‘How’s it, Jazz? Weekend OK?’
I hated people asking me that. But it was Laura, and she took my arm and looked at me, all soft and concerned, and I didn’t mind so much.
‘OK.’ My standard reply. Meant I could probably get through the day without falling apart. Not that I did fall apart. Not in front of anyone. Hadn’t cried since Toby’s funeral, not in public. Maybe that’s why they’d all forgotten.
They were all such kids. It was ten days since the funeral and it was like half of them had forgotten my brother was dead. Their lives just went on like usual. They got upset about stupid stuff, excited about stupid stuff.
Except Laura. She hadn’t forgotten.
‘Meet me after school?’ she whispered into my ear.
‘What for?’
‘You’ll see.’ She winked and went off to class.
Life after Toby, nothing was the same. Not that life was good before he died, but I kind of knew what to expect. Knew Laura was out of my reach. Knew the dangerous kids, and kept out of their way. Knew Billy was as lonely and weird as me, and we sometimes made a bigger target together than either of us alone – was careful not to hang out with him too much.
Now the dangerous kids ignored me, Billy wasn’t cool enough to hang with me, and Laura was my best friend. On the morning bus she saved me a seat. She’d look down the aisle to catch my eye and smile. When I sat down, that question: How’s it, Jazz? In the afternoon I watched her drama club rehearsals, or did my homework in the booth at the pizza place while she worked, and got dropped off home afterwards by her mother.
No one my age had ever looked at me like she did. I’d figured out how to control my face so she couldn’t see the effect it had on me. I sat next to her on the bus, our legs touching slightly. Sometimes she rested a hand on my shoulder, or touched my arm. She did it easily, like I would have touched Toby, like being rejected had never entered her mind.
I guess it hadn’t. When she walked down the hallway at school, people turned and their smiles were real. When Laura knew the answer to something in class, she just put up her hand and said it. She didn’t hide being clever. She did her homework but she wasn’t a perfectionist. She wasn’t a suck, but she was well behaved. She was normal, she was pretty, she was clever, she was popular. She even got on with her mother, who, by the way, was really nice to me.
Wish I could have enjoyed it more. Sometimes, for a second, I nearly forgot about Toby. It was worse then, because it hit me again in the guts.
I met her in the afternoon at the gate, thinking we’d walk to the bus stop. She gave a funny kind of smile without really looking at me.
‘Let’s go,’ she said, and headed in the opposite direction so fast I had to hurry to keep up.
There was a scrappy bush block at the back of the school. The edges were full of rubbish and weeds, and the place smelled of bats, because about a thousand of them slept in the trees all day and kept most people out. But there was a spot in the middle no one seemed to know about, away from the bats, where a little creek ran through a patch of tall trees. Kind of like a forest. I’d spent a few lunchtimes there.
Laura stopped at the edge, glanced back to make sure I was following, picked her way through the rubbish and found the twisting track. The ground was covered in dead leaves, and it was loud in there, with the bats squealing and flapping their wings as we walked under them. I followed her through the trees till we reached the creek. She stopped, dropped her pack on the ground and stepped down the bank till she was standing a little below me. The water was rushing and brown, swollen from rain the night before. She had that same smile as she turned. Stretched out, took my hand, pulled me towards her until we were nearly touching.
‘I know you haven’t…’ she said softly.
I could hardly breathe. She wanted me to kiss her. I had no idea how. My stomach churned. Wanted to bolt like an animal, crash through the trees, break out into the sunshine and sprint home.
She laughed a little. ‘You’re shaking. It’s not that scary!’
She was so close I could feel her breath on my neck. She dropped my hand, lifted her arms, put them round my neck. I wanted to kiss her but couldn’t move. Scared of doing it wrong.
She pulled me in until our lips met. She closed her eyes but I kept mine open, feeling like I might fall over. When she slipped her tongue into my mouth I had to stop myself jerking away with the strangeness of it.
I was nearly sixteen years old. I must have seen millions of screen kisses and a few real-life ones, but they didn’t help. I was a late starter. I should have been prepared but it felt weird.
I took hold of her waist and kissed her back, trying hard.
She broke away. ‘Easy, Jazz. Nice and slow.’
OK, so less tongue. I tried again and she kind of softened in my arms. I was getting the hang of it. It wasn’t bad, actually. She moved closer and I felt the brush of her breasts against my chest like an electric shock.
After a few minutes she stepped back and opened her eyes. I tried to read her face. Was I hopeless?
‘Um,’ I said. Stopped.
‘We’d better go,’ she said. ‘Mum’s picking me up at four, after extra maths.’
‘Extra maths?’
She shrugged. ‘Skipped it. Wanna lift?’
‘Yeah.’
I had no idea if I’d done it right. Wanted to kiss her again but wasn’t brave enough. Worried I hadn’t cleaned my teeth since after breakfast – no one cleaned their teeth at school, did they? – and that my breath was gross.
She grabbed my hand: that was something. We walked side by side on the narrow path, with me scraping past the trees. As we got near the edge, realised I didn’t want to go out there again. Strange though the kiss had been, for the first time I wasn’t thinking about Toby for a few minutes.
I stopped, pulled her round. ‘Hey.’
She stepped in, put her palms on either side of my face. I knew what to expect this time and I leaned in to meet her. Shut my eyes and focused on the feeling of her lips on mine. Let my mouth open more naturally.
It was shorter, but when she drew back she was smiling.
‘Fast learner, Jazz-boy. Now come on! Mum’ll be there.’
She tugged my hand and we broke into a run. I didn’t mind the branches slapping me in the face. I was smiling too. Our second kiss wasn’t so weird. I’d felt more like a teenage boy kissing the girl he worshipped. It was good.