It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,29

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I couldn’t concentrate on the show because all I could think about was the fact that our hands were touching. What did this mean? I was never sure of what my feelings for Zach were, exactly. Whenever my parents questioned me, I would become defensive and point out how ridiculous it was that I couldn’t just be friends with a guy without everyone assuming there was something going on. It was predictable and, frankly, offensive, and it was bad enough that TV shows and movies never let guys and girls just be friends, but worse that everyone had to make the assumptions in real life too. And, even worse, no one made any assumptions about Lucy and me, which is so backward and heteronormative.

Outside of my standard rant, though, I wasn’t exactly sure whether I believed what I was saying. I mean, I believed in principle, but whether it actually applied to me was another question. Zach was the guy in my life, so I was never sure whether I was projecting feelings onto him, or really feeling them. He was cute, in a gawky way. Sometimes I found him attractive and sometimes I absolutely didn’t. I had occasionally had a sexual dream about him, but I had also had sexual dreams about a middle-aged, not-especially-attractive teacher before, so I couldn’t trust whatever my subconscious thought it was doing there.

Zach was funny, and kind, and he made me feel safe. I still wasn’t comfortable around him when my skin broke out, and I had never let him see or even know about the terrible acne scars on my back, or how bad my skin was before I met him, but, otherwise, I was always relaxed with him. The best way to describe my feelings for Zach was a deep, familial love accompanied by a fluctuating semi-romantic crush that could come and go in an instant. I couldn’t picture myself actually kissing him, but I had such limited kissing experience, I couldn’t trust that instinct either.

There were people who I was very clearly, definitely, instantly attracted to: the boy who caught my train and had cheekbones I couldn’t look away from; the fill-in PE teacher we’d had once who had the most breathtakingly athletic body I had ever seen up close; the lead-guitar player in a Battle of the Bands night I was forced to attend, who held himself in the sexiest way I’ve ever seen; the guy who worked in my local library who had gloriously long eyelashes. And there were many people I was definitely not attracted to. And then there’s this whole section of people who fall somewhere in the middle. People who you don’t even notice until they say something unexpected and then you realise they are smart and funny, or people who look bad in a school uniform but then you see them in a coat and scarf and everything changes. That’s where Zach exists, in this in-between place.

Zach also felt achievable for me. I knew he liked me as a person. I knew I could make him laugh, that we had similar interests, that we could pass an entire day together and not be bored or sick of one another. That we never ran out of things to say, and that he challenged me to do better at things, more than anyone else did. If anyone was going to fall in love with me…well, Zach was the only possibility, really. It came down to basic maths. I don’t spend enough time with any other boy for love to be possible. The chances of me meeting and falling in love with someone else were minuscule. I simply didn’t have a social existence that allowed for that, and I didn’t want one, let alone know how to get one.

I mostly imagined Zach and me getting together later in life. In our twenties. Maybe our thirties. I wasn’t in love with Zach now, but I was confident I could be one day. He was the potential future love of my life.

If my life was a TV show, then my character and Zach’s character would eventually get together in season three or four, after many episodes of banter, pining and meaningful looks, and the audience would love it. Everyone would ship us.

So we lay there with our fingers touching, and my heart pounding, and we watched the rest of the episode and half of the next one before either of us moved. My arm was aching and uncomfortable, but