by Holly Bourne
His speech sounded rehearsed, like he’d been practising alone. That made me feel good. He had been thinking about me. I glowed and then focused on being normal.
“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.” I’d just about held it together enough to get those six words out. But if I hung around much longer I would completely give myself away. “Bye then,” I stammered, then turned and walked off.
“Wait,” he called.
And then my hand was burning like it was on fire. Noah had grabbed it. His touch scorched my skin. I looked up in confusion and his eyes met mine. They looked tortured, burning with intensity, and my insides turned to blancmange. He kept hold of me and the fire coursed up my arm. We stared at each other for a few seconds, both silenced. My breathing got quicker, matching my panicked heartbeat, and the familiar feeling of sickness drew in. Wrong wrong wrong. Something was wrong. My whole arm was screaming. Just as I was about to pull my hand away, he withdrew his and shook his head as if to restore clarity.
“Sorry,” he said again.
“S’okay.” My heart rate slowed the moment the physical contact ended. I looked down at my arm and it was normal again, like nothing had happened. Had it?
He stared at his shoes and scratched his head, looking embarrassed.
I cleared my throat and tried to break the atmosphere. “Umm, I didn’t know you went to Middletown College.”
He looked straight into my eyes and my heart went into overdrive again. But, as if he knew what he did to me, he quickly lowered his gaze. “I don’t go here.”
“Oh. Then why are you here?” It was a direct question and it came out nastily.
He flinched and I felt guilty.
“Erm,” he said, “I was hoping to see you actually.”
I hadn’t expected that reply. I blushed and tried to hide my face with my hair. “Oh,” was the only reply I could muster.
“Look…” he said. Again I got the feeling he’d rehearsed this. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you and what happened. No one’s spoken to me like that before. I’ve never known anyone to speak their mind so bluntly.”
I kept my face down, not trusting myself to look at him. “It was stupid,” I muttered. “I’m sorry I was rude. I just lost my temper.”
My chin began to burn and he was touching me again. Pushing my face up, forcing me to stare into his dark eyes.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his pupils blazing into mine. “I liked it.”
All I could do was stare back. He still had his hand on me. It felt like a thousand watts were sprinting through my body, like when you touched that static machine in primary school science lessons. I felt a little sick again.
He spoke again. “Will you come out for a drink with me tonight?”
My brain was foggy. All I wanted to do was say yes. But something stopped me – the deal I’d made with myself yesterday, up on the common, when Noah wasn’t there to distract me.
I analysed what he’d said. He liked that I was rude to him. Scepticism began to replace the adrenalin. I’d become a challenge. I hadn’t fawned on him like he was used to and that intrigued him. My self-preservation superpowers kicked in. Once Noah had won me over, he would lose interest and piss off. It was textbook stuff. Well, if your textbook was Cosmo magazine.
Ignoring every physical impulse in my body that wanted him, I opened my mouth to speak.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” And for a moment, that actually felt like the truth – because suddenly an instinctive part of me was telling me to leave. Get away. Now.
Noah looked shocked. More than shocked. His eyebrows stretched up across his forehead in disbelief. This was probably the first time he’d ever been refused.
“Not a good idea?” He tried to smile, laughing it off. “Why not? I’m not going to drug you or anything. I just want to take you out for a drink.”
I forced myself to look directly into his eyes, ignoring the feelings it stirred. “I’ve got class in a minute.”
His face wavered with anger but he controlled it and pushed out another forced smile. He removed his hand, and shook it, like the movement would dislodge his embarrassment at even touching me in the first place. My skin still tingled from where it had been.
“Yeah, of course, sorry,” he murmured. “I should let you go.”
I stepped past him towards college. A few groups of students were milling around, wasting time before the bell went. I made about three metres’ progress before he called after me.
“Oh, Poppy?”
I hated myself for smiling when I heard him call my name. I quickly arranged my mouth into a more neutral expression before I spun round.
