Skinny Love

*This is a work of fiction.*

  I was told it would burn. Looking at him would burn. That I would hear my favourite song play every time I saw him smile. I would fall in love and remember the moment.

            Sometimes I flick through the dictionary that belonged to my grandfather and stop on a random page, picking a word out. Other times I choose two and see if they have any meaning when placed together.

Skinny Love: two people who love each other but are too shy to admit it.

            I occasionally wonder if we have just one great love in our lives, and all the others are merely shadows. I think about all the times I stared at the random boy on the bus, waiting for him to make a move and watching as he pushed the button, got off at his stop, and didn’t look back.

            I thought I knew who my great love was; I’d hear John Waite playing in my head every time he collapsed into his chair during fourth period French class. ‘I ain’t missing you at all’, a personal joke how I could lie to myself but really I just wanted him to see me.

            He did once, at a party. Around us glow in the dark paint got stamped into carpets and saloon style doors were ripped off their hinges, but I didn’t notice. School was over; university loomed in the autumn. It was the summer I wanted to remember, but after I wanted to forget. Typical drinking games turned into a chaste kiss he regretted and I cherished, the line ‘stop this heartbreak overload’ screeching in my ears as he hightailed out the room, leaving me behind like a mistake.

            I aimlessly question to myself whether he ever heard a song when he looked at me. I used to think it would be Foreigner’s ’Waiting for a Girl like you,’ but after that night, I felt Sinatra’s ‘The Lady is a Tramp’ was more suitable. 

            My favourite place in the world was the beach. I would catch the bus over with my dictionary clutched between my hands, hair knotted away from my face so it didn’t tangle in the wind. I’d sit there for hours, curled up watching the tide wash in and out, picking words from my book and spelling them out in pebbles around me.

            He was there one day, like he knew. The opening drumbeat started playing, and for the first time I wanted it to go away. He only said sorry, but his eyes said more. ‘I spend my time thinking about you’ ran through my head. Then he was gone. I never found out what song played when he saw me, but I’m starting to wonder if he ever really heard anything at all.

I fell in love with him at Christmas. I remember sitting on Eddie’s couch in his conservatory. He had sat down beside me and his leg brushed mine. He had joined our school in September, and I had foolishly never given him much thought.

But now I noticed. How blue his eyes were; flecked with tiny shards of green and gold. Framed with the type of long curly lashes boys didn’t deserve. His dark hair, messy in the way that wasn’t stylishly unkempt, but just how it happen to fall. He didn’t have to try, and I guess that should have been a warning.

He didn’t have to try and get me to fall in love with him; I did that all on my own. I would drift towards him whenever we were together.

            Just like I did the night everything went wrong.

It was the last party. Everyone had gathered together, celebrating the end of our school career. I had been in love with Daniel for just over five months. Five months and a million chance encounters, a thousand romantic gestures, hundreds of stolen glances and even a few sweeping statements.

The problem was they were all in my head.

I was sitting on the front steps drinking a beer. I had never done it before, but I quite liked it. It felt frivolous and carefree. I could hear the music in the background, the sound of laughter and a few snippets of conversations.

I took another sip of beer. I wasn’t a fan of the taste, but I was courting my rebellious nature and underage drinking appeared to be ticking all the right boxes.

He wasn’t there.

He, who was never far from my mind. It wasn’t even a thought but a constant whisper I wasn’t aware of most of the time. With him I wasn’t even sure what was fictional and what belonged in reality anymore.

‘Hey.’

I glanced up. A face so familiar as my own peered back at me. Eddie, who had been my best friend for more years than I could remember, sat down beside me. He took the bottle from my hand and took a sip. He liked the taste more than me because he took another one straight after.

‘Hi.’

‘He’ll be here later,’ Eddie said, as though I had asked. That was the thing about Eddie; he always knew what to say. Why couldn’t I love him instead?

Because you don’t hear a song, the mean little voice in my head said.

‘He’s seeing Grace first.’

‘Right.’ Grace. Whilst Daniel had been the sun for five months, she was the cloud he hid behind.

‘Don’t do anything stupid, OK?’

I didn’t answer, stealing my beer back in response.

‘I want you to come to Australia with me.’

‘You’ve said that already.’

And he had. Since Christmas in fact. Eddie was leaving after summer to travel and he wanted me to come with him. He said I needed to clear my head, to take a deep breath and realize I couldn’t have what I wanted.

