hard for me. You’ve done it all before, but it’s all new for me,’ I say.
‘Done what before?’
‘This. All of this. Relationships, dating, whatever.’
‘Uh, no. I’ve never done this before.’
‘Yes, you have.’
‘I’ve never been on a double-date before.’
‘Well—’
‘And I’ve never brought someone to a party before, either. Not like that, where it’s all my friends and you don’t know anyone.’
‘Okay—’
‘I’ve never liked my brother’s friend before.’
‘Sure, but—’
‘I’ve never had this conversation before.’
‘Well, you’ve probably—’
‘And the way I feel about you. It’s different from how I’ve liked other people. It’s a new feeling.’
‘A new feeling?’ This is definitely something we need to dig into a lot more deeply.
‘You think I’m some kind of expert, and I’m really, really not. I’m bad at this. Really bad. Maybe a disaster.’
‘I don’t think you’re that bad.’
‘What bits am I good at?’
Kissing, I want to say. You’re really good at all the kissing bits. ‘You’re good at the bits when it’s just you and me.’
‘I’m trying to be better at the other parts,’ he says, and he looks so earnest and hopeful I want to squish his face.
‘Well, it’s hard for you, because I’m really bad at them too,’ I say.
‘So what are you trying to say?’
I hear Zach’s voice in my head. You know what you want. Just tell him.
I take a deep breath. ‘I like you. I want us to be together. Officially, no confusion, together. I’m the kind of person who needs to know where she stands on things. I like labels, I like structure, I like things to be clear, otherwise I just obsess over things. So, what I’m saying is, I want you to be my boyfriend.’
He opens his mouth to speak but I keep going, because I can’t let the words ‘I want you to be my boyfriend’ be the last thing I say.
‘I know I’m hard work. Like the way I freaked out at the party. And the beach. That stuff is going to keep happening, probably. I’m not going to have some kind of epiphany where I realise I’m a completely different person. So you’d need to figure out a way to deal with that. And, I’m not sure if you can even be my boyfriend when we haven’t had sex or anything yet, so I know I’m probably overstepping things. Also, I’ve never been in a bar and don’t like being drunk and I’m thinking about becoming a vegetarian which would be a deal-breaker for some chefs—’
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ he says. ‘Go back to the boyfriend part.’
Now I feel shy. ‘What about it?’
‘Say that bit again.’
‘Well, I like labels and definitions—’
‘No, the boyfriend bit.’
Saying it a second time takes as much courage as the first time. ‘I want you to be my boyfriend.’
He smiles, and steps forward, putting his arms around me. ‘That’s the only part you need to say,’ he says.
I lean into him for a second, and then pull back. ‘Wait, I want to tell you one more thing.’
He looks at me expectantly.
‘I used to have bad skin.’ I rush the words out, fast, because they are the scariest words I’ve ever said out loud. Here is the thing I am most ashamed of: take it, take it.
‘And…?’ he says.
‘And, what?’
‘You had bad skin and?’ He looks like he’s waiting for me to add something else, like this is not enough of the story. I don’t know how to possibly convey to him what I actually mean. To say, this thing that you’re practically shrugging off is what has defined my life to this moment. To really know me, you need to know this.
‘And it was really hard for me. And I have lots of scars on my back, that you might see one day.’
‘Show me,’ he says.
We just look at each other for a long moment. I swim through a thousand excuses in my mind and tell myself be brave, be braver than you’ve ever been and I turn away from him, and hold the bottom of my T-shirt in my hands and then lift it up, all the way, so it’s around my neck and he can see all of my back and shoulders, all of the marks, indents and lumps. All of the brutal ugliness. I stand like that for a second, maybe two, maybe three, listening to him breathing behind me, and then lower my T-shirt back down. I turn around to face him, and my hands are shaking so badly that I want to shove them in my pockets.
He