“What is it, Noah?” I tried to sound nonchalant.
He jogged over. “Hey,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “Maybe I was too…forward. Sorry about that, I’m not used to being turned down.”
I scowled and he noticed.
“Okay. That sounded really big-headed, didn’t it?”
I giggled. “Just a bit. Okay, a lot. Just because you’re in a band doesn’t make you an irresistible Adonis, you know.” I thought of Ruth, and smiled, wrinkling my nose. “Well, not to everyone.”
I was bluffing, of course. He was an irresistible Adonis. Anyone with a pair of working eyeballs could see that. But the bluff appeared to be believable. Noah didn’t look happy.
“Yeah well, I realize that now.”
I paused, waiting for his next move. The bell had just gone and all the other students had disappeared, but it didn’t seem important.
“Well, if the thought of going on a date with me is so repugnant, how about a drink with friends then?” He attempted another grin.
I shifted my bag from one shoulder to another. “I don’t understand.”
“After college,” he said. “I’m meeting the band in the Lock and Key for a few drinks. You could come along? Bring a few of your mates as well?”
I thought about it. The girls would kill me if I said no. Yet I was nervous. Seeing more of Noah wasn’t exactly going to help me exorcize this crush.
“I don’t understand why,” I asked.
“God – to be friendly?” he snapped. Then he shook his head. “Sorry, this is going all wrong. I shouldn’t have just sprung out on you like this. It seemed like a much cooler idea in my head. I just feel bad about what happened and I want to make it up to you and get to know you…” He saw me raising my eyebrows. “…And your friends much better. It’s a lovely day, it will be a lovely evening. The lads are really friendly and it will be fun.”
I found myself nodding.
“Is that a yes?”
“Erm…okay then.”
“Brilliant. See you at the Lock and Key at five-ish.”
Then he smiled a huge genuine smile, turned and jogged off, leaving me standing there open-mouthed like a fish.
I was late for my English lesson. I burst through the door to a class full of unimpressed and stony faces. I apologized to my teacher, who waved me away and continued teaching.
Frank had left a space for me and I scuttled over to him.
“What have I missed?” I whispered, getting my A4 notebook and biro out.
He handed me a copy of a book. I grimaced at the front cover. Ergh. Romeo and Juliet.
“It’s our Shakespeare play for this term,” he said. “Aren’t you supposed to simper and gush on about how romantic it is?”
I raised an eyebrow ironically at him in reply. He raised one back and we both laughed. He knew “simpering” wasn’t part of my vocabulary.
Frank Dayton was one of those friends you make out of convenience when you don’t know anyone in your class. None of my friends took English, so luckily I’d sat next to Frank in my first lesson, who didn’t know anyone either. We quickly discovered we shared a mutual love of sarcasm, passing judgement on everyone, and weird sci-fi loner novels. I sometimes spent time trying to decide if I fancied him. He was technically good-looking. Blond hair, gree
n eyes, worked out, all the usual box-tickers. But he just wasn’t my type. And he played rugby. Ergh. It was one of the things we argued about, as I usually couldn’t bear rugby players and their massive egos.
If I was really bored I would wonder if he fancied me, but was mostly certain we only mutually used each other to get through English A Level. We didn’t really speak outside of class and he never went to Band Night. He was into trance music. Double ergh. I regularly teased him on his musical choice. Why bother liking clubbing music when you live in Middletown? Where are you going to rave? In your Renault Clio?
My teacher, Ms. Gretching (very important you remember the Ms., she goes nuts otherwise) was still talking. She was droning on about how Romeo and Juliet were meant for each other but “true love” always self-destructs. I had an inkling this academic point wasn’t actually on the syllabus, and had rather more to do with the white strip of skin on her finger where her wedding ring used to be.
I groaned and lay my head on the table.
“Do you really hate Romeo and Juliet that much?” Frank asked, finding amusement in my dismay.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “The whole story is ridiculous. It’s just about a pair of melodramatic teenagers high on dopamine ruining their lives because of some adolescent crush. I wish we could have done Macbeth instead.”
