Ronan was simply staring at me.
I thought of the framed photograph Jennifer had given me: Ronan held high on sports day.
His chest was working hard to take in air.
‘Do you think you and me would have went to the formal for a laugh? If we didn’t have anyone to go with, I mean?’
Ronan was silent, listening, shifting around a bit as he did so.
‘You probably would have talked me into going, got me to follow your lead.’
His mouth twitched.
Another thought came to me in that moment; if Ronan was progressing so fast, as the tutor had said, I wondered if he felt the same and thought himself capable of more than any of us imagined?
‘Do you think you’d like to go? To the formal? It’s four weeks away, Valentine’s night of all nights, so it’s soon enough, but would you?’
His face went red and he looked down. It was the way his face had gone just before he screamed in the canteen that day, but this time he seemed to control it and let air hiss out of his nostrils until his face turned back to its normal colour again.
‘OK,’ I said, ‘I understand.’
He took a big breath and released it slowly.
I did the same.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t go.’
He stared at me with those shining eyes.
‘Nah, I don’t think I will, not if you’re not going.’
He made a little jolt and a yelp.
‘What?’
He did the same thing again.
‘What?’
He sighed out loudly as if I was being stupid.
‘You think Ishouldgo?’
His chin went down to his chest and up again shakily.
‘With … who? With Jennifer?’
He did the same again. Shakily.
‘What if she says no?’
His eyes went to the right followed by his head and then back to centre again. He did this twice.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘she might say no, and probably Kevin Sherry will just so happen to be passing by at that exactmoment and hear me getting rejected and start spreading it around school. He’s good at that.’
Ronan grunted with his lips bunched up.
‘Ronan, you know that people are taking about what happened to you, right? I don’t believe any of it, you’re the only one that knows. You’re going to be able to tell me one day, aren’t you? I’ve promised; I’m going to wait for however long it takes. You know that, right?’
