I shook my head and pressed my lips into his neck. He groaned, then ran his hand down over my waist, and pulled my skirt up. He slipped his hand into my underwear and I gasped, and reached for his belt. My long skirt covered everything but I no longer cared anyway.
Because I needed him.
14
NICK
We lay on the floor of the bandstand, side by side. My hand gripped Emma’s, and we were both staring up at the roof. My heart was pounding against my ribs and my whole body tingled. I felt as though I’d had an out-of-body experience.
Perhaps I had.
‘I never imagined physics could feel like that,’ Emma said. A laughed erupted from me.
‘Don’t you mean biology,’ I said, turning to look at her.
‘Nope, definitely physics.’ She grinned and turned to face me. ‘Something about the atoms between you and me – the, I don’t know, space and time or whatever is broken. That’s how we can be together, and even though I don’t have a clue how it works or why, if it feels like that then I want more of it.’
‘Me too.’ Her eyes sparkled in the glow from the fairy lights. I looked away, back at the stars. I could only see a small slice of the night sky through the gap in the roof where the beams had rotted away, but I pictured them stretching out into infinity, further than we would ever be able to see, distances far beyond our comprehension. Was there life on another one of these infinite planets or stars, somewhere else where something asincredible, as mind-bending – asimpossible–as what had just happened here, on earth? Surely there must be, because why would we be the only ones who’d been chosen?
It was a blessing and a curse, what Emma and I had found. Because on the one hand it was the most amazing connection I’d ever had with anyone – except Dawn, who I’d loved with all of my young heart. But on the other hand, we both knew we could never be together.
We were impossible.
Life was so unfair.
‘Nick?’
I turned my head. Emma was watching me with a smile on her face.
‘Hey,’ I said.
She shuffled round to face me, propping herself up on her elbow. ‘As much as I could stay here all night – actually I could stay here for the rest of my life if it meant I didn’t have to leave you – I think I have to go home now.’
She lay her hand on my chest and the space around my heart filled with warmth, radiating outwards like a heartbeat. ‘You’re probably right,’ I said, the words like sawdust in my mouth. ‘Apart from anything else if we stay here much longer we might get arrested for indecent exposure or something.’
‘If I don’t freeze to death first.’
I sat up too, the blanket still covering our legs. Our fingers were still entwined, a pulse beating between us.
‘I don’t want to date anyone else,’ I said.
‘Christ, me neither.’ She looked at me, her eyes wide. ‘So I guess we’ll do this again then, shall we?’
I felt heat rise in my face. ‘Well maybe not exactly this.’
She puffed out her cheeks. ‘I wish…’ She fiddled with the blanket, twirling it round in her fingers. ‘I wish we could be somewhere else.’
‘I know. I do too.’
She lifted her hand and ran her finger across my jawline, down my neck and shoulders to settle back on my chest. ‘We’ll find a way,’ she whispered.
And in that moment, I would have given anything for that to be true.
Leaving was harder than ever this time, both of us aware of a line we’d crossed, and wondering whether the universe, or whatever was controlling this thing, would let us meet again.
‘I can’t wait too long to see you again. Shall we meet at the same time on Monday?’ she said just before we parted ways.
‘It’s a date,’ I’d agreed.