Frank looked at me for a moment. “You’re really not like other girls, are you?”
I looked at the row of girls sitting opposite us. They were four identikit blondes Frank and I regularly took the piss out of because they obviously spent about two hours getting ready for college – full face of make-up, GHD ringlets, fake eyelashes EVERY day. They were hanging on Ms. Gretching’s every word, simpering whenever she used the words “soulmate” or “true love”.
I gestured towards them. “Thank God,” I replied.
We were instructed to start reading the first scene. Frank and I flipped our books open and read for a few minutes.
“So why were you late anyway?” he whispered, turning over a page. I saw he was two pages ahead and it bothered me. “You looked a bit flustered when you came in.”
I had a quick flashback to my Noah encounter and felt my breathing speed up. “If you must know,” I said. “I was being asked on a date.”
I studied Frank’s face for a reaction. He didn’t look upset. More surprised. So he didn’t fancy me then. Oh well, it figured, I supposed.
“Who would want to go out with a grunger like you?”
“Grunger? Seriously, Frank? It’s not the nineties. Just because I listen to real people making real music instead of a computer beeping repeatedly doesn’t mean I’m Kurt Cobain.” I was a little hurt by his remark. I knew he was joking, but he had just validated one of my biggest insecurities. Why would anyone want to go out with me?
Frank realized he’d picked a topic of conversation I wasn’t prepared to be sarcastic about and waved his hands like he was surrendering.
“Okay, firecracker. I didn’t mean it. I’m sure you’re lovely to go out with.”
“I’m delightful.”
“Of course.”
“Everyone’s dream woman.”
“Definitely.”
“I’m just jealous,” he said, eyes mischievous. “You see, I’ve been dying to take you out myself. There’s this great trance night I know about. Just your sort of thing. About time you started listening to proper music…oww.”
I had elbowed him in the ribs.
Ms. Gretching heard his yelp of pain and glared at us.
“Well,” she said. “Poppy and Frank have obviously finished the first scene. As you are both so enthusiastic, why don’t you read the parts of Romeo and Juliet in the next one?”
We both groaned.
“I blame you entirely,” I whispered as I forced myself to stand and read the part of wet, stupid Juliet.
English was a double lesson so, by the time I’d finished pretending to hurl myself around a balcony, it was lunchtime.
“You made a lovely Juliet,” Frank said as I pulled my chair back. “Very convincing.”
“Shut up, you,” I said, chucking my pen at him. Annoyingly, he caught it. “Anyway I noticed you doing loads of dramatic pauses in your Romeo monologue. Who do you think you are, Leonardo DiCaprio or something?”
“You’re just jealous.” Frank chucked the biro back at me.
I lunged for it but whacked it with my hand and it rolled under the table. I ducked to retrieve it, slightly conscious that my arse was poking out right in front of him.
“Of you? You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, finally grabbing my pen, wiggling up, and turning to leave. “Anyway, lovely as it was and all, I’m off.”
“Bye bye…Juliet.”
“Shut up.”
My friends were all in the canteen already, sitting at our usual table. Lizzie was sitting cross-legged, writing something in that bloody notebook she incessantly carried around. Ruth was, funnily enough, admiring herself in a compact mirror – ever the stereotype. And Amanda had Johnno with her. They were holding hands but both looked constipated with fear.
“Poppy!” Lizzie yelped when she saw me. “Guess what? The paper is interested in my dead fish story.”
“That’s brilliant,” I said, dumping my bag on the table and pulling out a chair. Amanda and Johnno smiled hello, while Ruth just nodded.
So she was going to be like that, was she?
“I’m a superstar,” Lizzie said, beaming.
“Lizzie, you’re not supposed to say that about yourself.”
