by Phil Stamper
I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I did the math last night—okay, I borrowed Dani’s phone because there’s no Wi-Fi here and I have no data, and a website did the math for me. I put in my height and weight, and the site calculated my BMI, which is a number that supposedly corresponds to how much body fat you have.
The science behind it is questionable, but guaranteed to make you feel bad about yourself. Normal weight is eighteen and a half to twenty-five. Obesity is thirty. My number is twenty-seven.
Each pasty in the cart might as well be in the shape of the number twenty-seven, because it’s all I see.
Everything affects me more here, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m away from home, or if it’s because I’ve been left to my own devices for the first time ever. I miss when things were simple, cut-and-dried. When I had time and space to recover, or to hide. When I had Megan to make my decisions for me. To tell me when to push against myself. Everything here triggers the panic in my chest, the tension in every muscle.
I know I should eat something. But I can’t bring myself to order it.
“You know, my stomach is a little upset,” I say. “I might sit this meal out.”
Sophie gives me a quick stare. “You skint? Broke, I mean. I can get you something.”
“Oh, yes, totally, but it’s not that.” I smile so she knows it’s not. “I’m good. Seriously.”
The others don’t seem particularly concerned, except Pierce, who briefly puts his palm on my back before reluctantly ordering a sausage roll.
I drink the water I ordered and zone out, looking through the windows and out into the plaza. As the others finish their lunch, I notice the red, green, and white dragon flag that flies outside a souvenir shop, simply called Shop Wales.
I excuse myself to take a look, and walking through the doors, I’m comforted by the rows of shot glasses, postcards, and flags. Mugs with pictures of the British royal family on them. Soccer jerseys out the ass.
I figure I should grab some souvenirs from each place I visit. Some I can send to my parents or Nana, but some for me too. I will save one from each place to remind me of the trip.
Since I’m trying to keep to a budget, I focus on the cheap postcard section. It’s dull, to say the least. Historic pictures of the town, a million pictures of the castle we’ve yet to see. Nothing here strikes my fancy, as the Brits say—even though I’ve never actually heard them say it. Until I find the tackiest one in the whole shop.
What is love? the postcard asks, followed by an image of a Welsh sheep and Baby don’t herd me. Tacky postcard and a tacky pun that quotes a tacky ’90s song.
Perfect.
Sophie comes in as I’m paying, and giggles out loud at the postcard.
“Real mature,” she says. “Sending that one to your mum?”
“Absolutely not. She hates puns.” I chuckle. “It seems like that group does a lot of traveling. If we keep going on trips, I’d like to have a postcard from each one.”
“Good idea.” She grabs one of her own from the counter.
She’s looking down at the postcard, but I feel the tension in her stance. I place an arm on her shoulder, and bend to look at her face.
“Sorry,” she says. “Lost in thought. Those guys are … nice. Nicer than I expected.”
“Of course they are. What do you mean?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know, they never seemed that way. I’ve been burned before with friendships. I tend to be the one you’re friends with until someone better comes along.”
She’s not making eye contact, but I still look into her face. Megan and I have always been each other’s number one. We have our issues, but I can’t imagine not having that one person. That real best friend.
The Welshman at the register smiles at us as he completes the transaction.
“Diolch.” Sophie smiles as she speaks.
I stare at her, and the cashier chuckles. “Thanks to you too. Glad you like the joke—‘What Is Love’ is a funny song on its own.” He leans across the counter and drops his voice to a whisper. “Did you know Cardiff is the city of love?”
“Is it, now?” Sophie draws out her sentence, while my cheeks burn red.
“No, not really. But I tell all the couples that—it sounds rather nice, don’t you think?”
“The city of love,” she echoes. She turns, her braids fanning out around her, and walks out the door. “Well, for one of us, it is.”
Her words sit with me for the walk to Cardiff Castle. And it’s a long walk. It should have been a fifteen-minute journey, but I guess signs are hard to read and no one bothered to look it up.
