I put my hands over my face and turn away. I wish it were darker. I step as far into the shadows as I can.
I think Donna knows I’m crying. I can’t help it.
“I’m sorry….” She touches my shoulders, but tentatively, as if she just wants me to know she’s there, and I do. I know she’s there.
THE NEXT
day I’m at the café again, long before twelve.
“Here, you can have your alien egg sac back.” Micky greets me with a lopsided smile as he swings the hot-water bottle onto the table in front on me.
It’s almost unbelievable how happy I am to see him. I can’t understand how I can have so many emotions inside me without it feeling like I’m at war. But with Micky in front of me, I’m about as far from a war as you can get.
He sits down. He’s still not dressed for the bitterly cold weather, though at least he has a pair of jeans on today instead of thin leggings, and he
is
wearing a jumper, albeit a thin-looking navy blue cotton one.
My heart beats so fast I imagine I’ve caught a wild animal in my chest and it’s trying to escape its cage.
Today I foiled Micky’s superpower. I saw him come in, though I pretended I didn’t know he was here until he reached the table. Anticipation is like electric shocks all over my skin.
I glance at the clock. Micky notices and grins at me. If he winks at me, my heart might stop. Self-consciously I wonder if he can see how my body reacts to him. Do I give off signals without even knowing? I’m desperately trying to gather myself in and not give myself away.
I touch the hot-water bottle, feeling how warm it is. My finger vibrates as I run it across the funny rubber patterns that crisscross its surface. I pull it off the table into my lap. It’s a very bad idea. It’s almost hot and the warmth seeps beneath my skin and gets my stupid hormones all fired up. It feels nice, too nice, and all I can do is think
Oh
, before my brain switches off and I get hard staring at Micky’s full lips.
“It kept me warm in bed this morning, thank you,” Micky says.
He looks like he’s trying not to open his mouth too widely as he speaks, and then I see why.
He has a bruise on his face, mostly hidden by his hair. From the edge of his left cheekbone to his ear, the skin is purple and swollen. I frown and grip the notepad in my pocket, the warmth in my lap forgotten.
“What happened?” I keep my eyes on the table as I speak, then glance up again.
I don’t even have to explain what I mean. Micky touches his cheek self-consciously and sags forward. All at once he looks exhausted.
“Nothing major.” He catches my eye and sighs. “Fainted. Again.”
Really fainted, or fainted into someone’s fist?
I frown at the tabletop. My fingers dig into my palm as I clench my hand, trying to rein in the intense wave of anger that surges through me at the thought of someone hitting him.
Gritting my teeth, I unclench my hands and clutch the empty mug in front of me instead.
“You can’t fix my phone, can you?” he says.
He rolls his shoulders back as if he’s trying to sit tall and make it not matter, but I can tell he’s upset. His bony fingers fiddle with the white ceramic salt and pepper pots in the middle of the table. He tips one then the other, making little piles of white and gray. The waitress behind the counter watches us.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” he says.
It
is
my fault, though.
“Here.” He pulls my phone out of his secret pocket and pushes it across the table to me. “I really can’t keep taking your phone.”
I push it back. I wish he’d stop trying to give it back to me. “I’ll get you another.”
“Another phone?” He draws his eyebrows together and shakes his head. His hair looks a little greasy. The boy who looked dressed for a club the other night, all bright and glittering, is not the one sitting before me. Nor is the bright smiley boy of yesterday. Strangely it’s this one I like more. Not because he’s hurt or anything—I hate that he’s hurt—but because he’s real, he’s not spaced out, he doesn’t seem to be hiding behind a façade. He’s tired and sort of sad, but there’s this warmth about him too, this honesty. Like he was in that picture I saw so briefly before I fucked everything up, I somehow feel closer to the truth of him.
He makes my heart beat faster than ever.
I wonder what he’d have to do to not have this effect on me. It’d probably have to be something spectacularly awful that I can’t imagine, because right now it feels as though we’re inhabiting the same space, and I can count on my fingers how often I’ve felt like that in my life.
“It’s not your problem. Really. It’s mine,” he carries on.
