8: nighttiming

Emily and I had been together—properly together—for a little over a week, but nothing seemed to lessen the thrill I found in even holding her hand. I'd never considered that getting what I wanted might reduce the enjoyment I got out of it, because I'd never considered that I'd actually get what I wanted. But now I had it, and it was warm and wonderful and all across my skin, something I could hardly explain. When I looked at her, I found myself incapable of worry. I couldn't obsess over my posture or my speech or my breathing because I could hardly think straight as it was. My anxieties slunk away to the deepest pits of myself, muttering vile curses and twisting their hands together as they went. They were so far away that I could almost forget they existed. Sometimes they woke me in the middle of the night, reduced to pulling me out of sleep to haunt me. When this happened, I got up and went to my window. The feeling of air on my skin was enough to drive them back; enough to loosen the black vines that constricted around my lungs and made breathing so very difficult.

My freedom from worry permeated my entire being. My movements came easier to me. I could relax on the underground, no longer constantly tensed because of the people around me. The routines that I'd clung to, that were once essential for a relative peace of mind, fell away. I read books in the garden instead of the corner of my room I usually sat in. I forsook the clothes I usually slept in and instead went shirtless, or in whatever else I pleased. I went out more often. I volunteered to run errands for my parents and the like; sometimes I went on walks for no reason at all. I spoke more and ground my teeth less. I felt lighter.

My parents noticed my change, but they didn't ask about it. They didn't need to. The weight that had been lifted from me was so visible and had spread so far through the air that it created an instant understanding between us. I knew that they had speculated about it and probably guessed the reason, and I was grateful that they accepted it without a word. I didn't want to give a name to the incredible feeling that lived in my bones; I didn't want to run the risk of lessening it any, or chasing it away.

One night, I woke suddenly and without knowing why. My suppressed anxiety, which usually came to me in the form of vivid, frightening dreams, was absent. My eyes drifted almost magnetically to my mobile. It lit up as soon as I looked at it.

"You'd better hurry if you want to catch the last train to Reading." The call ended and I leapt out of bed, pausing only to don my slippers and a random jumper I saw sticking out of an open drawer. I slipped out my window and into the night, using a conveniently placed tree branch to aid my escape. I made the train by seconds.

My mobile rang almost as soon as I stepped through the sliding doors and on to the platform.

"Where—"

"Shh. The lake." The line went dead. I started walking.

***

I'm not entirely sure how, but I managed to navigate the woods behind Emily's house without getting hopelessly lost. I arrived at the lake to find it illuminated with flickering orbs of light. I thought wildly that it was the fairies I'd expected the first time I saw the lake, showing themselves now that the sun had set. Closer inspection revealed them to be candles, strewn randomly about the grass. As I walked towards them, I realized that they were all scented, and that their individually released smells combined to make the air thick, heady and dizzying. In the dancing glow of the candles, I saw the blurry outline of a vaguely triangular shape anchored to the flatter ground nearer to the shore.

"It's a tent." I turned sharply. Emily stood before me, her smile radiant even in the darkness. She wore a white slip dress and nothing else, not even shoes. I felt a twinge of self-consciousness as I recalled the state of my own rumpled clothes, but it quickly evaporated.

"You're beautiful," I said. I didn't move to embrace her or take her hand because I wanted to look at her and commit her every curve and line to memory. She walked past me to the edge of the lake. I watched her go, stunned by the grace with which she moved. It was a few moments before I could bring myself to join her. I slipped my arms around her waist and bent to kiss the place where her neck met her shoulder. My heart still shook in my chest every time I made any gesture of affection towards her. I loved it. The juxtaposition of something coming so naturally yet making me so nervous was so shakily delightful.

"What are we going to do tonight?" I murmured against her skin.

"Whatever you like." I could hear the smile in her voice as she leaned against me luxuriously. I knew that I no longer cared if the sun came up.

***

There was a record player hidden inside the tent. We played music and leaped across the grass and around the candles, like children pretending to be fairies. Emily slid a record by a band called The Promise Ring out of its sleeve and dropped the dial; the music that came from it was rough and quivering, yet it stirred a strange spirit inside me. I forgot that I had forbidden myself from dancing as a rule, and cavorted through the grass like an animal, twisting my limbs into strange, impossible shapes. It brought a strange, wild grin to Emily's face, and she soon joined me. I cast off my jumper and danced through the air, avoiding the scattered candles by a lucky twist of fate. I grabbed Emily around the waist and spun her round before pulling her, laughing, in for a kiss that seemed to go on forever. It was as if I could do anything without fear, if only it made her smile.

