It’s About Love

Louise shrugs. “Well?”

I shake my head. Say it, you chicken.

“No.” I cough out the word.

She stares. “And why not?”

Say it.

“Everybody’s shit stinks.” And Louise’s face drops as the whole class breathes in, and the words are just there, on the table in front of me like a puddle of invisible puke.

I wipe my mouth. My legs are twitching. Louise nods. “OK, thank you, Luke. Interesting angle, if perhaps a little coarse.”

And I can feel people fighting the urge to whisper and giggle, but it’s different somehow. It’s all right. The bell goes and as I stand up, I catch the eyes of the ginger skater kid, who was with Simeon, across the room. He’s wearing a grey Supreme hoodie. He nods at me, his bottom lip sticking out, like he’s agreeing.

I am the brooding loner. I nod back. And walk off, buzzing inside.

You’re welcome.

In the refectory I sit on my own near the wall at the end of a long fold-out table, eating a tuna-melt baguette.

I can see the ginger kid from comms a couple of tables down sitting with a gang of friends. I script their conversation in my head. He’s telling them about what I said in class and how I don’t give a shit. A couple of them sneak glances and I hold my head up proudly like, yeah, I’m that guy.

I take out my phone, then Leia walks in. I drink all of her in from bottom to top without blinking. Skinny jeans, oversized black woollen jumper with flecks of white in it hanging past her bum and a bright neon pink scarf. Her hair’s up in a high bun and there’s a pencil speared through it. She looks like an artist. I swallow my mouthful and try not to look up from my phone. Time to go.

But I don’t move. I think about the idea in my notebook, Marc getting ready to leave prison. How I want to show her. How I think she’ll like it. But I was such a melodramatic knob yesterday. She’s not gonna want to speak to me, and I don’t know what I’d say if she does. I take a massive bite, pushing the rest of my baguette into my mouth, trying to be done, and a flap of hot melted cheese drops on to my chin. I go to wipe it, conscious of Leia, still holding my phone. Then my phone beeps and I drop it. It bounces off the table and smacks on to the floor. Smooth.

As I pick it up, I glance over at Leia in the queue. She’s not looking. The boys at the other table are though, staring right at me. Mouthful of baguette, cheese goatee. I play it cool and open the message, nonchalantly pushing the cheese into my mouth like an afterthought. There’s a fresh crack that curves from the top middle of the phone screen to the right edge, like a personalised scar in the glass.

It’s Tommy.

Yo. Footy at six. I got us a game with my cousin. Zia’s in. I’ll still get you at three yeah?

I tap: Cool.

And carry on chewing.

“Are you on contract?”

I almost choke as Leia sits down opposite me. I don’t get it.

She points at my phone. “They’re real idiots about replacements. I dropped mine down the toilet and it took a month to get a new one.”

She opens the packet of her sandwich. I read the label. Rocket and crayfish. Crayfish? Maybe yesterday didn’t really happen. Yes it did. I look at my phone and don’t tell her that Tommy’s brother Jamie got us all the same knocked off Samsung Galaxy from a guy he knows who works at Argos.

“It’s just a crack.” I stare over her shoulder at the ginger kid and his friends, then say, “Listen, I—”

“I dreamt about you last night,” she says, putting her untouched sandwich down.

“I just … what did you say?”

“I said I dreamt about you, Skywalker. Well, you and me.”

She what?

“We were working on the script, in this big loft apartment in New York or something. It had these wooden floors. Have you seen Big with Tom Hanks?”

I’m still thrown. “Course.”

She points at me. “That apartment. That’s where we were.”

And I picture the apartment from Big, with the bunk beds and all the cool toys and I try to put Leia and me there in my head.

She dreamt about you?

And I don’t know where from, but words come tumbling out of my mouth in a rush. “I’ve got a lot on at the minute. Home stuff.” I look down as I say home, then look up when she doesn’t say anything. “That’s why I was a bit funny, I mean, in class and that.”

Leia shrugs. “Whatever. You know the only vegetables they do here is cauliflower cheese. Does that even count?”

“Leia, I’m trying to tell you, to say—”

“It’s fine.” And her eyes are telling me to shut up, but not in a ‘you should know your place’ kind of way. More like she gets it. Like she can read between my lines.

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