Camilla pushes her way through the crowd, catching the tail end of our conversation. She drops a paper bag on the ground. Adrian pounces on it eagerly.
‘Seriously, Josh, do not tell me you’re accepting romantic advice from this guy?’ she says, pointing at Sam with her thumb.
Sam squints up at her. ‘What’s wrong with accepting romantic advice from me?’
Adrian spits out a mouthful of cupcake as Camilla dissolves into laughter. ‘Sammy? You giving romance advice is like … Freddy Krueger sharing insomnia tips.’ She drops into his lap. ‘Maybe Joshua would like progress sometime this century?’
Sam kisses her forehead. ‘Yeah, okay. Point taken,’ he says with a grin.
Camilla huddles into him as the wind whips around us. ‘I, on the other hand, am possibly competent. News, please?’
I fill the guys in on my morning, trying for my most unbiased, facts-only manner. I leave out the bit where the unexpected sight of her almost sent me tumbling right back into prepubescent voicelessness. I also leave out the bit about my lucky coin. I’m not even sure why. Though I realise, after I’ve accidentally relayed my entire conversation with Sophia word-for-word, that I am smiling again like a massive tool-face.
Camilla chews the inside of her cheek. ‘Josh, I’m glad you’ve made contact. That’s progress, you’re right. But – and I’ve said this to you before, and I know it’s none of my business – but don’t you think that your idolising, as cute as it is, might be, well, a little bit unfair?’
I glance at the stage, where Jasper is either hastily rewiring an amp or attempting to garrotte his drummer. ‘I don’t idolise her, Camilla. I know her. And I think, if she just got to know me –’
‘Look,’ she says gently. ‘I’m sure Sophia’s great, but have you ever thought that maybe it’s, like, the idea of her that you’re infatuated with? She’s a real person, Josh. Not a … theory.’
I bristle. ‘That’s not true. I know her. I mean, okay, so, I don’t know her know her, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s special. I see her, Camilla.’
Sam’s chin is resting on Camilla’s beanie-covered head, his eyes studiously focused on the stage, the giant coward. Camilla untangles herself from him and drops onto the ground. ‘You do?’ she asks sharply. ‘You know her favourite milkshake, and, I dunno, the first cartoon character she had a crush on?’
‘Those things don’t matter. They’re just details. You can’t tell me you know all that stuff.’
‘Lime spider, and Raphael, the red ninja turtle,’ Sam says lightly. ‘A fact that I still find disturbing, by the way.’
She leans backwards. ‘Right. Cos your Princess Leia thing is not at all nerdy?’
Sam shrugs, grinning. ‘She wasn’t animated. Or reptilian.’ Camilla rolls her eyes at me. ‘Look, Josh, my point is – Sophia is a person. She’ll either like you, or she won’t. You can either ask her, or you can continue to sit in your room, pining and listening to Air Supply.’
I dig up a damp handful of grass. ‘Who’s Air Supply?’
Sam groans. ‘Dude, don’t ask. I’m pretty sure knowledge of hair-metal bands has pushed some actually useful stuff out of my head.’
Camilla punches his thigh. ‘Samuel, don’t even pretend you haven’t got a file of power ballads on your computer.’ She giggles. ‘Lucky I find your off-tune Whitesnake weirdly sexy.’
I doubt there is any part of that sentence that could be considered sexy. But then Sam pulls her backwards and kisses her, and I’m pretty sure they’ve forgotten about the existence of other humans.
Adrian nudges me, his chin covered in cupcake icing. ‘Think you’ve got about as much useful advice from Samilla as you’re gonna get. Unless the advice you’re after is related to the mechanics of being joined at the face. Cos I think Camuel might be, like, working towards a PhD in that.’
‘Shut up, Radley,’ Sam murmurs.
Adrian snorts. ‘Next time I’m bringing the spray bottle we use on the cat.’
I can’t help but laugh. It’s not like I’m the sort of guy who cries over Disney movies or anything. I mean, not anymore. But I like being around people who are happy. It gives me hope. Meeting these guys, seeing how Sam and Camilla are together – hell, it’s given me enough hope to get off my cowardly arse and do something.
The Annabel Lees finish their sound check and Jasper grunts something into the mic. It could be a hello, or could be a curse on the crowd and their firstborns. It’s hard to say.
The drums thunder through the ground. I lean backwards and let my gaze float to the sky, thinking about Camilla’s questions. I know she’s wrong. It’s not like I’ve spent the last five years obsessing over Sophia. It’s just that, in the background, I’ve always known she was there; this steady, fascinating presence in my peripheral vision. But it’s more than the idea of Sophia.
It’s – well, I can’t describe it in words. That’s the whole point. It’s intangible, indefinable. Like the best sort of magic.
My phone buzzes with yet another message. Crap on a stick. I yank it out of my pocket, but I don’t even need to look at the screen.
‘Problem?’ Adrian calls over the music.
‘Nah, man. Just my dad. I think he’s a bit excited. I should probably go.’
Adrian gives me another fist-bump as I stand and dust off my butt. Sam manages to extract his lips from Camilla’s long enough to shoot me a distracted ‘good luck’ before supergluing their faces together again.
I wave at Amy, who’s at the back of the crowd, staring at the stage with one of her eighteen variations of scowl. I head to the tram, pushing aside the jumbled thoughts jostling for room inside my skull. I ignore Dad’s texts, and the image of his expectant face, waiting with questions I have bugger-all answers for.
I focus on the task at hand.
I have a plan. For now, anyway. The rest – it’ll take care of itself. I have faith in my good karmic juju.
The future will be fine.
I’m fairly confident of this.
CHAPTER FIVE
The laws of thermodynamics
School. Another Monday. The same people dragging themselves to the same classes, the same background noise about weekend parties and hook-ups and break-ups. Like being stuck in a perpetual time loop, an infinite bootstrap paradox, all events fixed and predictable.
Monday morning’s double period is Drama with Ms Heller, in the building on the edge of the East Lawn. Which is why I’m somewhat perturbed to find myself walking through the blue year-twelve corridor, scanning the mental map of locker inhabitants that seems to have been inadvertently stored in my brain.
He has a top locker, but he still needs to bend down to rifle inside. It’s the locker that used to belong to Stephen Shilling, and it’s still covered with the remnants of his brief but memorable blaze of glory through St Augustine’s – multiple Sharpie sketches of penises with smiley faces, and the lingering smell of weed.
I hover, clutching my Drama books to my chest.