in time // h.s.

x. janet

Fifteen years old...

It was our last night in Paris and, as a treat, Miss Jones and the other chaperones decided to take us out to a little French restaurant for dinner. While we were getting ready and putting on our make-up, my roommate, Kathy Shertz (one of the cooler kids from our year who always looked perfect with her dark smoldering eye make-up and tousled raven black hair) turned to me, her head leaning to one side as she squinted her eyes at me suspiciously.

"You and Matty were looking close on the way back today."

Her comment was nothing new, I was used to being quizzed in such a manner when it came to me and the boys. Sometimes it was Harry and I cuddling that got people talking, other times it was the playful banter between Matt and I that caught their attention. I could usually brush it off, insisting that I didn't believe in the assumption that girls and boys could never be just friends, but on that trip I'd become even more aware of things shifting. Everything between us felt more charged, like we were both just waiting for something to happen. Like the chat on the bus about him waiting for the right girl, was that a hint? And was he questioning me about other guys in our class to suss out my reaction?

I was more than embarrassed when he laid there in his hotel room and mocked my supposed inability to keep my hands off him. I wondered if he could sense what was going on in my head. And if he could, well, that was just humiliating. He apologized for that, actually. The morning after the hands-off incident he'd gone out of his way to pull me to one side and say sorry, but not in a macho can't-believe-I'm-doing-this way. It contained real concern as he placed his hands on the tops of my arms and held my gaze while he made sure he hadn't upset me. It did nothing to ease the growing feeling inside, instead it put it on high alert. If I were to be quizzed on Matty's whereabouts at any point on the whole of that trip, I'd have been able to answer straight away. I was in a permanent state of awareness.

The day Kathy chose to question me there had definitely been a moment between Matty and I as we made our way back from the Louvre.

As we walked side by side to the hotel a silence had fallen between us. It wasn't an uncomfortable one, but nonetheless, I felt the need to fill it with something to stop my wandering thoughts. So I playfully pinched his thick red scarf and wrapped it around my own neck. I hadn't expected it to escalate into him grappling me to the ground in the middle of the sanded pathway in the Jardin des Tuileries and me being tickled into hysteria until I handed it back.

It was more than just the two of us mucking around as normal, this time it was physical. It was feisty and intense. However, Kathy pointing it out made me feel protective over the whole thing. I didn't want to be asked about it. I wanted her to butt out.

I shook my head and rolled my eyes as I pinched in my cheeks and swept on some pink Rimmel blusher.

"Oh really," I sighed nonchalantly, hoping Kathy would get the hint that it was a topic I was bored of explaining.

"You were flirting," she continued.

"No, we weren't," I protested, my voice hitting slightly higher notes than I wanted it to.

"You were jumping all over each other."

"No. It was fricking freezing so I nicked his scarf. He was trying to grab it back off me. That's all."

"It was classic flirting."

"Kathy..." I flustered, shaking my head.

"I think he likes you."

"Don't be silly. He's my friend and that's all there is to it," I said matter-of-factly, trying to end the conversation there.

"Yes, I know. But you're not kids any more, Janet. You must be able to see the way he looks at you and the fact that there's shitloads of chemistry between you."