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He turns back to face me, inches between us, and I remember what it was like to be even closer to him than this. What it was like to feel him, to taste him. And there by my dining table, what little control I thought I had plunges out of my grasp like smoke between my fingers.
‘At this stage, Ava,’ I’m convinced he’s about to mention how he can see my heart ricocheting around my ribcage like a balloon with its air let out. But all he does is trace the lightest pattern on my hand with his fingertips and say, ‘I’ll be anything you want me to be.’
As Max, Josie and Finn perform an enthusiastic cover ofTake A Chance On Meby ABBA to raucous cheers from everyone in the flat, a heat descends on me, and I wonder if anyone else can feel it too.
The warmth that coats my skin isn’t sticky humidity like that day at the Barbican, or the biting burn of the midday sun on Clapham Common, but a fizzing haze that melts the frozen fortress around my heart, sending it floating away as steam.
It feels like time’s playing on my side for once. Like it’s saying,don’t worry, I’m saving this one for you.I’m sure that someday, when I go to look back on this night through the sepia-tinted lens of nostalgia, these time-warped memories will have settled deep into the recesses of my mind. But I’ll bring them out and dust them off and see them for what they were: bold and bright and packed to the brim with the arrogant invincibility of youth.
Is this what I’ve been holding back from? People and places and new experiences, risking it all in the reckless hope of having more moments like this?
When Finn catches my eye as he sings into the microphone he’s sharing with Max, that smile so big it pushes up into the creases of his eyes, a laugh floods out of me, and then the warmth turns to light and the whole room is aglow.
I could take a chance on you, I think.I could take a chance on all of it.
31
I’m not okay (not even a little)
F I N N
I have no ideahow I’ve successfully been in Ava’s presence for multiple hours without doing anything stupid, but it’s getting more difficult by the minute.
First, she came out of her room in that green dress and I had maybe the world’s least family-friendly thoughts. Then she sang some horrific renditions on karaoke andsomehowthat still sent every one of my internal organs careening into the abyss. Now, she’s on the floor with Dylan talking about their terrible manager, cheeks pink, long legs stretched out in front of her, absentmindedly petting a curled-up Rudy.
‘Colin!’ Max yells from the kitchen, pulling me out of my reverie. Who the hell is Colin?
I’m surprised when Ava’s voice replies, ‘What?’
‘Help me get these glasses.’
‘I just sat down,’ she grumbles.
‘But I can’t reach them,’ he says with a grin, as if he isn’t, like, six-five. I can’t help that my eyes cling to her every move; the extraordinarily ungraceful way she gets up, how she pulls her hairup into a ponytail with the scrunchie on her wrist, how she tugs her dress down over her hips and—
‘You good?’ Dylan asks with a chuckle, quiet but observant as ever.
She knows, I know, I’m pretty sure everyone in this room knows, because despite how desperately I’ve been trying to play it cool in front of her, I have a neon sign flashing above my head sayingSOS! Ava Monroe makes me feel a lot of things!
I don’t even bother denying it. I just laugh along with her and say, ‘Not really.’
I’m chatting with one of Alina’s friends by the time Ava returns from her conversation with Max, her eyes bright.
‘Ava, have you met Sage?’
I gesture towards the silver-haired person at the far end of the sofa, who replies, ‘We met before at Alina’s birthday, I’m pretty sure.’
Ava hands me one of the two glasses she’s carrying, and I’m grateful because I didn’t even realise I’d finished my last drink. ‘We did—you were wearing those Lucy & Yaks I wanted.’
‘Well, did you know they work at the Natural History Museum? With the dinosaurs.’ I grab her forearm to reiterate, ‘Thedinosaurs,Ava.’ I expect her to sit in the space between Sage and me, but she chooses the smaller gap between me and the armrest instead. ‘I asked them to tell me if any job comes up. I repeat: I will do anything. I will fold leaflets, I will hand out headsets, I will sweep the floor beneath the fossils.’
‘I promise I’ll keep you posted,’ Sage says with a chuckle, though I’m sure it’s just to get me to shut up.
I don’t want to move away from Ava but I’m concerned she doesn’t have enough space, so I shuffle the tiniest distance to the side. I’m surprised when she moves in the same direction.
‘Who’s playing Articulate?’ someone yells from the dining table. ‘We’re starting in five minutes!’
There’s a chorus ofyeses andlet me get a drinks and people start moving around, including Sage, who heads to the kitchen.