“Take it,” I say firmly. A wild idea occurs to me. “Keep it. I’ll wipe all the data and then it’s yours.” I hold eye contact with him, though it does something weird to my stomach, and for a second my heartbeat seems to go flat-out crazy.
“No. It’s not fair. I can’t pay you. I don’t have anything to give you at all. Well, apart from the obvious.” A sad smile plays briefly on his lips. I’m not even sure if he’s joking.
“No charge,” I say quickly.
“That’s not a fair exchange at all!” he protests.
I disagree for reasons he’s never going to know. “Just borrow it, then,” I say.
Indefinitely.
“I still need to pay you back.”
He picks up my phone, turns it upside down, and strokes it gently. He looks at it as though it’s something precious. I watch him through my hair. An electric charge is running through my body, up and down my spine, fingertip to fingertip, a complete circuit with nowhere to discharge itself.
“If I borrow this, what phone will you use?” he asks.
“I have lots of phones.”
That don’t work.
“But this is your, like, main phone.”
I shrug. I have this skill of being able to watch people’s faces with my head down so they can’t see I’m watching them. Micky chews his lip. I’m not sure he believes me about having a phone. If he doesn’t agree to keep borrowing my Frankenstein, I know I’m going to have to watch over him tonight. My gut clenches with how suddenly scared I am for him. A shark is out there, hunting boys like him. I’m going to have to make sure he doesn’t get picked up by any creeps. Or maybe I should make sure he doesn’t get picked up by anyone. But then, I guess he needs the money. He wouldn’t be out on the street if he had any other choice.
I bite the inside of my cheek. How have I managed to make something as simple as fixing a broken phone screen so complicated? Why are my feelings so complicated? I don’t want good things to hurt. But everything hurts.
“Promise me you’ll let me pay you back.”
Micky’s eyes are so clear. I’ve never seen anyone with such clear blue eyes. If his eyes were the sky, I would never look at the ground.
Promise me
, they seem to echo. I nod. I can’t do anything else.
“Phone might need a charge soon.” He winces as he says it, as if it’s something he doesn’t want to admit. It makes me smile—he’s going to take it.
This doesn’t make me feel any better about him being picked up on the street, though.
I take a spare USB lead and a plug out of my pocket and hold them out. I’d meant to give them to him the other day.
“You’re prepared for every eventuality, aren’t you?”
I shake my head. I wish I were.
Micky stares back at the phone, lost in thought.
I take a deep breath and push my chair back. I should go. As much as I sort of like this weird electricity feeling, I need to run to discharge it.
Being with Micky is unpredictable. Most people I meet act the same around me—uncomfortable, eager to leave. Dashiel told me I don’t make it easy for them. But Micky doesn’t seem to notice whether I make it easy for him or not. It’s as though he doesn’t
see
me like everyone else sees me. And because he makes my heart beat faster and I have this urge to follow him around and make sure he’s safe, I am absolutely terrified. I don’t want my heart to feel like broken glass anymore. Caring about someone is too terrifying. It takes my thoughts away from where they should be—from Dashiel and Dollman, from all the sharks out there.
“Wait,” Micky says quickly. I hear him swallow, his eyes glancing everywhere but at me, as though he’s nervous. I’ve no idea what he would be nervous about. “Do you think you can show me where the clothing bank is?” he asks hesitantly. “I… I’d like a coat.”
His expression is so unsure and yet so hopeful, I nod without even thinking. I feel kind of weak, like I’m under his spell, like I’ll do whatever he asks me. Like I want him to be pleased. Or something. Sometimes I felt like that with Dashiel—like I wanted to make him happy, or I just wanted him to
be
happy.
I loved him so much.
The clothing bank is the place I’ve been avoiding the most.
I know there must be others nearby, but the drop-in center on North Street is where Dashiel and I used to go. It’s only open Tuesdays and Thursdays, but they have the best clothes. Clothes that are clean and not full of lice like some of the other clothing banks I’ve heard about.
It hurts to think about how Dashiel used to make me laugh trying on the oddest clothes we could find. Dresses made out of thick flowery curtains, curtain tape still attached. Purple velvet flares with silver bells on. Badly knitted jumpers with anything from misshapen creatures to words spelled wrong. Christmas jumpers wired with lights that actually lit up. Mismatched boots. Dashiel would try everything on—mostly to amuse me and whoever else was around. It was our secret mission. Something we never spoke about.
