You Against Me

He was right. There were some potatoes in a basket at the bottom of the larder. He wrapped them in silver foil and shoved them under the fire. They played childish games while they waited for them – Noughts and Crosses and Hangman. She found a pack of cards and taught him to play Rummy and he taught her Go Fish. It was like a siege and they were hostages.

When they got bored of games, they lay next to the fire on their backs and looked at the ceiling. Spider webs shivered in each of the four corners. There were cracks all over the plaster and the paint was yellow from her grandfather’s pipe. It made Ellie sad. They lay there for ages not saying a word, not touching at all. She cheered herself up by sneaking looks at him. There was something about him that made her dizzy – the dark of his hair, the brown of his eyes, the angles of him lying next to her.

This is real, she thought. This is real.

She wanted him to touch her. She wanted to say, Kiss me, please, do it soon.

But if she said that, then he’d think she was easy.

Instead she said, ‘Tell me what you’re thinking.’

He was thinking she’d probably never been with a boy before. He was thinking he’d never been with a girl who’d never been with anyone else. He was wondering why that was freaking him out. Lying next to her in front of the fire was stirring him up, and the longer they lay, the more he wanted to touch her. But what if he made a move and he’d mis‑read the signs and she didn’t want him at all? Or what if he made a move and she did  want him, but then he was rubbish and she hated it? Whenever she was asked about her very first time she’d say, Oh, it was shit.

She treated her body as if it was really special. He’d noticed it at the river and again today – how she kept changing the position of a strap or pulling buttons shut or yanking her dress lower so he couldn’t see bits of her. It was like she had something hidden and if you got in there, you’d be really privileged. It made him think of that line in the Spider‑Man movie about power and responsibility. It was doing his head in.

‘I was thinking,’ he said, ‘about those potatoes. You reckon they’re ready?’

He dug them out with a fork while Ellie got plates from the kitchen. She came back with salt, pepper and, by some miracle, an unopened tube of cheese spread.

‘Found it in the herb rack,’ she said. She looked proud. Her face lit up with it.

They sat together on the carpet to eat, their plates on their knees. The potatoes were delicious.

‘This was a good idea,’ she said.

‘Coming here, or eating?’

‘Both.’

They smiled at each other. There was a sweet shyness about her that he really liked. It was as if his heart got rubbed clean looking at her, like it was possible to start again. You’re so pretty, he wanted to say. But he didn’t, because that didn’t seem enough.

‘I’m not sure about the cheese spread,’ she said. ‘It tastes like it’s only a molecule away from plastic. You know, if you put a pot of margarine on the lawn, not a single insect will touch it because it doesn’t recognize it as food?’

He laughed. ‘How do you know that?’

‘From Science.’

‘I don’t remember anything from school. The only lesson I liked was Food Tech and the rest was the most boring rubbish I ever had to listen to.’

‘You hated it that much?’

‘Don’t you?’

She shrugged. ‘Some things I like and the rest I put up with. Did you take any exams?’

‘They put me in for five, but I only got Food Tech and ICT.’

‘Did you revise?’

‘Not really. There was always something going on that seemed more important. You know – with my mum and sisters and everything.’

She nodded, but didn’t say anything.

‘Pass your plate,’ he said. ‘I’ll take it out if you’re done.’

He might not have hundreds of GCSEs, but he could build a fire, make food, clear up, which had to be worth something.

The water hadn’t been disco

‘Here,’ he said.

He sat back down on the carpet and watched her drink. He liked the way her throat moved, the sound of water falling into her. He liked it so much that he leaned right over and laid his head on her shoulder.

She laughed. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Listening to you.’

He could feel her breath on his face.

‘What do I sound like?’ she whispered.

‘Beautiful.’

He felt like a junkie might feel as he leaned in to kiss her.

She’d thought of it, dreamed of it, and here it was – like a slow drowning as his lips touched hers. She could feel his heart beating against her chest, could hear the pulse at her own neck thundering. It was how it should’ve been all along, and why had they wasted hours without touching at all?

Kissing Mikey McKenzie on the carpet in her grandparents’ cottage, the world felt more intimate and more exactly right than Ellie had ever guessed it could. It was like a shape had chosen her and shifted her from ordinary to special. She’d run like an animal through the rain and gone to find him. She’d caught a bus and brought him here.

It began to get gloomy outside. It would get darker and darker and later and later. It was a long bus ride back. There was no landline or mobile signal, there were no neighbours and nobody knew they were there.

Every now and then a picture of home would leak in – her father’s furious face, her mother’s disappointed one, the stabbed look in Tom’s eyes. The three of them would have eaten Sunday lunch with the solicitor by now. They’d be drinking coffee and talking about her, wondering where she was.

But the longer she kissed Mikey, the less important these things became.

He stroked her hair. She dared to touch his hip. There was a crazy flare under her fingers where her skin touched his. She buried herself in his neck and breathed in the boy smell of him.

‘I can’t get close enough to you,’ she said.

He looked at her with dark eyes, his breathing like an engine. He looked like he was sinking, like he couldn’t help himself as he reached to kiss her again. It made her want to laugh out loud. She did this to him. She  did. Ellie Parker. Never, ever had she dreamed she could feel so alive.

She said, ‘I haven’t ever…’ as he began to unbutton her dress, but then she gave up, because, in fact, she wanted him to unbutton it. It shocked her that this was true. How could she want this when she’d never done anything more than kiss a boy before?

He said, ‘You want me to stop?’

She shook her head.

‘We can just kiss,’ he said. ‘We don’t have to do anything else.’

‘I don’t want to stop.’

Every girl knows if you get into a situation with a boy who has had sex already, then he will want to have sex with you. He will push at your boundaries. If you say no to a boy like this, he will try and get you to change your mind.

But she wasn’t saying no.

She’d broken into her grandparents’ cottage and her rules were crumbling to dust. She’d known Mikey for less than eight weeks and this was only their second date.

‘Are you sure?’ he said.

She nodded.

Then.

He was on his knees and he held out his hand to her. She sat up and together they slid the dress from her shoulders. It was the blue dress she’d worn at the party the first time she’d spoken to him properly. That felt like years ago, like another life.

And how easy that life slipped off.

He knew he was supposed to take it slow, but all she had left was bra, jeans, knickers. Three things. He was burning with how much he wanted her. He reached out for the buckle on her belt.