This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed her– I meanreallynoticed her– but for some reason it feels like it is. For some reason I feel like I’m going to play back this moment over and over in my mind.
The way I did the first time I noticed Jess.
I was young then– bold and bulletproof in that way that young men are– and I didn’t think for a single second that things would end between the two of us at all, let alone thatthey’d end the way they did. But I’m not twenty anymore, and that armour of youth is long gone.
These days, my armour is more of my own making. Keeping people at a distance wasn’t my style as a human, but now it’s a necessity. It’s the only way I know how to protect them– to protectmyself. For a while after my change, I tried having relationships again. I kept it casual with girls to avoid hurting them or having to reveal my secret, but all that got me was a bad reputation, however honest I tried to be with them about what I could offer. This last year, though, I’ve just given up trying.
So I should take this feeling, this hum in my chest, as a warning. I should take it as a sign to put some distance between the two of us before I inevitably mess things up and hurt her.
Except I don’t do that at all. Instead, I ease myself off the wall of the bandstand and take a step forward, unable to wipe the huge, stupid smile off my face.
‘Hi,’ I say, and she says ‘hi’ in return, and that’s when I know I’m in trouble. There’s a twist to her smile as she looks at me, her eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun, and just looking at her makes something flicker in my chest, my long-dead heart aching and stretching as it remembers what it’s like to feel.
‘Good meeting?’ I ask, and she half nods, half shrugs. I try to remember if she told me what her meeting was about, but I’m not sure she did. Not that it’s any of my business, of course.
‘Pretty good,’ she replies after a beat, her expression noncommittal. She doesn’t elaborate, and smiles when I don’t press her. ‘What’s the plan?’
I’m sure I did have a plan, but for the life of me I can’t remember it now. So I just shrug in return and gesture vaguely out towards the West Pier behind us. ‘We wander,’ I say, withabout as much confidence as I can muster. ‘There are some old favourites that I’ll definitely show you, but you usually see the best things when you’re wandering.’
That much, at least, is true. I’ve been here for every one of the Goth Weekends since they first started when I was a kid, and my favourite memories are of the things I’ve happened upon by accident. Like her, I think, and I press my lips together to keep from smiling.
I guide her away from the bandstand and down onto the pier. It’s busy even at this time, and I notice that she tucks herself in towards me when it’s particularly crowded, like she doesn’t want to get lost. It sends a ripple of warmth through me, which Ishouldtake as a reminder that I’m losing control here. I don’t though. If anything I lean in closer, flirting with the least dangerous-looking danger I’ve ever seen like I haven’t got a care in the world. And God help me, it feels good.
There’s a veritable spring in my step as we wander down the pier, the sea breeze nipping at my cheeks just enough to hold back a smile. I’ve walked down this pier a thousand times, but something about being here with Lucy now makes me feel like I’m doing it all for the first time.
It’s her little gasp when she sees a great outfit, barely audible over the crash of the waves, or the way she gently grabs at my arm every time a dog walks past, her fingers gripping more firmly if the dog is dressed up. There’s such joy in the way she’s experiencing her first Goth Weekend that it’s changing the way I’m seeing it all too, making me feel all kinds of things I have absolutely no business feeling.
But just for a moment, I allow myself to forget the giant, fanged elephant in the room. For this moment, with the sea breeze in my face and Lucy’s laughter in my ear, I pretend that this is a possibility– that someone like her might want to be with someone like me.
I guide her past the lighthouse and over the footbridge to the pier extension. The wind picks up the further out to sea we get, and a particularly strong gust pulls a shriek out of her, which quickly turns to a giggle as she grips my elbow tightly to keep from losing her balance. Instinctively, I pull my arm in closer to my body, completely unprepared for the shudder that rips through my body at the pressure of her fingers in my side. I turn away so that she can’t see my embarrassingly big smile.
By the time we reach the end of the pier, we’re both breathless and giddy, Lucy from the rush of the wind in her face, and me from the same, and more– fromher. I’m suddenly cast back twenty years or so, like I’m a teenager again, all teeth and knees, trying my moves on the pretty new girl in town.
She lets go of my arm as we come to a stop in front of the railing at the end of the pier, and I mourn the loss of her hand on me until it appears next to mine on the cracked-paint surface of the rail, so close I can feel the warmth of it on my skin. I take a deep breath in and blow it out through my mouth, the wind snatching it away as I do.
‘So,’ I hear Lucy say, next to me, ‘this is the first and most important step on the essential tour of the Whitby Goth Weekend.’
A laugh rises up my throat but doesn’t quite make it out of my mouth. ‘No,’ I say. ‘But this is my second-favourite place in the whole world.’
I don’t turn my head, but I can just about see her watching me in my periphery, and when she speaks, it’s gentle. Steady.
‘Here?’
‘Here.’
She shifts a little next to me. ‘Why?’
I shrug. It’s because I used to feel like the wind was so strong out here that it could snatch my problems clean out of my chest, like magic, but I don’t tell her that. And I definitely don’t tell herthat sometimes, on my darker days, I still feel like it could be possible.
She doesn’t press me for an answer– she’s just there next to me, like she’s considering me.
‘What’s your first-favourite place?’ she asks after a beat. There’s an easy manner about her– curious but not prying– that makes me want to share things with her. I can’t forgetthat she’s writing an article that involves me, though, and that she could potentially print anything I say. Not unless I want Sammi to skin me alive.
‘I’ll show you later,’ I say, which is an amount of honesty that feels safe. I’m surprised when she laughs.
‘Was that a line?’
My forehead tugs into a frown. ‘What?’