She’s quiet for ages.
‘Now would be a good time to tell me I’m not stupid,’ I say.
‘Why did you get back with Beth if you like me?’ she asks.
‘I didn’t get back with Beth.’
‘Really?’
‘Okay, take your hand off your face, it’s too strange.’
She takes it off and smiles and I think of wall after wall after wall. Green mazes wandering and two people wandering through them. Doorways that lead somewhere. Skies the exact kind of blue I’ve been looking for.
I listen to Ed with my eyes closed. There’s something in his voice that wasn’t there before. The truth, maybe. He likes me. Three colliding words. He didn’t get back with Beth. ‘Really?’
‘Okay, take your hand off your face, it’s too strange.’
I do and we smile at each other for a while and it’s not awkward. Ed’s not back with Beth. My parents are in love but they don’t want to live together all the time. Dylan and Daisy fight but they’re staying together, at least until her next birthday. Leo is a poet and he likes Jazz and that’s the score.
I know nothing about love. But I know that I want to kiss Ed. I know that I want him to be happy. He’s happier than he was; I see that, now that I don’t have my hand over my face.
‘I went to meet her,’ he says. ‘Turns out I went to say goodbye.’ He smiles again. I smile. ‘You’ve got a great smile,’ he says.
‘My dad lives in the shed but my parents aren’t getting divorced.’
‘Okay.’
‘I wanted to tell you. In the spirit of being honest.’
‘Okay,’ he says, and he’s moving closer and that zing is running through my body and I’m so nervous, so, so nervous.
‘You okay there?’ he asks.
‘I’m okay. Keep going. Keep going.’
His mouth dips to that freckle on my neck. Thank you, sun. Thank you, thank you, sun. He works his way back to my mouth and my blood is hot glass, caramel and shiny, moving with his breath. I don’t even have to try. I get loads of levitation.
‘You’re not going to lie to me again,’ I say, and he says that’s the plan. And I say, ‘You left school because you couldn’t read,’ and he says that and some girl broke his nose. I say, ‘Your artwork is my favourite thing about the city.’
And he says, ‘I did a wall for you. Maybe my last one for a while.’
‘Why the last?’
‘I’m thinking about that course you mentioned. Thinking about working on paper.’
‘Don’t guys like you live for the adrenalin?’
‘That was always Leo,’ he says. ‘So, you want to see it?’
We walk our bikes down the hill to Al’s and look at his painting. ‘Wow.’
‘Thanks,’ he answers.
It’s the sun. A ball of burning glass taking over the night. He hasn’t signed it. But I know who he is. I know who I am. I don’t know exactly who we are together, yet. Ed takes out a can and paints a little yellow bird. It’s not like that sleeping bird, belly up to the sky.
It’s awake.