We’re both still standing. My eyes flick to the plush chairs, but Megs grabs me by the elbows to keep me from dropping into one. All around us, people file into Theatre One. Megan checks her watch and refocuses on me.
Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. “I kissed a boy.”
“And you liked it,” she sings, giggling.
It’s not unusual for either of us to “prank” the other, so I’m not surprised she thinks I’m taking the piss. Her smile drops a few moments later when I don’t burst into laughter myself.
She laughs once. Her face falls. She laughs again. “You’re being for real, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Megan sits down. I wait for her to speak. She doesn’t, so I sit next to her.
“Who? . . . When? . . . What happened? But most importantly, who?”
“Halloween,” I say.
Megan and I haven’t seen each other since the middle of last month. She’d gone home to Kent to stay with her mum and sick auntie for a few weeks, and we’ve only spoken a couple of times on the phone during that time. I’d also avoided any discussion about what went down at The Little Thatch and instead recentred all conversation onto her aunt’s recovery.
“It happened at Halloween. It just sort of happened. I was outside, because my helmet was so sweaty and gross and I needed to cool down, and there was a guy there, he—”
“Who?”
I swallow a mouthful of saliva. “Just some guy.”
“Just some guy?” Megs raises an eyebrow.
“I don’t even know his name.” My words are razor blades in my mouth, but I can’t tell her who it really is, or why we kissed, or that since then I’ve thought of nothing else.
Pi’s kiss stirred something in me. An awakening maybe, I don’t fucking know.
Every day in training and every match we’ve played since then has been . . . agony. Neither of us has acknowledged what happened, neither of us has spoken any words to each other besides our usual rugby-related shit, but each time I look over at him, it’s as though he’s just that second looked away, and it makes me feel . . . achy.
Yearning. The feeling he stirred was yearning.
Yuck, like a fucking teenager.
“Okay . . .” Megan pushes up from the chair. “I’m going to watch the movie now. I’ve been looking forward to this for months. Are you coming in?”
“Are we breaking up?” I ask in a whisper, standing up.
She looks at me. Bites her lip. Puffs out her chest. “I don’t know.”
“Valid.” I go to sit back down, but she grabs me by my coat sleeve.
“What the fuck are you doing? The film starts like . . . any second now. Get in that theatre. We’re in seats four and five D.” Megan lets me collect the untouched pint, and begins shoving me towards the door marked with a big number one.
“Wicked?” says a purple-haired cinema attendant, and Megan hands her phone over to show our tickets.
It’s already dark, and the trailers have begun, but people are still chatting, and waiters are walking around with drinks and plates of food and desserts.
We take our seat—singular, since it’s more like a small sofa—and drop our bags and coats on the ground by our feet.
“Megs, I’m really sorry it happened,” I say once our bums are on the chair.
“Are you, though?” She puts her hand on my thigh. It’s a loaded question, but I get the weird sense she’s not mad. It’s worse than her being annoyed . . . she’s being rational. “Do you regret kissing him?”
No. That’s the honest answer, but I can’t lie either. Instead, I stare at the screen which is playing an ad about becoming a member of the cinema. Her hand moves from my knee to my arm, pulling it down and removing my thumbnail from between my teeth.
