Hi, Kat.
The message pops up in my requests, and I accept it, my tummy fluttering.
How do I know it’s you? Prove it.
Three dots bounce before his reply arrives.
Prove what?
That it’s you. Anyone could make this account.
A pause.
The first time I saw you, you were wearing a sundress the colour of lemons. White stitching at the hem.
I remember that dress with a fond smile. I wore it until the zip burst from me stuffing myself into it far longer than I should have. Even then, I kept it at the back of the wardrobe for two years before Martha made me throw it out.
Someone else could know that.
If someone else was there.
Another pause. I imagine him sitting somewhere, poring over his phone. Then feel a bit put out that he’s there instead of guarding my window. But Ellie’s home for once, albeit in bed already. And he never seems to come when she’s here.
Would they know about the graze on your leg that looked like a dolphin? The one from the rocks by the stream.
I can’t help but laugh. He brought me a leaf to use as a plaster, which didn’t work, but I’d chatted to him non-stop about that bloody dolphin scab. I loved it.
When it had scabbed over, I named it Gerald, treating it like another new friend. I mourned its fading with genuine grief. It was high enough up my thigh that no one else had ever seen it, and after being slapped by Martha, I only shared things on a need-to-know basis with her.
It’s you.
It’s me.
Those two words make me bite my lip. It’s really him.
Send me a picture. Show me.
Greedily, I want a little piece of him to keep to myself, or to show Ellie if I need to.
A minute passes before an image pops through. Him in his mask, not posed in a way where he’s given it much thought, but he doesn’t need a pose for me to salivate over him. Those dark eyes are enough. Not to mention the cut of his jaw beneath the mask’s material, and the thickness of his chest and arms. There’s no visible background, thus no more clues about him.
I look at it for at least a minute.
Then I pull my oversized t-shirt off one shoulder, tilt my phone, and send a picture back before I think better of it.
His response is instant.
Whose shirt is that?
The speediness of his response has me grinning. I love that he seems so possessive. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.
Old fling from sixth form. Why?
You should be in one of mine.
Fuck.
That sentence does ungodly things to me. He may as well have diverted a river between my thighs for the state it leaves me in.
