People always say the world is so small. It isn’t. There’s over seven BILLION humans on this planet. Your chance of bumping into someone you know, somewhere you aren’t usually? Minuscule. Your chances of bumping into someone who is also a love interest? Not a hope in hell. But in romance films, everyone is bumping into EVERYONE. Forget statistical probabilities. Nope. Their love beats mathematics. Even though they inevitably live in big cities like LA, or New York or London, the two lovers are just ALWAYS what-a-coincidence crossing paths in coffee shops and park benches and cutesy bookstores.
Harry was sitting on my goddamned wall.
I spotted him before he spotted me. His long legs spread out to prop up his gangly body. His whole body jiggled as he tapped his foot. I crunched on a frozen leaf and he looked up, more teeth than anything else as he smiled.
“What the hell are you doing on my wall?”
“Audrey! I need you.”
I closed my eyes for a second. Now really wasn’t a good time for Harry to be on my garden wall. I needed to go inside and tell Mum that Dad was going to evict us the moment I got a UCAS offer. “Why are you on my wall?”
“I didn’t have your phone number. Ma wouldn’t give it to me. She said it was privacy or something.”
“So you turn up at my house?”
His teeth grew bigger as his smile grew wider. “I told you. I need you!”
He jumped down and opened his arms for a hug.
“I’m not hugging you.”
“Don’t fight your urges, Audrey.”
I kept shaking my head in disbelief. “Why do you need me, Harry?”
“It’s this script. Your zombie bride has changed everything! I need to rewrite loads and I need your insight into her. I’ve been up all night trying to get it right.”
I tilted my head and peered at him. He did look wrecked. There were circles under his eyes, his face paler than normal.
“Don’t you have to be at Flicker?”
“Nah, Sunday Sam works on a Sunday.”
“Who’s Sunday Sam?”
“He’s been there since, like, 1972. Anyway, we’re getting off point. Will you help me?”
I moved my body weight from one foot to the other. “I don’t know anything about script writing.”
“You don’t need to. I just need to ask you some questions about how you see the bride. Most of the time you can just lie on your bed and read a magazine or something.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh, so you’re coming inside? Into my bedroom?”
He patted my shoulder and sighed. “Audrey, it would save us time if you just accept the inevitable that I will end up in your bedroom.”
“You’re actually shameless, aren’t you?”
“So, can I come up?”
I hardly had space in my head to think about it, but I was able to make the following conclusions. If I brought Harry in with me, Mum wouldn’t be able to react as nutso as I expected her to. Plus, annoying and flirtatious as he was, he was a rather welcome distraction from my planned freefall into emotional oblivion. Finally, I’d LOVED being the bride last night. I had so many ideas for her, for what drove her, for where she came from…
“Okay, you can come up to WORK. Not to flirt.”
He beamed at me so hugely I thought I might be blinded. “Perfect! Brilliant. And I promise I’ll stop flirting with you as long as you stop flirting with me.”
“Hang on, I’m not flirting…” But he was already bounding up the path and rapping on the door. Mum didn’t know what to do with Harry. She flung the door open, still in her dressing gown, obviously expecting me with news. Instead she got, “Hi, you must be Ms Winters, I’m Harry. I work with Audrey at the cinema. How are you?”
“Oh, hello. I didn’t know Audrey was having a friend around.”
“My fault entirely. I invited myself round. I need her help with a project. Wow, what a kitchen you have here.” He stepped past her. “It’s gorgeous. Did you decorate this yourself?”
Mum pulled her dressing gown around herself and followed him into our kitchen. “Umm, yes, I did. Some time ago now though.”
“You’ve got great taste. Duck egg blue?”
I raised an eyebrow. How the hell did Harry know what “duck egg blue” was?
Within five minutes, he was sitting at our breakfast bar, sipping tea, making Mum laugh with talk of what Dougie was like in school. Like the rest of the world, she was dazzled by Harry’s compliments and seemed to have forgotten I was in charge of saving our home. After tea – “Wow, you really know how to make a good cuppa, Ms Winters” – Harry and I decamped to my bedroom. I mentally ran through the possible mess as we climbed the stairs. Had I left last night’s bra on my chair? Or worse? My period-stained knickers from where yesterday’s tampon had seeped through on my uber-long shift? I was SURE I’d put them in my laundry basket, but I still pushed through the door first, frantically scanning for gross bits. Luckily, apart from a pile of clothes (sans period knickers) on the floor, it was relatively okay. Just as well, as Harry flopped straight onto my bed, belly first, and said, “Come on then. Seeing as you dragged me here. We may as well.”
I leaned against my wall and crossed my arms. “May as well what?”
He raised his eyebrows multiple times.
“Harry!”
He just laughed and rolled onto his side, flipping his legs over to sit up straight again. “Okay, Audrey, we’ll play your game. Now, help me with this script.”