I grit my teeth as we walk through the gates to Cardiff Castle.
I can go with the flow. I’m the flowiest goer there ever was.
We’ve just walked onto the castle grounds, and it hits me so hard—America is freaking young. An expansive lawn is spread out before me, with trees and grass and only a couple dozen tourists littered throughout. We’re flanked by the walls that divide the castle grounds from the city of Cardiff. In here, it’s different. It’s peaceful and stately. The smell of freshly cut grass hits my nose.
Dani and Ajay take pictures of each other in a touristy re-creation of medieval stocks. She hangs her head low while putting her hands through the holes. They’re a cute couple. The type you’d love to go on a double-date with. They complement each other, and neither one seems to take anything too seriously. They walk away together, hand in hand.
Sophie has run off too, possibly to learn more random Welsh phrases.
That leaves me and Pierce, alone in the fake city of love.
“The castle was built in the 1000s,” I explain. “Like, one thousand AD. It’s crazy, isn’t it? Over seven hundred years older than America.” Pierce eyes me. “What? I—”
“Googled it?” He snickers at me. “What don’t you google?”
“I like to be prepared. To know what I’m getting into, you know?”
“That’s why you knew the castle cost seven pounds, and how many kilometers we’d be driving, right? If you didn’t admit you googled everything, people might think you’re a genuine know-it-all.”
“Hey!” I snap.
We cross over the moat and start to scale the ancient stone staircase to get to the keep of the castle. He shrugs as he places a warm, guiding hand on my back. “I’m teasing you, love. Tell me more about these rocks.”
I hesitate before I continue speaking. “It actually dates back to first century AD. This spot, at least. It was a defensive fort for the Romans, left mostly abandoned until the eleventh century. There are conflicting theories about who built it up first, but the castle was built in the late eleventh century and continued throughout most of the millennium.”
Silence.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Through the castle walls and into the keep lies a simple but stunning yard. The top of the castle is behind, and I try to imagine the activities that went on here. It’s a small space, but it’s hallowed ground. Stonehenge was impressive in a “hey, those rocks have been sitting there for millennia” kind of way. This is different. Rich with heritage.
A stronghold.
Pierce is already up the stairs to the top of the keep, and I follow behind him, inching past a group of younger schoolkids coming down the staircase.
It’s dark in here. We’re alone.
There’s a stone window that’s no wider than the size of an index card and the length of my forearm. Pierce presses his face into the opening. I lean over him and look out the top half of the window, and see the city of Cardiff unfold beyond the castle walls. Another ancient tower stands on the grounds, with the rugby stadium behind it. A weird pairing of modern design with medieval architecture.
“I’ve never seen something like this,” I admit. “There’s so much here. There’s too much here. I’ll never be able to see it all.”
“Not with that attitude we won’t.”
We. Are
we a we? I like that.
My stomach growls, but he ignores it. I ignore it. He puts his arms around my waist and smiles at me.
“We’ll get you to Italy. Don’t worry.”
I pull him into me and hold him close. I kiss his forehead. He places his head on my chest, which swells with excitement and energy and …
Hope.
Opening up to Pierce reveals a soreness, a vulnerability I never knew I could have. But I cling on to this boy. I’ll cling on to my new friends, and my new life. It’s only been one week, but I’m starting to feel like this could be home.
Cardiff really must be the city of love.
SEVENTEEN
The city center of Cardiff isn’t too dissimilar from some of the more modern streets of London. Wide pedestrian walkways are flanked by stunning new buildings, public art intertwines with restaurants’ outdoor seating, behemoth trees poke out from the concrete to provide shade for the many public benches. People converse in a myriad of languages, and tourists dart about in every direction—it’s crowded, but not so crowded I get that pang in my chest that tells me to go hide in a bathroom.
It’s nice.
And apparently, it’s a perfect spot for a street performance.