After our manic dancing subsided, Emily put on a gentler record and we lay in the grass among the candles, gazing at the sky.

"D'you think there's anything out there?" Emily asked.

"Sure there is," I said. I was entranced with her hand, which I held above my head so I could trace it with my eyes and fingers. I was only halfway present. "There's loads of stuff."

"Yes, but what?"

I turned towards her.

"Promise you won't laugh." She rolled on her side, her expression that of a person anticipating the revealing of a secret.

"I promise," she said earnestly. I brought her hand against my chest and covered it with both of mine.

"I like to think that the Doctor's up there," I said. "Just, y'know…wandering about the stars. Seeing all there is to see."

Emily smiled and pulled her hand from my grasp, tracing my jaw with her fingers. "It's stupid, I know," I muttered, ducking my head against her hand.

"Not at all. It's romantic. It's…it's what I like about you." She faltered, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed.

"Go on," I encouraged, shifting closer to her.

"It's the things you say." She began hesitantly, searching for the right words the way one dips their toe in the bathwater to see if it's warm enough. "You say these silly, fanciful things that seem so childish but you say them so honestly that I believe in you. It's like you're living in this other world with all these wonders only you can see."

I laughed and rolled on to my back.

"Y'know why I even talked to you the day we met?"

"Because you thought I was pretty," she said in a teasing tone of voice.

"Well, yes, but that wasn't all. There was something about you that made me want to know you. Like…like life was more exciting wherever you went. And I don't set much store by excitement usually, but you were different. You were in a completely different universe."

Emily pulled me on to my side and closer to her. "It's a pretty small universe," she said. "Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one in it."

"Hey," I said, tracing her cheek with the backs of my fingers. "I'm here, aren't I?" She smiled, small and fleeting. Then, she kissed me, hard. It tasted like fireworks. It felt like gold.

***

The night got cold and a breeze put out the candles one by one. Emily and I relocated into the tent, which was arrayed with so many quilts and pillows it was easy to forget we would essentially be laying on the ground. Christmas lights cast their multicolored glow across the fabric walls, which were striped in shades of deep red and maroon. When the wind made them billow, it was like a mad world of rippling color.

Emily slipped into the tent first, quickly finding a comfortable space among the pillows. I knelt at the tent's mouth and hesitated.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"It's—it's just—" I stuttered—"I'm afraid I won't fit."

When Emily laughed, it sounded like rain falling and bells ringing and a thousand other things of a musical nature. It still wasn't enough to stop the flush that rose in my cheeks, nor the pang of embarrassed guilt in my stomach. It should have been enough.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding genuine despite her smile and dancing eyes. "I'm so sorry. Come here." She leaned closer and grabbed me, forcing me to crawl awkwardly into the tent. I lay down immediately and kept my legs curled carefully under me so they didn't dangle past the entrance flap. Emily flopped down next to me. For a moment, we just looked at each other. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

I was thinking about the lights and how they cast just enough of a glow to make everything look so delightfully fuzzy and full of static; I was thinking about the reflection of the moon on the lake and the way her skin seemed to glow; I was thinking—a very small part of me, mind you—about waking up early enough to catch the train and arrive home before my parents woke up. I smiled the kind of smile that is accompanied by a sigh, as if to say, "what a ridiculous person I am! How silly I'm being!"

"I'm thinking about kissing you." Emily grinned and pulled me closer.

"I know that's not all you're thinking about. But I suppose a little snogging never hurt anybody anyway." No, I thought with the last functioning cells in my brain, No, it certainly didn't. We came together softly, and with a shower of sparks that landed across my face and warmed my skin with their fuzzy tingle. A great gust of passion seemed a given due to our position, but we were lazy, our mouths coming apart and together like the languidly flapping wings of a huge moth. The air was thick and we were both hot with it. I could feel Emily's skin burning my palms through the flimsy fabric of her dress. Still, it was the kind of heat that presses down on one like a weight, making them drag their feet and move as if through a viscous, sucking swamp. I wrapped my arms around Emily's waist and pulled her against me. We languished in the heat and kissed until, with a small sigh of an exhale, she fell asleep right there in my arms, her lips going still against mine. I slipped my mouth from hers and lightly kissed her cheeks and her eyelids and her upper lip. Then, I settled myself against her, closed my eyes, and breathed deeply. I drifted off almost instantaneously, the warmth of her like a small sun in my arms.