And, just like that, Director Harry took over. He cleared a space on my desk, pulled up a chair and started poring over the script, talking all serious, like this was a UN conference to decide the future of humanity or something. “You see? In this scene? When she meets my character? I need them to fall in love, but she hates men so much, I don’t know what can happen to buy him some time, you know? I mean, how do you win over a feminist zombie? Especially as he’s not even a zombie yet and she wants to eat his brain.”
I smiled, and pulled over my bedside table to perch on. “Well, don’t label her as a feminist zombie. That’s what she’s so mad about. The fact she’s spent her whole life being labelled and she doesn’t get to decide what the label is.”
“You’re right! You’re so right. You see! I told you I needed you.”
We worked for an hour or two, him showing me the script and me adding my input where I could. He never once lost energy, which seemed mad as he looked like he hadn’t slept at all. In fact, the more tired I got, the more energetic he was. The flirting stopped and he just started taking everything I said really seriously. “Yes, that’s so true!” and, “Argh, of course,” before scribbling over his script. I didn’t know him very well, but I was seeing a whole different side to him. He even sensed my waning attention, and said, “Hey, don’t you need to do coursework or something? Is it okay if I stay here? Just in case I need you? But you can get on with some other stuff.”
I did have Geography coursework, which made me feel so bored I could hardly finish saying the word “Geography” without wanting a nap, but I nodded and got tea.
My phone vibrated as I went downstairs.
Leroy: Guys and Dolls auditions tomorrow! Can I run lines with you?
I bit my lip, pausing on my descent. Would it be too painful? To run lines for a play I wasn’t going to audition for? For a part I would probably get if I wasn’t too humiliated to even try out? Then I found myself shrugging. Actually, Guys and Dolls wasn’t my play. None of those parts were my parts. The zombie bride was.
Audrey: Sure. Harry is here though.
Leroy: Harry the non-Catholic Harry?
Audrey: Yep. He’s carving a pentagram into a dead lamb as we speak. He’s got blood all over the bed. Rude.
Leroy: Is he hitting on you??
Audrey: He was. He’s stopped now. He’s okay really.
Leroy: I’ll come round to run lines AND protect your honour.
I smiled sadly as I waited for the kettle to boil. Here was the really humiliating thing. I wasn’t sure if I had any honour left to protect. As in, I wasn’t actually sure if I was a virgin or not. Like, what counts as sex? Had I really lost my virginity to Milo? If I was being explicit about it, he had literally…got in… But…like…he hadn’t stayed there for very long. Is that sex? A thrust, a yowling of pain, an inability to continue and a withdrawal? Or does the penis have to stay inside for a set amount of time? Like, enough time for a kettle to boil? Does a guy have to finish? Milo did not finish…he just finished with me.
Mum came in, fully dressed, just as I realized we’d run out of milk.
“So, he’s very nice,” she remarked. “Harry. Dougie’s friend?”
I walked over to the sink to wash out the empty bottle. “Yeah, he’s okay. Do we have any more milk?”
“Not unless you bought some. His mum, Jackie, we met at baby massage so many years ago now. She’s an odd one. Very strict. I haven’t seen him since he was a toddler though.”
I fished around in the drawers for some long-life milk capsules that we bought during the power cut last year. I found them and ripped the tops off, pouring them into the mugs. “Not sure how she managed to produce Harry then,” I said. “He doesn’t seem very…rule-abiding.”
“So, what did your father say?”
I spilled some milk, my tummy instantly hurting. Oh God, her face. It was so full of hope. When she saw me falter though, it dropped and sagged. She aged ten years in one moment.
“You couldn’t change his mind?”
I hadn’t even said anything. “I tried, Mum. It was hard. Jessie and the kids were there. They were all about to have lunch.”
She threw her arms up. “Well, GOD FORBID we RUIN THEIR LUNCH with our HOMELESSNESS.”
“I know. I know. But, look, he said he can’t even put it on the market until I’ve gone to uni. That’s ages away. Maybe, in time, I can talk him round?”
I was lying to her, and myself. I’d heard the way his voice hardened. Ever since Dad left, ever since he fell head over reason for Jessie, he’d made one thing very clear… We were no longer the priority. It wasn’t our turn any more. His heart had changed channels, even though our show was still playing.
“Do you really think so?” Mum was still telling herself fairy tales.
“Maybe. It was just bad timing today, that’s all.”
“I can’t leave this house, Audrey.” She gripped the kitchen counter. “It’s my home. I’ve lived here for over twenty-five years.”
“We won’t leave, we’ll sort something out.”
