying to remember what it was called. “A wisteria.”

  “Hysteria?” Jazz repeated.

  I turned back and noted her smirk. “Funny,” I retorted sarcastically. I did smile, though.

  “Got it!” Jazz beckoned me over. She looked very pleased with herself. “What d’you think?” She turned the view screen towards me and scrolled through the photos she’d snapped whilst I’d been doing my best Alan Titchmarsh impression, followed by the one where I’d smiled. If I was honest, I still wasn’t enthralled with any of them, but they were all right, and Jazz was almost snorting in anticipation of my rejection.

  “They’ll do,” I said.

  “Hmph.” She stalked back to the house, lifting her feet high off the ground, which looked hilarious, but I stifled my laughter. It was too dangerous not to. “I’ll upload these, tweak the contrast and whatnot,” she said, once we were back inside and on our way up to her room.

  “Can’t you Photoshop me?”

  “Yep, but I’m not going to.”

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “Not even. Jesse, you look fine. Finer than fine.”

  I made mutterings under my breath—not real words—and then stayed quiet whilst Jazz did some clever stuff that made the photos a million times easier for me to see.

  “Happy?” she asked, then, “Don’t answer that.”

  I did anyway. “Yes. Thank you.”

  “You’re so welcome.”

  ***

  I called Noah as soon as I got back from Jazz’s—voicemail—and then again after I’d been to my grandma’s. I’d PM’d him the previous night, before I’d gone to bed, then first thing this morning, and he’d seen my messages but not responded, leading me to wonder if he was actually sick.

  “Hello, you’re through to Matty Reed—Noah Ashton’s personal assistant!” Somewhere behind Matty, I heard Noah swear.

  I laughed. “Like that, is it? Put me on speaker.”

  “OK… And you’re live on air.”

  “Noah, mate. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing much. Just getting some work done.”

  “Why didn’t you reply to my messages?”

  “Ummm…” There were a few dull thuds and crackles, and then Noah’s voice got clearer but no louder. “I’m struggling, mate.”

  “Right? That all?”

  “What d’you mean, is that all?”

  “Leigh said you were throwing up.”

  “Ah, yeah, no. I got the impression you and Leigh wanted to go it alone.”

  I sighed in exasperation. “We invited you, remember? If we didn’t want you there, we wouldn’t have asked you.”

  “I guess not.”

  “That doesn’t explain why you’ve been ignoring me today.”

  “No.”

  I waited, and waited, and then prompted, “So…?”

  “So…I think I might’ve fucked up your campaign?”

  “Fucked it up, how?”

  “I, er…”

  “He was sticking up for you,” Matty said in the background.

  My skin prickled as all the hairs on my body stood on end. “What happened?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know.

  “That idiot who’s standing against you’s hired a pro. He’s been slamming you and Neema.”

  “Where’s this?”

  “On Twitter. Don’t look, mate.”

  I was going to look, but I said, “OK.”

  “There’s some really nasty stuff going down. It’s all bullshit, you know how it goes. Anyway, it got personal, so I stepped in, got into a slanging match with one of Danny’s supporters…mate, I’m so sorry, but…”

  “Noah, just bloody tell me.”

  “He accused you of being a yes-man, so I suggested the three of you should go head-to-head in a debate.”

  “You did what?!”

  “Yeah, I know. Some friend, eh?”

  I move my phone away and banged it on my forehead. I was not going to swear. I was not going to call Noah names. I put my phone to my ear again. “What’ve Neema and Danny said?”

  “Neema’s kept out of it.” At least someone had some sense. “Danny replied ‘bring it on’.”

  “No surprise there.”

  “Now everyone’s calling for a live streamed debate.”

  “Awesome.” Agh. I was so screwed. “Did you get any work done?” My rapid change of subject threw Noah, or maybe it was the way I was grinding my teeth.

  “Not much,” he replied quietly.

  “OK. I’m coming to yours tomorrow.”

  “Jess…I’m sorry.”

  “No worries. I’ll see you in the morning.” I hung up and flopped back onto my bed. Seeing as I was in a stinking mood already, I loaded Twitter. I was tagged in all the tweets, and some of them were hideous, but honestly, there was nothing I hadn’t heard before. It made me really sad. Politics was a dirty game, I knew that. Still, I’d expected better of Pride members.

  ***

  Monday morning, I took the bus over to the farmhouse. Leigh and Matty were both in uni, Adam was at work, and Sol was at his drawing board, which meant Noah and I could work in peace upstairs. True, we could’ve worked in peace in the study centre, but I wasn’t up to dealing with ‘my public’, plus Noah had this really annoying time-wasting strategy whereby he’d bring a stack of books over, huffing as he flicked through them one by one, declare there was nothing useful in any of them, get another stack of books, and repeat. He wasn’t intentionally wasting time. He just couldn’t see for looking when he was stressed.

  In fact, the first thing he said when I reached the attic was, “We haven’t got the books we need,” to which I unzipped my bag and tipped said books onto the desk. “But—”

  “Pack it in.”

  He got up and started pacing the room.

  I said, “I read the tweets.”

  Still pacing.

  “Thank you for sticking up for me.” Now I’d calmed down, I appreciated how he’d ended up saying what he had. He’d made a bloody heroic effort to keep his cool. “Anyway, I’ve always done OK with debates in class.” In truth, they made me cack myself, but that wasn’t going to placate Noah.

  “Way better than OK.”

  “There you go, then. Nothing to worry about.” I watched him pass by and up to the other end of the room. “Noah…”

  “I hate this.”

  I didn’t need to ask what. “I know, but realistically, you’ve already got a 2:2 on the poetry anthology. Even if you don’t improve that, your module score will drop to a
2:1 at the very worst, and you’ll easily get firsts on your diss and the other modules.”

  “I want a first in poetry, too,” he said sulkily.

  “You and me both, mate, but we’re being taught by a moron.”

  “He’s got a PhD.”

  “Yeah, I bet he got it from one of those fake online universities.”

  Noah grunted and stopped pacing.

  “Or in a Christmas cracker,” I added, but it wasn’t necessary. Noah returned to his seat and loaded up his anthology on his computer. I was still working on my mum’s laptop, and we both cracked on, using different books and then swapping, comparing notes, arguing points and generally jollying each other along. By the time Leigh and Matty got home, we’d finished the first part of our anthologies and even managed a couple of hours’ work on our dissertations.

  We heard fast, light footsteps on the attic stairs, and Matty appeared in the doorway. “Yay! You’ve turned him human again!” He grinned and came straight over to kiss Noah’s scowl.

  “What did we miss?” I asked.

  “Not a lot. I saw Carlos at lunchtime. He’s very keen to get this restorative justice underway.”

  “Yeah, well, he’ll have to wait. I can’t fit in anything else this week.”

  “I was going to suggest leaving it a while, anyway, but I can’t do it.”

  “That’s a pity.”

  “Well, Sheri said it was up to me, but seeing as I still want to high-kick him in the face…”

  I chuckled. “I can see why that might be a bit of a problem.”

  “Are you going through RJ with Sarah as well?”

  I grimaced. “I think I’ll play it by ear.”

  “Your call, mate.” He obviously thought I should, but he let it be. “Yep. So, I think Sheri’s probably going to do it for you and Carlos.”

  “OK.” I’d only ever had one conversation with Sheri Powell, if it could be called that. She was director of Student Support—hence Matty’s boss as well as Leigh’s aunty—and she’d come over to our table in the café, to ask if we’d seen him. “After reading week, then?”