‘Aster.’ A reluctant smile had crept over my face during his rant, but it shattered like paper-thin glass. ‘He’s not the problem. It’s me.’
Aster released one of my hands to poke me square in the chest. ‘Absolutely not true. I will not hear it. There’s nothing wrong with you.’ He prodded again. ‘You tell me what’s happened.’ Another painful poke. ‘And then I’ll tell you again that you’re wrong and that everything about you is brilliant.’
Everyone should have a best friend like Aster. Even when he was giving me a bruise on my chest that would fade in minutes but still bloody hurt, he was unfailingly and always on my side. Even when I wasn’t.
I slumped and he lowered his hand to cup around mine again. ‘I love you,’ I said.
Aster squeezed my hands. ‘Man, I love you so much more. You don’t even know. It’s boundless.’
It was good to know he felt that kind of love for me; love that wouldn’t change no matter what secrets I kept or weirdness I unveiled.
‘I think because I’ve not felt this before, I’m doing it wrong.’ I kept my eyes on his face this time. I needed to know exactly when his expression changed, exactly when I walked off the path of normalcy and onto one of taking everything an ordinary person felt and multiplying it like wild rabbits.
‘I was worried when I went down to the village,’ I continued. I wouldn’t tell Aster about finding Kit crying in my bed, but there was enough to share without adding that. ‘On the day of thestorm, Kit had asked that morning if he could kiss me. I didn’t think I wanted him to. That’s what I assumed, since everyone else I’d kissed before had been so underwhelming.’
‘You weren’t sure though?’
I scrunched my nose. ‘I don’t know. In that moment, I didn’t want to kiss him. But I also maybe did? It was a morbid kind of curiosity. Like, if I couldn’t like kissing someone as kind and lovely as Kit, who was I going to enjoy it with, right?’
Aster nodded. ‘The logic tracks. You didn’t kiss him then, though?’
‘No. I left. And then the storm happened. And everything after.’
‘Ah.’ Aster’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. ‘How Kit acted while you were in the mountains is making a whole lot more sense now.’
‘What did he do?’ I asked, ravenous for any detail.
Aster grinned. ‘He wanted to know how you were doing all the time. Like, he messaged me constantly. I reckon if I’d set up a camera so he could monitor your progress, that wouldn’t have been enough.’
Despite the worry binding my chest, my heart lifted at hearing how much Kit cared. It gave me hope that even if I couldn’t stop being a weirdo, he might be patient with me.
‘What happened when you saw him again?’ Aster prompted.
Despite the level of detail Aster shared about his sexual adventures, I didn’t want to do the same. What had happened between me and Kit was special. Just for us. Aster would always be the kind of person who used words to express his wonder, but I would do it more quietly.
‘We kissed,’ I said. ‘And did other stuff.’
Other life changing, beautiful stuff.
Aster bounced several times, then abruptly stopped. ‘You enjoyed it all, right?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ I struggled for the right words. ‘You know that time we went on a field trip to Stone Henge? When I opened my packet of crisps and the little salt packet blew away?’ Aster had been devastated for me, and had insisted on sharing his fully flavoured crisps after we choked down mine. ‘Do you remember what it was like, eating proper crisps after those discs of nothingness?’
Aster’s expression grew dreamy, like it did every time we talked about any kind of potato based product. ‘It was amazing.’
‘Yeah.’ I frowned at my terrible comparison, but it worked. Normal crisps after those flavourless ones had felt like a revelation. Like we’d found something that had been missing. ‘Well, that’s kind of what it felt like to be with Kit. Everything I’d been hoping and searching for; it was him.’
Aster’s smile was wide and bright. ‘I am so so happy for you, Lukey.’
I almost smiled back on reflex, but my story wasn’t done.
‘Everything felt great yesterday, like all I’d ever wanted had fallen into place.’ I was grateful of Aster’s hands around mine, reminding me that no matter how badly I’d messed things up with Kit, I’d always have someone who would never abandon me. ‘I realised this morning though; I wasn’t feeling what I should.’
A vertical line creased down the middle of Aster’s forehead with how hard he frowned. ‘There’s noshouldabout any of this, Lukey. You feel whatever you feel.’
I shook my head. ‘No. You don’t understand. Something must have gone wrong inside of me. Too many years of not feeling anything like this has built up and now it’s overflowing.’
Aster’s eyes narrowed. ‘Can you be specific?’