“So … you do this everywhere?” I ask as Pierce sits next to me on a bench that overlooks the towering Cardiff Central Library.
Dani puts her flute together, while Ajay paces around her, trying to figure out the best lighting for the video he’s about to shoot.
“She does,” Pierce says with a laugh. “She has no shame, it’s astounding. Not that she should, mind you. She’s really good.”
“Oh, yeah. I shared sheet music with her in the park; she’s great. It’s kind of weird, though, right? I don’t mind performing, really. I can shut everyone else out and feel the music. But that duet with Sang in the tube was a whole different experience. I felt so exposed.”
Pierce settles in next to me. There’s definitely enough room for the two of us on this bench, but he’s pressing into me just slightly, his shoulder resting into my arm. My stomach growls, and I wrap an arm around my gut to try to suppress the sound.
“Let’s go, Dani!” Pierce shouts. “We need that beer money!”
He laughs, and I silently roll my eyes. But he gets things started by tossing a five-pound bill in her upturned flute case. Dani gives a nod of approval, then starts.
The piece is melodic and slow. Our marching band medley was full of songs that were snappy, loud, and fun, but what pours out from her instrument is a complete one-eighty. Soft, sad, at times barely audible over the din of the crowd, but when she builds—and wow, does it build—it causes people to quite literally stop in their tracks.
“Wish you’d brought your oboe?” Pierce asks.
I shrug in response.
A group forms near her, not a super obvious semicircle, but mini-crowds dotted across the walkway. A woman nearby hands something to her toddler, who toddles toward the upturned flute case in front of her. He throws a couple of coins in, then returns to his mom, who stays for the full performance.
Others follow suit, mostly as they pass by, but I find it hard to focus on them. I close my eyes as the clinking of small change adds an off-beat rhythm to her piece, accenting the swell and fall of her phrasing.
“Okay, this is kinda cool,” I admit. “No one seems annoyed at all. If anything, they’re delighted to have some music interrupt their day. It’s wild.”
“They’re annoyed sometimes,” Pierce says. “Especially when I bring my trumpet out, as that’s a bit louder. But yeah, you’d be surprised how many people stop to take it in.”
“It’s cool that we have that power. To pop out of nowhere and make a group of people bond over music.”
“So you wish you’d brought your oboe.”
I laugh, as a wave of anxiety sweeps over my body. There’s no way I could do that again. Or could I?
“Almost,” I finally reply.
We’re back at the cottage, which is still as adorable as humanly possible. Their goal was to get pissed tonight—“pissed” meaning “drunk”—so they each bought a handful of the big 440-milliliter cans of cheap beer, financed by Dani’s spontaneous busking. Sophie and I got a cider each, because drinking underage gives me more anxiety than it supposedly relieves. Why she’s nursing her drink is anyone’s guess, but with the way she casually watches the conversations, she still doesn’t trust this group.
“Come outside with me,” Sophie says.
My eyebrows arch, as I find the proposition a little weird. But I go along with it, and no one seems to notice or care. When we get outside, she walks a few steps into the gravel, and I watch as she takes a deep breath. I do the same, subconsciously. The air’s nice here. Woodsy. Green.
“Should have brought a jacket out with me. Assume you don’t smoke?” She pulls out a large yellow pouch, a pack of gum, and some erasers.
I shake my head, and when I come closer, I see the pouch is tobacco, the pack of gum is actually a pack of filters, and the erasers are in fact filters. She’s assembling her own cigarettes.
“I didn’t realize you could make cigarettes.” Could I be any more naive? “How does that affect your clarinet playing?”
“Everyone’s a casual smoker in London. Well, not you. Guess that group isn’t either.”
I shrug. “I’ll keep you company anyway.”
“Good. Can I talk to you about something that you won’t like?”
I turn to her. She looks at the moon.
“I guess I’ll just tell you,” she says. “I almost told you last night, after you left his room.”
“This is about Pierce.”
