‘It’s not you. It’s about feeling safe,’ I tell him. Hives and concentrated patches of heat are blistering on my body. ‘I mean, I guess it’s about you a little bit . . . or anyone I don’t know. It’s confusing . . . complicated.’ It’s like trying to talk underwater; nothing coming out of my mouth sounds like it should. ‘We’re still working on figuring it out.’
‘Norah.’ Luke’s hands go up. ‘It’s okay. Am I grilling you too much?’
‘No. It’s just, my head works so fast sometimes. I want to explain it, but most of the time I don’t understand it.’
‘You’re shaking a little,’ he says, looking at my hands. I retract them, pull them back up into my sweater sleeves, and tuck them underneath my knees. ‘I know this is tough to talk about, but will you let me know if there’s anything else you’re afraid of? I don’t want to scare you again.’ His voice is so soft, you’d think he was reading me a bedtime story. I consider offering him a list then remember he has a life to get back to.
‘Everything,’ I confess in a whisper. ‘I’m afraid of everything.’
He looks so loaded with sympathy there’s a real danger of him joining me for a dip in my ice-cold pool of depression.
‘You know what scares me?’ he says, sitting up suddenly. Something in the air shifts. His voice is light. It makes the sombre fog scatter.
‘What?’
‘Spiders. Not the small ones.’ He doesn’t quite beat his pulsing pectorals. ‘The big ones. Anything equal to or more than the span of an Oreo.’ He shudders. ‘I can’t handle them.’
This guy makes me smile so easily. I have to wonder if his cologne is mixed with laughing gas.
We sit at the table until nine-thirty. Talking nonsense about movies and music. He likes horror, like me, and if anybody asks, he listens to all the latest bands, but secretly, his heart belongs to jazz. He talks about musicians I’ve never even heard of and does a pretty convincing playing-the-saxophone impression. He prefers comics to books, and when he graduates from high school he wants to study fine art.
It’s weird. I know he goes out, has friends, throws banging parties and the whole school shows up, but his mouth moves at lightning speed, like he hasn’t spoken to a single soul in more than a million years.
‘I gotta go,’ he says, glancing at the retro Casio on his wrist. ‘Need to drop my phone at the store before school starts, see if they can fix it. I might not be able to text for a while. Just so you know. I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you.’
I wasn’t thinking that – not until he said it, anyway. Doubt sneaks up behind me like some horny dude at a disco, its arm snaking around my waist, wrapping me in its cruel embrace.
I wonder if I’m ever going to see him again. The last hour and a half rolls through my head; everything I’ve said, done, is highlighted. I’m looking for anything that might have put him off coming over again. All of it, I conclude. Doubt hugs me tighter.
‘We’ll chat soon, though,’ Luke tells me. But all I can focus on is the lack of a specific date. When is soon? My mind is pushing the idea that soon is never. Is his phone even broken? My heart splinters, but I refuse to let the anguish creep into my face. I stand up, swallow down all the feelings. They taste like ash and scratch like nails.
‘Catch you later,’ he says, signing off with a half-wave.
‘Bye,’ I tell him. And with that, he leaves.
I’m joined in the kitchen a few moments later by Mom. She’s carrying a tray of scrawny, scrunched-up seedlings. They’re exhausted, like the world was too much for their fragile little frames so they went to sleep instead. I can relate.
‘I like him,’ Mom says, squirting the plant graveyard with some of her ‘special mixture’. I’m not sure what she puts in it, but it gives her dying flowers a new lease of life. For another week, anyway.
I wonder if it would be safe for me to use in the shower.
I don’t respond to her Luke comment. I’m too busy pondering whether or not I’m going to see him again.
‘Are you okay?’ she asks.
‘I’m fine,’ I reply, fixing a plastic smile on my face. ‘I’m going to go and read for a bit.’
I skip to my bedroom and turn into a troll the minute I close the door. My shoulders slump forward and my steps get heavy. I thump down on to my mattress, grab my laptop instead of a book. I’m not really sure why, but I scan through my search history and click on one of the kissing videos. Instead of the cute couple wearing matching sweaters and strolling through an auburn wilderness, I see me and Luke. There are none of my issues stacked up between us, stopping him from clasping my hand.
I spend the rest of the afternoon reading Plath and wondering if Mom will let me paint my bedroom black.
Another Monday morning arrives, but, for the first time since June, it looks like it’s going to rain. We’re currently cruising towards the end of September, so you could say it’s been a while.