I turned to look at my best friend and suddenly…everything changed. I heard the song. It wasn’t as loud as John Waite, but a murmur threatening to get louder if I didn’t pay attention.

‘I’ve got to take a little time, a little time to think things over. I better read between the lines, in case I need it when I’m older.’

I hadn’t given Eddie’s idea any real thought before now. It seemed too fantastical, a possibility that was meant for someone else. And Daniel. I couldn’t leave him, not with the way I felt. Maybe one day he would feel it too, hear the song, and come find me.

But now Foreigner was playing, and my heart was hurting again.

He kissed me on the dance floor later that night. Daniel kissed me. We were five tequila shots in, but he kissed me nevertheless.

            Of course, when he pulled away with a horrified ‘no’ slipping out I was less than thrilled. I was left on the dance floor alone with just John Waite shouting so loud in my head I wanted to cover my ears, a few people on the edges of the room watching with whispers behind raised hands as though I couldn’t see them.

            I suddenly felt like that girl at the end of a movie, left behind when the male lead realised I was not the one he was supposed to be with. And whilst the audience watched the happily ever after unfold, I was left standing in the shadows.

            And so the summer began. Whispers spread about what had happened. It was my fault, they said, I had loved him and led him on. So I became alone, the movie moving further and further away from my life. Eddie stayed with me, but his days were numbered as well. I could almost hear the plane’s engines in my mind, speeding up and taking my best friend away from me.

            The holidays became a blur, each day the same as the next. All but one.

I sat alone, the last evening of August with the bitter wind coming in off the sea. I lit a cigarette and took a deep breath, feeling the toxins clogging my lungs.

Summer was nearly over.

The pebbles crunched underfoot as he walked towards me.   

I pulled my knees and wrapped my arms around them. The cigarette hung from my fingertips. The opening drumbeat started to play and I closed my eyes, suppressing a groan.

‘You’ve really screwed things up, haven’t you?’ he said as an opening.

I didn’t look at him.

He sat down, a wide berth between us.

The music played, but the illusion had long since shattered.

But he was still beautiful.

‘It takes one to know one,’ I responded bitterly. I took another drag on my cigarette, thankful to have something in my hands.

He didn’t say anything for a long time. I didn’t know why he was there, or how he knew where to come.

‘I guess. I think she knows,’ he said after a pause. I thought about her blonde hair and her brightly coloured clothes. They were always the first things that came to mind when I thought about her. Then I always felt bad. Grace was more than that and more importantly, he belonged to her. She had laid her claim and I had broken the rules.

‘She doesn’t. There’s nothing to know about,’ I answered. ‘If she knows anything, it’s only that I’m infatuated with you.’

He looked at me then, blue eyes questioning.

‘She knows what everyone else does,’ I shrugged. He didn’t look surprised, and suddenly my worst fears, fears I didn’t even know I had, were confirmed.

He had known all along how I felt, and had done nothing about it. We had no Skinny Love. We didn’t have any kind of love. He didn’t care. And suddenly, neither did I.

With nothing to lose, I leant across and pressed my lips to his. I wanted to feel it again, to hear the rising crescendo and John Waite’s crooning voice. Just one last time.

I pulled back and handed him the cigarette. He took a drag and held onto it, staring out at the ocean. I didn’t want him to say anything, to break the moment. The song hadn’t finished and I just wanted a little more time.

Daniel had sad eyes when he turned to me, flicking the cigarette stub away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘I know. Me too.’

I didn’t watch as he stood up and left, planting a kiss on my forehead before he went.

It felt final. I didn’t want it to, but it couldn’t keep going like this. I couldn’t hope for something to happen for the rest of my life, that ‘what if’ hanging over my head.

If we weren’t done now, we never would be.

I spelt out the word ‘FINALLY’ in the pebbles, needing to see it before me for it to be real.

It didn’t work and I pushed them around, frustrated. I knew I wouldn’t let it go. I had loved him too long.

I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialled.

He picked up on the second ring, just the voice I wanted to hear.

I want to know what love is; I know you can show me.

‘I’m in,’ I said. Eddie whooped in response. Maybe going halfway around the world would help cure my heart. And even as I thought it, John Waite snuck into my mind and I turned to watch his retreating figure.

‘It’s my heart that’s breaking, down this long distance line tonight.’

Or maybe not. And even though the wind whipping around me was ice cold, all I could do was burn.