‘Hey; it’s me, Luke. I promised I’d come back, right? Well, I made you a playlist; just some songs from way back, and some stuff I thought might make you smile. I think you’ll like some of it, but if there’s stuff you’re not so keen on, just shout. I can always change it around. We could work on it together, maybe. Once you’re better.’
I can hear his voice through the mist, and I jump up, brushing twigs and dirt from my dress. I walk towards the voice, slowly at first, then faster and faster. If I can just find the Hatter, I will be safe; I know I will.
‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ the voice asks, taunting, and I’m crying now, running blindly, stumbling around in the fog of my own mind. The faster I run and the harder I try, the further away the voice seems to get.
I’d spent years dreaming about my first kiss; the dreams had been based on teen books and American movies, shadowed with anxieties about clashing teeth and noses. As for the boy, he’d always seemed sketchy and vague; part rock-star-cool, part boy-next-door. It seemed astonishing to me now that I had never realized that the boy I wanted all along was Luke.
As for the kiss itself, there were no clashing teeth or noses. There were just Luke’s lips, soft as velvet, his breath as light as a butterfly’s wing, my heart hammering so hard it felt like the whole world could hear it; even I knew this was some kind of magic.
I didn’t want it to stop, not ever. Luke’s lips tasted of fruit punch and one hand burrowed through my hair while the other lay against my cheek, palm burning against my skin. I rested my head against the gnarled and creaking rope of the tyre swing and the two of us leaned into each other, perfectly balanced, swinging softly in the darkness.
Then Luke’s top hat fell off on to the grass and we pulled apart, laughing, staring wide-eyed in the moonlight as if we’d never really seen each other before. Well, maybe we hadn’t.
‘Alice,’ he said. ‘This is not a party game, OK?’
‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’
‘So … can we get out of here? Go for a walk? Talk? Please?’
I let myself step back, down from the tyre swing. Luke jumped down too, catching my hand, and it felt like we were connected in all kinds of other ways. Like each knew what the other was thinking, feeling, dreaming.
‘We can’t just leave,’ I told Luke, though the idea was the best I’d ever heard in my life. ‘It’s Savvy’s sleepover! She’d go mad!’
‘We can do whatever we want to do,’ he said. ‘Come on, Alice. Take a risk!’
I wanted to go. I wanted to be that girl who would take a risk, do something daring, but I hesitated. What would Lainey and Yaz think? What if Savvy was cross and started rumours at school? What if Mum and Dad found out?
You don’t just head off into the night with a boy you haven’t seen in almost two years, not when you’re supposed to be at a girly sleepover.
‘I just … just wish we were somewhere else, that’s all,’ Luke whispered. ‘Away from everybody. You know?’
I knew. I looked back at the house, wondering if I had the courage to run away, and then I heard footsteps coming along the path. Lainey loomed out of the darkness.
‘Luke?’ she called. ‘Alice? Where are you? Oh! What are you doing? You were supposed to take seven minutes and you’ve been gone for twenty! We thought something was wrong!’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said. ‘We were just … talking.’
Luke said nothing, but his hand held mine tightly. I saw a flicker of hurt flash across Lainey’s face, and the faintest stirring of guilt unfurled inside me. I pushed it away. It was pretty clear that Lainey had a crush on Luke, and equally clear that he didn’t feel the same.
He liked me.
My lips were still tingling from his touch; my cheek was warm from where his palm had pressed against my skin. Maybe Lainey felt hurt, but so what? I’d felt hurt, too, when she and Yaz had dropped me, cut me dead every day in the school corridors. I’d cried myself to sleep for weeks, until there were no more tears left to cry.
I refused to feel guilty for kissing Luke. I’d waited long enough for a little bit of happiness; Lainey couldn’t begrudge me this.
‘Looks like you two were getting on well,’ she said, pulling our hands apart, coming between us, hooking one arm through mine and one through Luke’s. ‘But no time for slushy stuff now; Savvy wants to start her new game. You’ll love it, and there’s some hot chocolate on the go.’
Luke made a big deal of looking at his watch. ‘OK. Look, I’m sorry, Lainey, I have to be getting back,’ he said. ‘I’m actually on an eleven o’clock curfew.’
‘What?’ Lainey pouted. ‘You can’t stay? C’mon, Luke, you have to. Savvy has loads planned!’
‘Sorry,’ he repeated. ‘I can’t get out of it.’
Lainey looked dismayed. ‘Just a little while more?’ she pleaded. ‘I know where Savvy’s dad’s drinks cabinet is, and he doesn’t keep much of an eye on things, so we could easily swipe a little bit of something to liven things up.’
‘Nick his whisky?’ Luke asked. ‘I don’t think so, Lainey.’
She stopped arguing then. I think she knew she’d lost.
When we got inside, Luke picked up his jacket and nudged the other boys and soon they were all on their feet, jostling noisily and saying long goodbyes. Savvy was disappointed, but she took it in her stride; she hugged each boy in turn, and when it came to Dex she kissed him on the lips and wrote her mobile number on his arm with black eyeliner.
You had to admire confidence like that.
Luke and I didn’t kiss, and we didn’t write on each other’s arms either, but nothing could spoil the cloud of happiness I was floating on. Something amazing had happened, something life-changing. ‘I’ll text you,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll get together; catch up properly, yeah? We’ll do our late night escape another time.’
‘Cool,’ I said, but I didn’t feel cool. I thought I might explode with happiness.
We trailed out on to the garden path as the boys made their exit; there was lots of laughter and hugging and flirting, and Luke leaned in close, his face in my hair.
‘See you soon, Alice,’ he said. ‘I promise.’