It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,37

of ourselves.’

I laugh, and then close my eyes. I listen to him breathe, and I can tell the moment he falls asleep because his breathing changes.

I lie there listening to him sleep for a long time, which is a thrillingly intimate and kind of creepy thing to do. I can’t help it though, because I feel wide awake. I’ve never spent the night in a bed with a guy before. I want to document every moment, although after a while it becomes clear that with Alex asleep, there is very little to document.

It feels like I’ve just closed my eyes when my alarm starts quietly buzzing.

11

An Incomplete List

Here is an incomplete list of my actual greatest humiliations from high school that I would never say out loud to Alex, or anyone:

A woman in the supermarket asking me what happened to my face, because my acne was so bad it didn’t even look like acne anymore.

Crying in my doctor’s office when she showed me the smallest kindness by saying, ‘Oh honey, you poor thing.’

Crying in my dermatologist’s office when he said, ‘You should have come to me sooner,’ and it became clear that everything was my fault.

Crying in my naturopath’s office when she was listing the foods I needed to stop eating and she had been listing them for a while and I realised she probably was only halfway through and I would never enjoy a meal again.

Having a public fight with my mother in the Myer fitting rooms, while bra shopping, because I didn’t want the bra fitter to come in and see the acne and scars on my back.

Not looking anyone in the eye for days at a time, and then being called rude, and having a terrible flood of realisation of what other people must think of me.

Feeling okay about my skin for the first time in a long time, and then a little girl asking if I’d fallen over and skidded my chin along the road, and realising my skin only looked okay relative to how bad it was before.

Giving up sugar for six months and not having a birthday cake or dessert at Christmas or a bowl of ice-cream on a Friday night (my favourite), and my skin breaking out anyway making all that sacrifice pointless.

My parents going away for a weekend and calling me and asking in a hopeful tone if I had invited people over, and realising later they were wishing I would throw a party in their absence (even just a small party, even if I’d just invite one friend over), and instead I read fan fiction and watched YouTube tutorials on cross-stitching and wrote a list of names I would call my dog if I had one, and felt happy I didn’t have to see anyone.

Crying when I’d see myself in the mirror on a Monday morning and realising I had to endure a whole week of being out in the world.

Deleting and then reinstating my social media accounts every two weeks for a year, and agonising for hours every time, even though I never posted pictures of myself anyway.

Spending literally hours on other people’s social media—people from school, friends of people from school, celebrities, complete strangers—and dreaming of having their lives.

Turning eighteen and knowing I had never been liked, romantically, by anyone, at all, ever, in my entire life.

12

A Favour to Ask

Lucy nudges open the door to our shared bedroom with her foot and walks in carrying aloe vera gel, an icepack, a wet washcloth, a bottle of water and a candle. I am lying prone on our bed with the blinds down because I am sunburnt. (Of course I am. This is why I hate summer. No other season physically burns you for doing what everyone tells you to do—going outside and enjoying the nice weather.)

It’s my own fault. The super-strong acne medication I used to take has left me with a semi-permanent sensitivity to the sun. I went for a walk on the beach today, while Zach and Lucy were surfing and Alex was off somewhere, and even though I lathered myself in sunscreen, I couldn’t find my hat and, in an act of vanity, didn’t wear the very old, slightly dirty spare baseball cap hanging by the front door.

Even though I was just going for a casual walk on the beach, the truth was I was hoping to run into Alex.

I had pictured myself walking along the beach, the breeze in my hair, my sunglasses giving me