The Line

The Line - Part Three

3

The little copse round the back of the music rooms – really just a cluster of trees, gathered round a lake that’s smaller than some puddles you could name - has more moods than most of the people I know. In summer, it’s as unapologetically pretty and picturesque as any corny old painting you’ve ever seen.  In autumn, it’s hauntingly melancholy – something about its russety colours and crackly textures make you feel sad even if you don’t quite know why. And in winter, it’s bleak and forbidding, even scary - the trees are as dark and dead-looking as that iron horse sculpture outside the Ref, the still pondwater gleams like spilt black oil under a cold black sky.

   Tonight, though, I don’t even notice what it looks like. All that matters is that he’s there, sitting on a fallen log, waiting for me.

   Christopher Davenport.

      Christo.

    As always, the sight of him almost stops my heart. This is partly because I know him and love him, but also – if I’m being perfectly honest – because I’ve got working eyesight. Christo is just drop-dead, staggeringly gorgeous. It’s not just me who thinks so. Everyone thinks so. He’s got wheat-gold hair and golden skin and a ruler-straight nose and sculptured cheekbones and sky-blue eyes you could drown in, and the tall, broad shouldered, well-muscled physique of the star razorball player he is.

    He hasn’t noticed me yet. A familiar thought jumps up in my mind as I look at him there in the distance, seeing the effortless grace of his posture, the way his long blue-jeaned legs stretch out casually in front of him. The total unconscious easy assurance that characterises every single thing he does in life, from writing an essay to catching a ball to greeting a friend’s parents.

    I am the luckiest girl in this Enclave.

      No. Scrub that. I’m the luckiest girl in this whole Republic.

    I quicken my pace. Then a bit more. Then a bit more. Then he sees me, and stands up, and I abandon any attempt at looking casual and break into a run. I run straight into his waiting arms.

We kiss and kiss and kiss, and then we kiss a bit more, for luck. 

   ‘Hey, you,’ he says at last, drawing his face back.

    ‘Hey, you,’ I reply, ruffling his hair up.  

     We’re pretty eloquent like that.

    His hands rest on my shoulders. I can feel them massaging, kneading, testing the tension of my muscles under the thick puffer jacket I’m wearing.

    ‘What's up, Minx?’ It’s his name for me - nobody else calls me that. ‘You're all uptight.’

    ‘Oh ... it’s nothing.’ 

     I pause for a second. It’s an indescribable relief to know that he knows me too well to take the lie at face value, that he obviously doesn’t believe me. The fact is, I really want to talk to someone about what I’m feeling, and I can’t talk to Guinni or Cordi. They’re my best friends, and have been for nearly ten years. But I know that, if I try to explain my new, half-formed, sneaking unease to them, Guinni will just stare at me blankly, and Cordi will just laugh. 

    ‘It's First Cut tomorrow morning,’ I say.

    ‘I know that. I’m not completely out of touch with the younger generation.’

     I can’t help smiling. He’s eighteen, two years older than me. There are eighteen year old girls in my Academy who’d happily stone me to death for being his girlfriend.