“It is.” She sucks in smoke and blows it out quickly. “I’m starting to like Pierce too. And I feel bad for what I said at the pub, just unloading all that on you with no context. But … I think you need the full story.”
“Okay,” I say, drawing out the word.
“See, the flautist I told you about? Pierce’s ex?” She looks to me for recognition, but my face is frozen solid. “Right. You know. I thought he and I were going to be best friends. We clicked so well, and so did he and Pierce.”
I turn from her, because whatever she’s about to say, I don’t want her to see my reaction to her words. She continues.
“When things ended, Colin was devastated. Pierce didn’t even break up with him—just kept putting off his calls, texts. Pierce was on to someone else so fast, and revealed that information to Colin forty minutes before his Friday recital. To paraphrase Taylor Swift here, he gave it all to Pierce, who changed his mind. He was a mess. He cried on my shoulder until the stage manager pried us apart.”
There it is. The pain that creeps back in my chest, leaving a burning residue as it slithers down my insides. We’re not even a thing, and it’s complicated. Aren’t things ever just okay? Can’t people fall out, but not fall apart?
“The performance went as well as you’d expect,” she says. “His playing sounded like he’d gone through a breakup minutes ago. Weak, sad, dead inside. After the recital, I couldn’t find him. He disappeared, then went to the main office the next day and dropped out of the academy.”
Deep breaths. I clench my fists, and fight the urge to hide from my anxiety. Seems like I never have that option here. I let Megan take control of my life back home, but here I’m on my own.
I have to face things head-on, again and again, even though it’s too exhausting. I’m too exhausting. The others might not think my reactions make sense, but they don’t see everything compounding through the day.
The stress of a car ride
The pangs of early love
The constant worry about how my every movement and every word are being taken
But I breathe. Because that’s the only thing that grounds me.
“I think … this could be different, and I hope it is. I just don’t want to see a friend go through this again.”
“Sophie,” I say. “I’m not
Colin. I’m not going to just disappear.”
She drops her cigarette on the gravel, and I clutch the cider I’ve barely touched. I’ve never felt so young. The can crinkles under my grip.
“Then what should I do? How do I stop it?” I turn, take a sip. “I’ve never felt this way. I see him and I think my heart stops. I can’t breathe. And I can’t hear everything you’re saying and not think that this is different. Even if it’s not, how can I not think that?”
“Marty …”
“Sometimes, when my anxiety gets too bad, I make a list of the things I worry about on my phone. Bullet points—sometimes three of them, sometimes twenty. But no matter how I try to break down that list, I can’t get rid of them. It’s what I do, it’s how I function, but worrying about it doesn’t help me make the right decisions, and it sure as hell doesn’t prepare me for what could happen. I know the stakes are high here. To fall for someone in your only friend group? To be on trips with a boy when I should really be practicing and applying for jobs 24-7? I can’t stay here if I don’t get a job. I’m running out of time, and I’m clearly getting distracted. But it’s also the first time I’ve ever been able to do something like this.”
Her arms are around me, and she’s squeezing tight.
I start to breathe again.
“You’re going to be okay,” she says. “But you strike me as a guy who likes to be prepared for all outcomes, right?”
I nod.
“With Pierce, this is a potential outcome. Prepare yourself for it. And don’t fucking run off on me like Colin, because I’m really tired of making new friends.”
I crack a smile, even if I’m a bit peeved at her for repeatedly warning me about Pierce. We’re a lot alike—calm but worried, perky but snarky—but she seems like she’s put together. She was instantly inviting, yes, but it’s more than that. It’s early in our friendship, but I can already tell. We just work.
“Soph,” I say. “I’m your friend. And not temporarily, until someone better comes along.”
The front door creaks, and Pierce takes a step into the night sky. He’s changed into a graphic tee and mesh shorts. He looks at me, and I feel it again. Dry mouth, caught breath. I’m in deep.
