Marsha stops skipping and sticks her tongue out too and nods to Rory with her fiercest do-it look on, brows furrowed. Rory immediately sticks his tongue out.
‘It feels weird, doesn’t it.’ She looks up at his face, assessing whether he feels the same as she does. ‘They don’t last as long as ice-creams.’
‘I think catching snow is even more magical than ice-cream. It whispers hello on your tongue and then poof, it’s gone. Look, try again,’ Rory says, poking his tongue out a second time.
Marsha is captivated. ‘Poof, it’s gone. I’m gonna catch more and more and more.’ She runs ahead and Rory and I exchange a glance, both of us still with our tongues out. That thing about whispers was cute. He’ll make a good dad. Strong, stable, kind.
Woah, where had that come from? I hope he can’t read minds.
He waggles his tongue at me.
‘Can I put it back in my mouth now?’ is what I think he says but it’s a little distorted.
‘Probably best,’ I say, hoping he doesn’t know I’m currently having some very non-platonic thoughts. That needs to stop right now. I do not need to be harbouring a crush on Rory Walters. Not even the tiniest, weakest little flame. For a girl that avoids rejection, that would be a soul-destroying infatuation to develop. There is no way in the world this cosmopolitan, successful, kind man would be interested in my own unique brand of chaos.
He puts his tongue away and I breathe a sigh of relief.
Somehow, we’re walking close, the gap left by Marsha has closed itself and I can feel him at the side of me. His presence. It’s as if it’s a being in its own right, hard to define but there, calming, authoritative, a little bit intimidating. Part of it is just the essence of him, I think, a man very much in control, a man who can be relied upon. A man most unlike the majority I have encountered across my life. But it’s tied to his physical form too. Rory has always been tall but these days he is a grown-up, filled out, mature, looks like he can build a log cabin with his bare hands. Whoops, my mind seems to be circling back again.
When I first knew him, he was still skinny, boy-like. Although I hadn’t noticed it so much at the time. I don’t think you do when you’re young, everyone looked so grown-up back then. But I had sneakily peeked at his Facebook last night – when I say sneakily and peeked, I mean after my full-on day I got lost in a wormhole that easily spanned ten plus years and took up the majority of my evening.
I learnt a whole lot.
Like how his mum’s friend, Janet, is a bit of a wild card.
Like for all of his shyness at university, as a small boy he was really fond of dressing up. His mother has no shame about uploading photos of his childhood and tagging him. I can only imagine how cringe that must be.
Like how cute he was as a teen – he was really gangly there for a bit.
I had committed the cardinal sin of liking a post of him from twelve years ago. And then hitting unlike immediately after.
I swipe a side glance; he looks heavy in thought and I’m hoping that it’s because of global poverty or something rather than him working out how to broach the subject of me liking his old pictures
‘So, last night I was thinking … um … do you remember…?’ Rory stops walking as he speaks. Oh shit, oh shit.
‘Snow is so pretty isn’t it?’ I say gesturing at the picture-perfect snowflakes gently raining down on us, as I attempt to change the conversation.
He looks at me, considering. He is always doing that. I wish I had his powers. I wish I could see into the darkest deepest recesses of his mind, work out what exactly is going on in that big brain of his. Work out exactly what he thinks of me. What he’s thinking right now. Rory is hard to read at the best of times, inscrutable. Why is he spending time with me? Can I trust him being here? What’s motivating him? Is it tied to my dad or is it me? I realise again I am doubting his friendship, doubting my ability to make friends solely on my own merit. Honestly, at what age will I stop being so insecure? Is this me for life?
‘Yes, yes, it is.’ He answers the snow question.
‘So even though you hate December…’
‘Yep, still hate it.’ But he says it with a smile rather than murderous loathing.
‘You like snow? Your words about the whisper of a snowflake were damn near poetic.’
‘Aha, your love for metre and verse must be rubbing off on me.’ His eyes crinkle as he replies and I see the beginning of where his crow’s feet will start as he ages. In this moment I feel like I want to watch them crinkle forever.
Argh. It’s the snow’s fault. It makes me all romantic. I’m blaming every Christmas movie ever for this complete misbehaviour of my hormones. Hopefully next week I’ll be back to my usual uninterested self.
‘But, poetry aside, do you remember, back when we…?’ Aha, he’s going to be persistent. Of course he is.
‘Go on,’ I say, wanting to scrunch up my eyes and put my fingers in my ears.
‘That time I drove you home and we got a puncture and I thought it would be easy to fix and you buggered off and sat on a gate and smoked a joint whilst I wrestled with it.’
I laugh, relieved that this is his question. ‘I do. I was bloody useless, wasn’t I?’
