Frisky Business by Clodagh Murphy

much anyone could have done about it. Despite the fact that no one else had been able to see it, she had known they made perfect sense together.
    Wherehe had been weak, she had been strong, and vice versa – they complemented each other perfectly. She hadn’t minded that Kit wasn’t as bright as she was. She had been happy to help him with school work, glad that there was something she could do for him. And he had taught her things too. He had life skills to pass on, mysteries she would never have been able to penetrate on her own. He had shown her how to smoke a joint and had taken her to see bands no one else had heard of. And, shallow though it was, she had enjoyed the prestige that came with being his girlfriend. She had liked the fact that people looked at her differently when she was with him – boys with admiration; girls with envy. But more than all that, she had felt like Kit was the only person who really understood her. He had seen beyond the ‘good girl’ conformity to the person who was exactly like him – the person who felt just as out of place at school as he did and was simply taking the line of least resistance – keeping her head down and biding her time until she could take possession of her own life.
    Looking back, she didn’t think she had ever quite got over Kit. She knew she had never felt the same way about anyone else. Perhaps it was simply the intensity of first love that could never be matched. Maybe it was like that for everyone. But she couldn’t help longing to feel that way again. It wasn’t that she imagined herself still in love with him. He hadn’t been a part of her life for a very long time and she didn’t even know him anymore. She hadn’t spent the intervening years hankering after him, but she had hankered after someone
like
him – someone who would ‘see’ her like he had. She was a slow burn – she had come to realise that about herself. She wasn’t bubbly and vivacious, and easy to know – it took time and effort. But Kit had got her straight away, and had seen her as someone fun, interesting and worthwhile. There had neverbeen anyone like him. And now he was downstairs on her sofa.
    By six o’clock she was too restless to stay in bed any longer. She got up, pulled on an oversized cardigan and her boot slippers, and crept downstairs quietly so as not to wake Kit. She tiptoed into the living room and found him still fast asleep on the sofa-bed. She stood there for a moment, watching him.
    God, she’d had good taste back then. He had a fierce, striking
    kind of beauty. The sharp points and smooth planes of his face could have been chiselled from marble. He wore his hair very short now, and it accentuated the strong definition of his features.
    It seemed surreal that he was here in her house after all these years. It was hard to believe now that they had once been inseparable – her and this virtual stranger. They had been joined at the mouth for the whole of the final year of school, spending hours on end snogging. She looked at him wonderingly, remembering long summer days, the warmth of sun-baked red brick at her back, the heat of Kit’s body pressed against hers, and frosty winter nights under the orange glow of street lights, their breath mingling in the air between them. It all seemed so sweetly innocent now.
    As it didn’t look like he was going to wake up anytime soon, she finally dragged herself away and went to have a shower and get ready for the day.

    ‘Good morning.’ Romy was sitting in the kitchen, having coffee and leftover cake, and reading a magazine. She looked up to see Kit standing in the doorway, looking sleepy and dishevelled. He was wearing his jeans and his shirt was hanging open over them.
    ‘Hi!Would you like some coffee?’ she asked, jumping up from the table and moving over to the counter to grab the pot.
    ‘Yes, please,’ he said, buttoning up his shirt as he moved into the room.
    Romy busied herself with making fresh coffee