It Sounded Better in My Head - Nina Kenwood Page 0,42

in his voice. We’re facing each other, but I have my eyes closed.

‘Yes, I want you to kiss me,’ I say, my voice rushed and shaky. It feels like the single bravest thing I’ve ever said.

Before I have time to go into a full neurotic meltdown, he leans over and kisses me. His kiss is so quick and soft, a gentle touching of lips, that I could almost convince myself I imagined the whole thing. I open my eyes, and our faces are only inches apart on the pillow.

‘Your turn,’ he says. And I know he’s probably saying it’s my turn to ask a question, but instead I decide that he’s saying it’s my turn to kiss him, and before I can rethink my decision, I take all my courage and I move forward and put my hand on his stubbly cheek and kiss him.

14

Fifty-two Minutes

I’m kissing Alex.

I’m kissing Alex.

He kisses my neck and my collarbone, and it feels more reckless and thrilling than anything I’ve ever done or anything I may ever do again. I feel like I am bursting, like I can’t hold the particles of myself together anymore, like I could power a city with the electricity coming off my skin.

We kiss for fifty-two minutes, until the red numbers on the digital alarm clock on the bedside table say 12:42am. For a lot of that time, Alex’s hands are in my hair, on my face, on my shoulders, wrapped around me. After a while though, they venture further, sliding under my top. I’m not wearing a bra, it’s not hard for him to find the bits of me he wants to find. I put my hands under his T-shirt and feel the bare skin on his stomach and chest, and it makes me breathless.

I can feel things getting more intense, and I pull back a little. I stop kissing him, mostly because I feel like I’ll lose control of myself. He kisses my forehead, then shuffles back, creating space between us, but then reaching his hand out to touch mine. We don’t say anything, we just lie facing each other, holding hands, until we fall asleep.

15

A Day at the Beach

The next day, while we’re having breakfast, I am nervous. I’m keeping my head down and hoping no one notices the faint rash I have near my mouth from Alex’s stubble rubbing against me, and if they do, that they think it’s just part of my sunburn or my acne scarring.

Alex is not currently at the table. I think he’s still asleep. He barely stirred when I snuck out of the bed early this morning. I messed up the blankets on the trundle on my way out the door, so it looked like someone had been sleeping there.

I nibble on a scone and try to stop myself thinking about last night’s kissing, even though my mind keeps looping endlessly back to it.

The kissing was glorious. The kissing was terrifying.

At about the seven-minute mark, a little voice wormed its way into my head, reminding me that Alex’s hands were touching my body and my body is a minefield of potential humiliations. When his hands went near my hips and stomach, I kept thinking about how flabby they might feel, and when he put his hands on my back, under my T-shirt, I flinched away, because if he went any higher on my shoulders, he would feel the scars.

I want, so badly, to be the person who loves and is proud of her body, who says I am not giving in to the bullshit that is pressed on every girl from birth that what she looks like matters more than anything else. But the truth is, what I’ve looked like has shaped my life, or at least my recent life. So I am not the enlightened person I want to be. I wish I didn’t care what Alex thinks of my body, but I do. I’ve never let anyone as close to me as I let Alex last night. I don’t even like people kissing me hello or goodbye, and last night I let someone press his face against my face for fifty-two minutes.

I didn’t let him into my underwear (he didn’t try, in truth). That’s an area of my body that represents anxiety I’ve never needed to fully contemplate before. For a start, I am not completely hair free. I’m trimmed down and waxed enough to wear bathers, but there is still lots of hair there and I’m not