I close my eyes and sit back down to hunch over, forgetting where I am and trying to curl myself around my heart.
“Are you okay?” Micky asks gently.
I open my eyes, noticing how he’s dipping his head to peer at me, and I try to straighten up, but I feel caught in the gravity of his gaze. Like a meteor being pulled into the sun, I’m stuck and unable to escape.
“I’m okay,” I say, trying to sound as sure as I can.
“I do kinda know where a clothing bank is, but I’ve no idea what I’m supposed to do,” Micky admits as we head outside. “Are you sure you don’t mind coming with me? I mean, you probably think I’m being pathetic, right?”
I shake my head.
Pathetic?
Never.
“Supervillains need coats too,” I say as brightly as I can. It’s true, I do need a coat, and I’d probably find a way to avoid going to the clothing bank forever, so Micky is doing me a favor really. “The sea is a cold hunting ground,” I add, watching some guy with a predatory grin talking to a woman in the grocer’s opposite.
When Micky laughs, it startles me. I turn to see all the sadness and shadows flee his face, like a flock of swallows swooping up and disappearing into a September sky, leaving him grinning loopily, his eyes shining. “You come right out of left field, don’t you?” he asks.
I frown at the ground sort of happy to have made him laugh but having no idea what it is he means… and I can’t seem to open my mouth to ask him.
WE HEAD
across the ironclad bridge toward Central London. It’s busy with lunchtime traffic, people crowding the bridge to take pictures of the river. The London Eye looms around the bend. I wonder if anyone inside a pod is looking down at us, the only two people walking with any purpose. The only two people on this bridge without coats or cameras.
Micky catches me staring at his jumper. It has a few holes in it. He touches them and I hear him swallow.
“My bag of washing got stolen last week from the launderette. I’ve had to borrow stuff. I lost most of my clothes.”
And I’ve managed to break his damn phone too. Well done, me.
The pavements are slippery with ice. I don’t want to fall over, so I don’t walk too fast and I watch where I’m putting my feet. I watch Micky’s feet too. His dirty gray trainers at least look like they fit him. His jeans don’t—they’re too big. If I put my head up and stand up straight, I think we’d be about the same height, but his legs are much longer than mine. And his feet are huge, or perhaps they just look big on his skinny frame like his hands do, as though he’s not quite grown into who he’s going to be yet.
I wonder how old he is. Perhaps he’s younger than I thought. I don’t want him to be younger.
Micky talks about everything. His accent makes every word sound new, and he comes out with stranger facts than the ones that fill my head.
I think he’s cold and needs to take his mind off it. Maybe talking makes him feel warmer. I don’t always respond, but I’m listening. I like the sound of his voice. It relaxes me and makes me feel easy in his presence, which is weird because I hardly know him. Mostly I’m still thinking about “left field” and what it is he meant when he said that.
“Do you want me to shut up? I talk more when I’m nervous. I’m used to people telling me to shut up.” He’s smiling, so I don’t think he’s being entirely serious. I hate the way his teeth chatter, making his words come out all wavery, though. I’d offer him my jumper if I didn’t think I might freeze to death before I make it to the clothing bank wearing only a thin T-shirt.
I can’t imagine ever wanting him to shut up.
But then, I’m the weirdo who broke his phone trying to get a picture of him off it, and I’m the creep who lied to him about it. But I swear to myself that I’m going to convince him to keep my phone. After that I’m not going to do anything else weird.
He glances at me sidelong as if he’s still waiting for my answer.
“I don’t want you to shut up,” I say.
I’m glad he can’t see the way my stomach flips over as I speak or hear the way my heart is beating out a crazy rhythm in my chest.
Can’t lifetimes be measured in heartbeats? The faster a heart goes, the less time you have? Maybe Micky is bad for my health. I’ve probably knocked a few years off my life in the past half hour just by being with him. Strangely enough, I don’t think I want them back.
We cross a busy street, Micky chattering away about the London buses and how they make him think of
Harry Potter
.