I feel her slip. I look to my left and see her falling face first toward towards the concrete. That would be a lot of blood. Yuck. But she would also be hurt. That would be way worse. I throw down the kickstand, lean to the left and catch her wrist. I hook my foot on the bike frame, so I don’t tumble after her. She stops, and for a second I’m worried that I was too late. But then she turns around and grins at me. I smile back. But I can feel her slipping.
“I don’t know if I can pull you up, so I’m going to slowly lower you down.” I don’t think it’s rained recently, which is good. I don’t want her to have to walk around with a wet back. If she needs it, I can always lend her my hoodie I have tied around my waist. I lean over more, bringing her gently to the ground. Once she’s laying on the floor, she starts laughing. I’m confused, but I’m happy. I’m happy that she’s happy. Whenever I’ve seen her at school, she looks sad, scared even, sometimes. But she never seems to be upset around me. Right now, she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. She looks so pretty, with slight creases by her eyes from where she’s laughing. I start to laugh too because I’m happy and because her laugh is infectious. Her laugh is… pretty? Can a laugh be pretty? I don’t know. Soon we’re laughing so hard that my stomach hurts and she’s curled up in a ball and on her side. We keep laughing. Sometimes we get close to recovering but then we look at each other again. Big mistake. It sets us off again. Ten minutes later, we’re still giggling, but she stands up and smiles at me. I don’t know about her, but my cheeks hurt, but I don’t mind if it means I can have moments like that with her. I’ve been Owen’s girlfriend for a year and a half, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt this happy when I’m with him. I’ve actually laughed with Asha, and nothing has been false. With Owen, I have to fake a smile when he talks about his video games, like I actually understand or care what he’s talking about. With him I have to pretend to laugh at his jokes, pretend that I feel safe with him. In reality, I don’t. I’m scared that he’ll find out that I was partnered with a boy in biology class for a practical lesson. Nothing happened, obviously. I wouldn’t cheat on my boyfriend. Asha stands and faces me. I push all thoughts of Owen away.
“Should we try that again?” She giggles, and I worry that it’s going to set us off again. I fight back the laughter.
“I think we need to do something different. That clearly didn’t work.” I tease.
“Sorry.” She apologises. Concern floods my expression. I didn’t mean to make her feel guilty.
“No! I didn’t…. I was joking! I wasn’t blaming you or anything! Sorry I made you…” I rush to apologise. “Sorry.” We’re standing in silence. My stupid remark has made it awkward. Idiot.
“Right. Come on. Jump on my back.” I say. Her face is confused. It’s quite funny because she looks surprised, confused and as if she’s about crack up again, all at the same time.
“I’m sorry?!” She says, as if in disbelief. “What?!”
“Come on!” I turn away from her, lean over slightly, bend my knees, and hold my hands out as if I was going to do that strange run that everyone was doing a couple of years ago.
“I don’t want to hurt you though.” She resists. I roll my eyes jokingly, even though she can’t see.
“I’ll be fine! Come on!” I turn my head round face her. “If you don’t jump on, I’ll pick you up and carry you.” I threaten. She quickly jumps on after that. I slightly stagger under her weight, but it’s not so much that I can’t walk. I make it to my bike and swing my leg over. I nearly lose my balance but luckily my bike is heavy enough to hold our weight. I sit on the saddle and feel Asha's grip loosen. I move the bike slightly to work out how much more I need to steer now that two people are on the bike. Then I push off. Asha's grip tightens again. Where she’s holding is tingling, like pins and needles without the sting. I speed up and join the road. After a while, her grip loosens again, and I swear I hear her exhale, as if she’s been holding in stress and worry in and then she’s just let it all go. That was even more cathartic than the actual cycling. I have a destination in mind: the park I grew up with as a kid. It’s quite a simple park, but I think it will be perfect. Once we get there, I feel her try to get off, but I don’t want to let go of her yet.
“Hold on!” I throw down the kickstand, swing her around to the front and carry her off my bike.
“Put me down!” she protests, laughing. She pushes against chest a bit, but she doesn’t put up too much of a fight.
