‘Nah, it’s on her.’ A guy points to me.
There’s a pause, and everyone looks at me, and I open my mouth to say we shouldn’t play anymore, but then I swallow without saying anything, and I stand up and follow Alex, who is already walking back towards the side of the house.
I’m shaking, and my legs are jelly.
There’s about a metre of space between the house and a wooden fence. It’s shadowy. There are spider webs further down and what looks like a broken rake, an old broom and a pile of bricks. The whole thing is decidedly unromantic. Alex leans against the fence and I stand in front of him, leaning back against the house. His feet almost touch mine. I’m worried about spiders and bugs getting in my hair.
‘I didn’t kiss Sarah.’
‘Who’s Sarah?’
‘The girl I just came back here with before.’
‘Oh, cool. I mean, I don’t care. We don’t need to kiss either. Obviously.’ My face feels hot.
‘I know.’
‘This is an awful game.’
‘It was your idea.’
‘I mentioned it. I didn’t suggest we play it.’
Thirty seconds have passed. Forty. We’re not going to kiss. Of course we’re not. They start the ten-second countdown. He shifts his weight and moves his foot slightly and his shoe touches mine. I can’t tell if it’s accidental or on purpose.
‘Three—two—one!’
We both hesitate. Then I push off the side of the house at the same time he pushes off the fence, and we’re face to face, our bodies close to touching.
It seems like he’s going to say something, so I move slightly closer. He smells unbelievably good.
Alex doesn’t say anything. Instead, he leans over and gently kisses my cheek. His lips are soft, and his stubble is scratchy.
My heart is hammering in my chest.
‘Hey, you two! Minute’s up!’
Alex turns and walks around the corner, and I follow him back out to the party.
Vanessa is staring at us both as I sit back down in the camping chair. I’m trembling a little but trying my very hardest to look normal.
The bottle has been kicked away by this point and everyone has moved on to something else. Alex doesn’t look at me for the next thirty minutes—I know because I sneak a look at him roughly every minute. Vanessa looks at me though. I catch her quickly turning away a few times.
At ten-thirty, I decide to go home. I’ve hardly spoken to anyone since spin the bottle, so I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell anyone I’m leaving.
I hover near Owen for a moment, but he’s deep in conversation. He looks up and I wave, and he waves back. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure that’s the last time Owen Sinclair and I will ever communicate. I feel a surge of excitement at the fact that I don’t care. I don’t care what this hot guy thinks of me. It feels like maybe the most emotionally stable moment of my life so far.
I book a car and it tells me the driver is two minutes away. I walk through the lounge room and Alex is there, talking to a group of people, including Vanessa. He looks up at me.
‘Hey,’ he says, smiling.
‘Bye,’ I say.
‘You’re going?’
Does he sound disappointed? Surprised? Relieved? I wish Lucy was here so she could help me figure it out.
‘Yup,’ I say.
He gets off the couch and walks over to me. ‘How are you getting home?’
‘Uber.’ I don’t know why I am giving him one-word answers to every question.
‘Is that safe?’ He frowns a little.
‘You’ve never got an Uber before?’
‘Well, yeah, but I mean…’
‘Safe for girls on their own?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s a sexist question.’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes.’ I actually have no idea. I am a feminist, but I don’t really know the rules yet. I like the idea that he’s worried about me, but I hate the idea he thinks I’m a little kid who can’t get herself home.
‘Take my number and text me to let me know you got home,’ Alex says.
‘What? No.’ I don’t know why I say this, because the thought of swapping numbers with him makes my heart speed up and my cheeks get warm, and also this is a system Lucy and I have had in place for years. But something about it feels brotherly. I don’t want Alex to treat me like a female version of Zach. I want him to think of me like he thinks of Vanessa, minus the baggage.
‘Come on. If Mum found out I let you get an Uber alone without checking you got home safe, she’ll be so mad at me.’ This is true. Mariella regularly talks to her sons about how to be good men in the world, and one of her favourite topics is teaching them to think and care about the safety of women.
‘Fine.’
I hand Alex my phone and he adds himself as a contact. He passes it back, and we say goodbye. Is there something lingering in his eyes as we do? They seem…soft. Warm. Or maybe I am overthinking things, or maybe I am seeing the reflected glow of his interaction with Vanessa, or the lamp in the corner.
I would dismiss everything between us as a figment of my imagination, but that kiss on the cheek happened.
Outside I wait for my Uber, and check behind me, in case Alex is going to come running after me (in the movie version of my life, someone would always come dramatically running after me), but he doesn’t, and then my car arrives, and I get in.
I text Mum to say I’m on my way home.
Then Dad texts me: ‘Are you still at the party?’ Dad is still living in the same house as Mum. Why wouldn’t they be talking to each other about this? This is a preview, I understand suddenly. Life with divorced, overly invested parents means having to tell them both where you are at all times. It means having to come up with lies that will work on them both if I need to lie about stuff. It means making sure they are treated equally in everything, down to a damn text message.
I get out of the car at my house and before I walk inside, I text Alex Home safe. I was going to be cute with gif or an emoji, but I decide not to be, because I can’t think of anything that hits the right tone of I’m funny and adorable but also I don’t care at all, and many men and women are in love with me and I’m probably messaging them right at this very minute too. He writes back Good. See you soon. I don’t write anything back to that, but later that night, I lie in bed and look at the messages, and run over a million scenarios of things I might have written, and what he might have written back, and what might have happened then.
I can’t stop thinking about the Kiss. On. The. Cheek. (Aka The Greatest Thing To Romantically Happen To Me, If In Fact It Is Romantic.)
Thinking of the cheek kiss is like pressing on a bruise, but instead of pain, I feel a burst of happiness. Right now is the best time—before I can be disappointed, before I find out Alex isn’t interested in me at all, before I can ruin things. Tonight, everything is still possible.
6
A House Full of Gryffindors
‘What happened?’ Zach says.
‘Every detail,’ Lucy says.
The three of us are lying on the deck at Zach’s house the next day. Lucy has her head on Zach’s chest, hair fanned out in all directions. It still hurts my selfish heart, seeing her lying on him so casually. I love them both so much, so it doesn’t make sense that I am still ever so slightly unhappy that they’re so happy. But I guess it does, because they don’t need my love like I need theirs anymore, and that hurts.