“Screw that. Who else is going to pump me up? Journalism is a cut-throat world, you know. You have to believe in yourself.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled out my peanut butter sandwich. Lizzie’s determination was disconcerting. I was seventeen and didn’t have a clue what to do with my life. I didn’t particularly enjoy any of my A level subjects. I wasn’t particularly good at any of them either. I liked reading books, but only as a leisure activity. I hated studying narrative technique and all that drivel in my English lessons. I bit into my sandwich and let Lizzie’s excitable chatter wash over me, pondering the evening ahead. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was flattered Noah had picked me out, even if he was bad news. Admittedly, I didn’t know for certain he was bad news. Was I being unfair? Assuming he was a player just because he was good-looking and in a band?
No. It was more than that. He did something to me that I didn’t understand. I’d lost myself in just one weekend because of him. A sixth sense inside of me was flashing a warning light. Half of me wanted to ignore it and run straight to our date. But the other, sensible half had me on reins.
Lizzie eventually stopped droning on about newspapers and asked, “So what are we up to tonight? I’m not staying in on a Monday, it’s too depressing. Plus its ultra-gorgeous outside. We have to make the most of it.”
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my voice casual.
“Actually,” I said, screwing up the foil from my sandwich, “I bumped into that Noah guy this morning on the way to college and he invited us to go to the Lock and Key with his band.”
Everyone’s eyes were on me.
“What? When did you see him?” Ruth asked. She looked suspicious.
“We just bumped into each other and he asked if we wanted to come out.” I thought it best not to tell her he’d been waiting for me, hoping he would bump into me.
Lizzie looked like she was going to explode with excitement. “Tell me everything that happened,” she said. “Every last detail.”
I shrugged and tried to ignore Ruth’s dark look. “There’s no more detail. The whole band is going. It should be fun. Plus, if we get to know them better, we might be able to get free entry to Band Night.” I opened my bottle of water and took a much-needed gulp. “So, are you up for it?”
I surveyed their faces. Ruth was still glowering. Lizzie wiggled in her seat like a hyperactive five-year-old on Christmas morning, and Amanda just lo
oked overwhelmed. She was clutching Johnno’s hand, who wasn’t paying the situation any attention at all and was staring absent-mindedly out the window to where his mates were playing football.
“Of course we’re up for it,” Lizzie said. “Sounds like a laugh.”
I looked to Ruth. She glared for a few moments, and then her face softened.
“Yeah, I’m in. I quite fancied the bassist anyway. I might make him my new conquest.” She puffed up her chest theatrically and made us all laugh. I nervously reminded myself that, until yesterday, Noah had been her intended conquest.
We turned to Amanda in unison, waiting to hear her inevitable excuse.
Blinking at us desperately, she said, “Tonight? I think I’m supposed to be having dinner with my family tonight.”
We groaned. Nobody could lie worse than Amanda. She was incapable of pulling the wool over even a sheep’s eyes.
“Come on,” I said, poking her in the ribs, which I knew she hated. “It will be fun. New people. New conversation…”
“New totty…” Ruth chipped in and she smiled at me genuinely. So we had made up then. Phew.
Amanda looked to Johnno for backup but he was still watching the football. “I…I…did say I would have dinner with them…”
Lizzie took over. “For God’s sake, Amanda,” she said. “Even a nun could lie better than you. Isn’t that right, Johnno?”
Johnno pulled his attention back and looked at Amanda adoringly. “Yes,” he said to her. “You’re the most honest person I know. That’s why I like you so much.”
Amanda flushed the colour of a radioactive beetroot, and, as a result, Johnno turned mauve as well. They dropped each other’s hands and both looked at the floor.
Lizzie, Ruth and I all smirked.
Johnno got to his feet ungracefully and pulled his rucksack onto his shoulders. “Anyway…I’d better go join the guys outside for…er…the…rest of the match.”
Amanda could barely look at him. She shrugged her shoulders in a vain attempt at a breezy and non-committal manner. “Sure,” she said, her face still bright red. “See you later.”
