Helen Douglas - After Eden

Perran June 2012

She was dancing with somebody else.

She looked different. Her auburn hair had been pinned up so that the waves that usually fell below her shoulders fell just below her chin. The beads on her green dress swayed as she moved across the floor. She caught his eye and smiled.

Flicking his hair out of his eyes, he pushed through the crowd towards her without thinking, without allowing the fear to stop him.

Will you dance with me? he asked.

She grinned. Thought youd never ask.

She placed one of her hands loosely around his waist, the other one lightly on his shoulder. She was close, but their bodies didnt touch, not the way Amy and Matt were pulled together so that every inch of them joined. Connor pulled her gently towards him, encouraged her head towards his shoulder. He breathed in the green-apple scent of her hair. The warmth of her skin. The faintest smell of soap or perhaps perfume. All around him was the music, the swirling lights, the mass of people dancing and laughing and shouting over the music. But all he knew was the feel of her warm breath on his neck, the thumping of his own heart, his hand as it moved around her waist and settled on her rear.

Connor? she said quietly.

He looked down, found her neck with his lips and began kissing her; small light kisses.

What are you doing? she asked.

Something I should have done long ago.

He kissed his way up her neck towards her lips. This was it. The moment he had dreamed of for the last two years. The moment when he would finally have the courage to kiss the girl hed loved for ever and tell her how much he loved her.

Stop! she shouted above the music.

He froze. This was not the way things played out in his daydreams. Out of the corner of his eye he could see some of the couples near him staring, waiting to see what would happen next.

Whats wrong? he asked.

Connor, youre my best friend. I dont feel that way about you.

But youre my date, he began.

I thought you understood.

She had raised her voice loud enough for him to hear it over the music, but it felt like she was broadcasting it to the whole world. Tears tickled the back of his eyes. There was no way he was going to stand there and cry in front of just about everyone he knew.

He pushed past her and headed out of the room. He would have gone outside, but Mr Chinn, the science teacher, was between him and the door and the last thing Connor needed was some teacher asking him if he was OK.

Instead, he took the other direction.

Perran March 2012

Megan was late. The five-minute bell had rung and everyone else had made their way to assembly. I was standing at the front gate waiting for her.

It was a frosty March morning with a clear blue sky. High above the school campus, two buzzards were circling anticlockwise, like the hands of a backwards turning clock. As I squinted into the distance, searching for a glimpse of Megans purple coat, I saw him for the first time. He emerged from the dazzling whiteness, a tall boy with light brown hair that glinted silver in the pale winter sun. Striding towards the school gate, he unzipped his leather jacket to reveal his school jumper and white shirt, then draped a school tie around his neck and loosely knotted it, as though avoiding the discomfort for as long as possible.

He glanced in my direction before heading into the main building. It took about thirty seconds for him to pass through the school gate and into the main entrance. It took considerably less time for me to figure him out: gorgeous, confident, unattainable.

By the lunch break, it seemed that the entire female population of Year Eleven was talking about the new boy. I heard snippets of conversation all the way from my appointment with the careers adviser to the canteen.

Hes Canadian.

Hes South African.

Apparently hes so good at football that Mr Tucker wants him on the team.

He has a tattoo.

He has a really hot blonde girlfriend who lives with him.

He drives a silver sports car.

Chloe Mason is going to ask him out.

My careers session had run over and the canteen was nearly empty by the time I arrived, but there was still a small queue at the till. I waited impatiently, running back over the meeting in my head.

Mrs Mingles office was hidden away upstairs in the admin block, away from the rest of the rooms. She was a middle-aged woman with flamboyant glasses and a frizzy head of red Afro curls. So, Eden, she had said enthusiastically, once we were both settled in our armchairs with a plate of chocolate biscuits and two mugs of tea balanced on a footstool between us. Tell me where you see yourself in the future.

I hadnt given much thought to the future. Not the long-term future anyway. Id thought as far as taking my exams in the summer and then going to the local college in the autumn. I would study hard during the week and on Saturday nights Id go to parties. Not the sort of parties that Amy liked the sort where everyone drank cider out of cheap plastic cups and fumbled in dark corners with boys from school but the sort where people drank wine from real glasses and talked about books and politics and tried to change the world.

Imagine yourself as a ninety-year-old woman, said Mrs Mingle, dunking her chocolate biscuit into her mug of tea; she held it there so long I expected to see the biscuit break away, and youre looking back over your life. What sort of story will you have to tell?

I tried to imagine myself as an old lady, grey and wrinkled, with my life behind me. And suddenly I knew what I wanted. Not in the details, but the broad sweep of things. I wanted my life to be like one of my favourite books: a big, fat novel, each page filled with small typewritten words as though the only way to cram so much life in was to make the writing really small. I wanted to be brave, take risks, make a difference, fall in love. The characters would be colourful, the landscapes exotic. I wanted my life to be a page-turner.

The problem was, I knew no colourful characters, had never been anywhere exotic and courage was something I lacked. As I sat there in the armchair in Mrs Mingles office, I had a dawning realisation that if I didnt start to think about my future, my life story would end up like a half-empty notebook, blank page after blank page, interrupted only by an occasional shopping list or note for the window cleaner.

Whats that? said a low, male voice beside me.

I looked up, startled from my daydream. It was the new boy. He was frowning at the special of the day.

I shrugged. Your guess is as good as mine. Im guessing its supposed to be curry.

What about that? he asked, pointing to the pizza. The round thing with the red stuff. His accent was difficult to place. Something between American and Australian.

Do you mean the pizza?

He nodded. Whats on top?

The canteen food was often a terrifying mixture of unidentifiable ingredients, but pizza was a recognisable and generally safe option. I turned to him, looking for a sign that this was a joke of some sort perhaps a wink or a smile but he was staring at the pizza slices, a crease between his eyebrows.

Its just normal pizza. Tomato sauce and cheese. Did he really not know what pizza was?

Yeah, he said, grinning suddenly. I knew that.

I took a jacket potato and some sweetcorn and an apple. He took exactly the same.

That looks nicer, he said, shrugging one shoulder.

I paid for my food and strode across to the table where Megan and Connor were sitting. We were an odd bunch. We werent part of any of the main tribes at Perran, like the surfer and skater crowd, or the pony-club girls, or the musicians, although we hung around on the periphery of the main groups from time to time. Megan had a beautiful singing voice and mixed well with the other musicians. Connor was learning to surf although he wasnt part of the surfing crowd and he went to astronomy club on Fridays after school without being a fully paid-up member of the science geeks. As for me, I was part of the cross-country team but avoided all other sports and everything to do with them. Connor and Megan were sitting with Connors neighbour, Matt, and Matts girlfriend, Amy.