will leave me.
There was a second verse. He had found love. The light had extinguished the darkness. They danced as though there was no one watching. Then the chorus again; this time it sounded more hopeful, like the coda to a romcom. The final verse was desperate. She had left him. He was alone again, hated for what he was rather than loved for what he wasn’t.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s beautiful, angry and sad, all at the same time. What’s the name of the band? Maybe we could go and check them out in Norwich?’
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never played it to anyone before. If you didn’t like it I would have destroyed it.’
‘It’s amazing,’ I said. ‘Is it about something that happened to you?’
‘Perhaps but not necessarily,’ he said. If I hadn’t been so distracted by the way his eyes were consuming me and wondering what this meant I might have saved myself a lot of heartache later. He looked away.
‘Shall we watch
Breaking Bad
?’
We settled on our fronts beside each other. He put on
the DVD and pressed pause at the bit where the charred pink and white bear floats in the pool. Jay rolled onto his side and leaned on his arm.
‘You know you have the blondest hair and darkest eyes I have ever seen,’ he said.
‘And you have the darkest hair and bluest eyes that I have ever seen,’ I replied, turning towards him. We were facing each other. Outside the wind howled. And at that moment it felt as if we were the last people on earth.
‘We’re like photographic negatives.’
‘My Armenian ancestry,’ he said. ‘My grandfather survived the 1915 massacre and migrated to the USA. He was the only male in his family to survive.’
‘That combination of black hair and blue eyes is a really rare genetic mutation.’
‘How so?’
‘You really want to know?’ I asked, because one thing I had learned about boys you liked was that being clever could count against you. He put out his hand and it drifted towards my face, lingering by the side of my cheek so that I could feel its heat. I tried not to think about what might happen next because from my limited experience of clumsy fumblings I knew that anticipation mostly beat the event. But he didn’t try to touch me and instead put his hand back on his hip.
‘I want to know everything about you,’ he said.
‘The genes for dark hair and blue eyes don’t usually travel together. They’re further apart on Chromosome 15.’
‘How
do you know this shit?’
‘I just do,’ I said. ‘My dad’s a scientist. He has an explanation for everything.’
‘Why don’t you ask him about your mum then?’
We were back where we started. And that’s how it usually worked with boys. You talked and thought you were getting somewhere, and then they retreated because they thought they’d invested enough time on the preamble. From previous experience I knew this was the point he might suggest half jokingly that I might want to blow him. The Internet had reduced oral sex to a form of extreme kissing, and even though most girls refused, enough said yes to make it worth a punt. But Jay didn’t follow the script.
‘You know our bedrooms face each other?’ he said, suddenly biting off the head of the reindeer.
‘I didn’t until today.’
‘Why do you close your curtains during the day and open them at night?’
‘It’s much darker here at night than in London. I get scared.’
‘I really like the way you dance and pretend your hairbrush is a microphone,’ he said. ‘I like the way you move. So fluid. Like you’re made of liquid.’
‘You’ve been watching me!’
‘It made me feel less lonely.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I feel like I’ve got to know you without the pressure of getting to know you, if you know what I mean.’
‘I
think so.’ Actually that part I didn’t understand. And by the time I did, I was in too deep. But according to my dad, when you meet someone for the first time and you really like them
There was a second verse. He had found love. The light had extinguished the darkness. They danced as though there was no one watching. Then the chorus again; this time it sounded more hopeful, like the coda to a romcom. The final verse was desperate. She had left him. He was alone again, hated for what he was rather than loved for what he wasn’t.
‘What do you think?’
‘It’s beautiful, angry and sad, all at the same time. What’s the name of the band? Maybe we could go and check them out in Norwich?’
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never played it to anyone before. If you didn’t like it I would have destroyed it.’
‘It’s amazing,’ I said. ‘Is it about something that happened to you?’
‘Perhaps but not necessarily,’ he said. If I hadn’t been so distracted by the way his eyes were consuming me and wondering what this meant I might have saved myself a lot of heartache later. He looked away.
‘Shall we watch
Breaking Bad
?’
We settled on our fronts beside each other. He put on
the DVD and pressed pause at the bit where the charred pink and white bear floats in the pool. Jay rolled onto his side and leaned on his arm.
‘You know you have the blondest hair and darkest eyes I have ever seen,’ he said.
‘And you have the darkest hair and bluest eyes that I have ever seen,’ I replied, turning towards him. We were facing each other. Outside the wind howled. And at that moment it felt as if we were the last people on earth.
‘We’re like photographic negatives.’
‘My Armenian ancestry,’ he said. ‘My grandfather survived the 1915 massacre and migrated to the USA. He was the only male in his family to survive.’
‘That combination of black hair and blue eyes is a really rare genetic mutation.’
‘How so?’
‘You really want to know?’ I asked, because one thing I had learned about boys you liked was that being clever could count against you. He put out his hand and it drifted towards my face, lingering by the side of my cheek so that I could feel its heat. I tried not to think about what might happen next because from my limited experience of clumsy fumblings I knew that anticipation mostly beat the event. But he didn’t try to touch me and instead put his hand back on his hip.
‘I want to know everything about you,’ he said.
‘The genes for dark hair and blue eyes don’t usually travel together. They’re further apart on Chromosome 15.’
‘How
do you know this shit?’
‘I just do,’ I said. ‘My dad’s a scientist. He has an explanation for everything.’
‘Why don’t you ask him about your mum then?’
We were back where we started. And that’s how it usually worked with boys. You talked and thought you were getting somewhere, and then they retreated because they thought they’d invested enough time on the preamble. From previous experience I knew this was the point he might suggest half jokingly that I might want to blow him. The Internet had reduced oral sex to a form of extreme kissing, and even though most girls refused, enough said yes to make it worth a punt. But Jay didn’t follow the script.
‘You know our bedrooms face each other?’ he said, suddenly biting off the head of the reindeer.
‘I didn’t until today.’
‘Why do you close your curtains during the day and open them at night?’
‘It’s much darker here at night than in London. I get scared.’
‘I really like the way you dance and pretend your hairbrush is a microphone,’ he said. ‘I like the way you move. So fluid. Like you’re made of liquid.’
‘You’ve been watching me!’
‘It made me feel less lonely.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘I feel like I’ve got to know you without the pressure of getting to know you, if you know what I mean.’
‘I
think so.’ Actually that part I didn’t understand. And by the time I did, I was in too deep. But according to my dad, when you meet someone for the first time and you really like them
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