Page 78 of Boy Friends
‘I like to be prepared,’ he says. ‘If I don’t feel like a novel, I’ll read the memoir. And if I don’t want non-fiction, Iswitch to poetry. And if you get bored, you can borrow one.’
I decide not to comment, because he’s cute when he tries to turn me into a reader. But I won’t get bored. Not with a view of the sea and Simo in front of it, lost in a book. The wind pulls at his hair and a curl falls into his eyes. His dark brows are slightly furrowed, and the vein draws a line across his forehead. It’s the most beautiful picture. I’m so lost in him that it takes me a while to notice he’s stopped reading. Though the book remains open, his gaze is blank.
I tap him with my toes. He looks up, and whatever world he was in is fading from his eyes.
‘Where did you go?’ I ask softly.
‘I was wondering . . .’ he begins, but seems unsure how to continue. ‘It’s not a very nice thought.’
‘Few thoughts are. But sometimes we have to let the bad ones out, to keep them from haunting us.’
He pulls on the threads of the picnic blanket. With his shoulders bent, he looks gloomy. ‘Do you think we would’ve met if Hamza hadn’t died?’
I’m glad Simo isn’t looking at me, because for a moment my face slips. I keep my breath even, despite the wave of grief that comes out of nowhere. Grief for a boy I’ve never met. Grief for another that I couldn’t bear to be without.
‘I think so,’ I say, after a while.
‘You do?’ he asks, looking up. I read surprise and sorrow in his light brown eyes.
‘There are two things I’m sure of: you, and my dad. I’m not sure what else I believe in, but I know I’d find you anywhere in the world. So, yes. We would’ve found each other, if not at seven years old, then at uni or later in life.’
He nods but stays quiet. We watch the waves pull in and out.
‘I’m glad we met at seven,’ he says eventually.
‘I am too.’ And then, because it feels right: ‘I would’ve loved to meet Hamza.’ It’s the first time I’ve said his name. With my heart beating hard, I watch a smile appear on Simo’s lips.
‘You would’ve fancied him so much.’
‘I would not.’
‘All the girls at school did. He had a stack of badly spelled love letters.’
‘Maybe they did. But I would’ve fancied you.’
He drops the threads he was picking apart and rests his head in my lap. We spend most of the day like this, barely moving as the clouds speed across a blindingly blue sky. Neither of us checks our phone, because we have all we need right here. I almost forget that there’s a party going on without us, until the wind carries tunes of a brass band across the stretch of water. Simo is dozing, until I tickle him awake with a blade of grass.
‘Why’d you do it?’ I ask him.
He snatches the leaf from my hand. ‘I told you, I didn’t want to hide us away any longer.’
‘Yeah, but if that was all, you could’ve just kissed me in the cafeteria.’
‘I don’t know – it doesn’t smell much better there than in the loos.’ I pluck a fresh blade of grass and flick it at his nose, because if he isn’t giving me an answer, I’m going to be annoying. He grabs my hand and holds it tight. ‘I wanted to take back what’s mine. Change the narrative to what Iwant it to be, not what others have twisted it into.’
‘Despite the reaction that will surely follow.’
‘We know the reaction already. But this time, I’m the one who caused it.’
‘I get that,’ I say. ‘People kept telling me how I felt. About you, about boys in general. Like they could see inside my head, when they had no idea.’
‘Is that part of why you did it?’
‘No, when I did it, it was all feels and no thought. I had a fat crush and no self-control.’
‘That’s pretty cute.’
‘You were there that Monday. It was not cute! I was terrified of what I’d done.’