“What if I don’t want to?” I hold her tighter, to prove my point. I walk towards the nest swing and lay her down. I jump in beside her and lay down as she sits up. As she lays down, for some reason I really want to hold her hand. Before I can talk myself out of it, I slip my hand into hers. As soon as our fingers touch, the same charge flows from her hand into mine and up my arm. My heart beats faster and I pray that my palms aren’t sweaty. I feel so happy. I never got this feeling with Owen. She doesn’t protest or push my hand away, instead she holds my hand too. We don’t say anything about it, we just lay there, holding hands, rocking slightly in this small park that I spent my childhood in. Asha offers her music again, and we sit listening to music through an earphone each whilst the sun sets. A couple of times I stare (in a non-creepy way) at her, and she catches me, sometimes I can feel her eyes on me, and I look back at her and she looks away. Sometimes we look at each other at the same time and get wrapped up in our own bubble. But we don’t need to break away so quickly anymore. There’s no one else here. It’s just us. We watch as the blue sky turns into a mixture of pinks and purples and the blues of the day and the night. We watch as the stars emerge, and the moon appears. Asha knows quite a few constellations and points them out me. I can feel the late night and the early morning start to take its toll on me, but I try to fight it back. My parents know I’m going to be out late, but I’ll be back before ten. When the playlist finishes, Asha quickly switches it. I ask her what the time is, and she says that it’s seven o’clock. Wow. I’ve been awake for thirteen hours and only running on two hours of sleep! That’s cool. She turns her phone off again, we’re plunged back into the protective darkness. Suddenly, the tiredness turns to extreme exhaustion and I’m battling my eyelids. I don’t know if Asha is tired or cold, but I’m pretty sure she’s still awake. I’m completely happy and I feel safe. The exhaustion rolls over me, and I am only just aware that my head has rolled onto her shoulder as I drift off.
“Wake me up at 9.” I whisper.
I wake up a bit disorientated. I sit up and see Asha’s face in front of mine. We’re close. Our noses are almost touching. She moves closer and touches her lips to mine. They’re soft, and she gently puts her hand around my neck. I put my hand on the back of her head and gently pull her towards me. The swing sways slightly as we lay down again.
“Jenna.” She whispers softly. “I like you, Jenna. You make me happy. I like you.” Her voice is fading.
“Jenna?” Her voice is stronger, still whispered, but louder. “Jenna?”
“Jenna? I really don’t want to do this, but it’s nine o’clock.” I feel a light touch on my arm, giving me goosebumps. “I’m sorry”
I open my eyes to see that I am still on her shoulder. I shift my body away so I can look at her through the darkness.
“Shit. Sorry, I fell asleep on you!”
“I don’t mind.” She says shyly. I imagine her blushing. I know I am.
“We should probably start getting back.” I whisper. “I don’t want to though.”
“I would ask if you would like to hang out again tomorrow, but my cousins are over and we’re all going for a picnic in a park tomorrow. I wish you could come; all my cousins are younger than me, and I don’t really want to give everyone piggy backs. My back hurts way too much already.”
“I have football practise in the morning anyway.” I sigh, but a plan starts forming in my head. “Whereabouts are you heading to?”
“Umm, Stonebonear, I think. Why?” I contemplate whether I should tell her. Should I surprise her, or warn her? I think it would be fun to turn up randomly to see her, but then I have no idea what her family is like.
“What if I happened to go to the same park and just happened to bump into you?
She’s quiet for a second, and I’m worried that I was wrong to suggest that. But then I look at her face more and find her smiling.
“Oh my god YES please!” she laughs “My mum is always begging me to invite a friend over to meet her. I usually have to say that they’re busy, rather than own up to not actually having any friends.” My heart aches a little at that. How does someone this amazing not have any other friends?
“I mean- Sorry. Forget I said that. It was wrong to assume that we’re friends. I’m sorry.” It takes me a second to realise that she is apologising for assuming that we’re friends.
“Am I not your friend then? Because...” I adjust myself so I am laying on my front, but I am still looking at her. “I want to be. I want to be friends with you. If I’m honest, I want to be your best friend. I love hanging out with you.” I’m blushing even more, thankful for the dark cover. I don’t know why I’m blushing. “Will you be my best friend?” I think I hear her inhale sharply, and I can just about see that her smile is so big it must be hurting.
“Yes.” She whispers. My heart skips a beat. She said yes. She flips onto her front so that we’re both laying side-by-side in the swing with our arms dangling outside. Her right-hand searches for mine, and holds it, and I hold her hand back. The movement lights up her watch.
“What’s the time?” I ask in a slight panic, remembering my curfew. I gently turn her wrist so that it faces me, and the small screen glares back at me. Its 9.15. Not too bad. I relax a bit but start to climb out of the swing. She glances at her watch and then watches me with a confused expression. I don’t respond when she questions me. All I do is walk around to her side of the swing and when she rolls onto the side to keep watching what I’m doing, I lift her up again and start to walk back towards my bike.
“Oh my god, put me down! You know I could walk to your bike if you’d give me a chance!”
“But where’s the fun in that?” I tease her.
“Oh my god.” She laughs quietly as I swing her around to my back and climb on my bike. She holds tight again as I push off, and we’re flying again. I don’t have to stop until we reach her house, where I end up walking her to her door. I then go back to the bike and start to cycle home. The bike feels odd, wrong somehow. It’s too light without Asha. I miss her already. I really wish she didn’t have to go. I think about the dream I had earlier. I don’t get it. I’m straight and I have a boyfriend! But...Asha.
I get to my door at 9.45, which is good. Well within my curfew. I say hi to my family, who are watching Saturday night TV. It’s odd; I haven’t actually seen them all day. I drag myself upstairs to my room and flop on my bed. I have one last thought before I fall asleep:
What did the dream mean? And why I do I wish it were reality?
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