For a second, I stupidly imagined a world where Dad got his way and what that would look like. Me and Dougie coming home for uni holidays and having to sleep on the floor of Mum’s flat. Christmas spent in some strange new building in a strange new part of town, rather than under the Christmas tree we always put in the bay window. My bedroom – that I’d spent year upon year adapting and evolving with myself – I’d have to peel everything down from the walls. Probably give half my belongings to charity as they wouldn’t fit into Mum’s downsized life. All of us having to give up and make do because Dad fell in love with someone who wasn’t the woman he solemnly promised he’d spend his whole life never wavering from.
What was the point? What is the point in love, and promises of it, when it can just jump from one person to another like that? Tears tickled at my eyes. Mum stood staring at me, like I was The Oracle. I couldn’t remember a time when she was the grown-up and me the child. Ever since Dad had packed his suitcase and kissed my forehead two years ago and Dougie had refused to come out of his room, I’d been the adult. I was only seventeen…
Mum wiped under her eyes. “You’re right. We’ll think of something. Sorry, I didn’t want to interrupt your time with your friend.” She sniffed. “He’s very handsome, isn’t he?”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s also very trouble.”
Mum’s eyes darted all over the kitchen, only half-listening. “I better think about what we’re going to have for dinner,” she muttered to herself.
I knew this wasn’t the end of it. That she was only at the beginning of digesting what I’d said, what that meant. For a moment I felt grateful that Harry had unwittingly protected me from her spiralling further.
That was, until, I went up with the tea and found him rummaging through all my stuff…
“What’s this?” he asked, waving my college notepad above his head. I stood with the teas frozen to my hands as he opened it and started to read.
“Romance films are money-spinning cathedrals of love, wobbling on the foundations of unbelievable and damaging stereotypes…”
“Stop,” I interrupted. “You can’t just go through my stuff.”
He stood up and unclasped my fist to remove a cup. He took a sip, sat down and opened my notepad again. Reading silently this time.
“Stop it!”
“Woooah,” he exclaimed. “This is bitter. I can see where the zombie bride comes from now.”
I balanced my own tea on my bedside table and snatched the book off him. He grinned as I stuffed it under my duvet.
“Hey” – he gave me the eye over the rim of his cup – “I was hardly going through your stuff. You left it here on the desk, open to that page.”
“Still though.”
“What can I say, Audrey? I just want to get to know you!”
I laughed in a short, sharp “ha”. “Can you please tone down the meaningless charm? I’m really not in the mood for it today.”
He must’ve heard something waver in my voice because, before I knew it, he’d unfolded his spindly body and was by my side. “Shit, Audrey. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “Can we just get going on this script? My friend Leroy is coming over soon to run lines for his audition. I don’t have much time.”
Harry didn’t push it. Didn’t ask for more info. I liked that. He just said, “All righty,” and was back at his desk, firing questions at me, disappearing into his work. I sat there, slurping my tea, analysing him with a kind of stunned wonder as he worked. I didn’t know this boy existed this time last week. But now he was in my bedroom, reading my mood, charming my mother, going through my stuff, but still making me feel weirdly comfortable.
After fifteen minutes of solid scrawling, he looked up. “You heard the Ma gossip?”
I shook my head.
“Well you know she went to the sister branch the other day? She keeps doing that. We think she’s getting promoted. To area manager.”
“Oh, okay, what would that mean?”
He stretched out his legs, putting his feet up on my desk. He had a very small hole in the toe of one of his socks. “Well, the good news is she won’t be around as much. Lou is likely to get a promotion.”
“So, no more rota explaining how I spend every ten-minute segment of my time?”
“Well, that’s the bad news. If she’s in charge of several branches, her inner control freak is likely to spiral.”
“Inner control freak?”
He laughed. “You’re right. Well, her extroverted control freak will go berserk. I reckon she’ll crack down on us even more than usual… But, like, she can’t be there all the time. Anyway…” He reached over and rummaged under the duvet to locate my Media project again. “What’s the deal with this? What have you got against romance movies?”
“It’s just a project for college,” I explained. “We’ve got to pick a part of the media to critically examine, and I’ve picked romance films.”
“Why?” His eyes had this way of really staring into you. I found myself looking down to dodge his gaze.
“Why not?”
“I feel there’s a story there, Rapunzel.”
My hand went to my long hair subconsciously. “Not a very interesting one.”
Harry came and sat on the bed again without invitation. His bony bum half crippled my toes as he squished on top of them. “Fine then. Don’t tell me. But, woah…” He turned a page of my notepad. “You really don’t like romance films, do you?”
I bit my lip. “I just think they’re dangerous, that’s all.”
“Dangerous? Like antibiotic resistance? And…umm…SHARKS?”
I kicked him softly. “You know what I mean, I think they’re dangerous for, like, society.”
“Ahh. They’re harmless. I love ’em!”
“You like romance films?”
“Yep. I like zombie films better. But I like romance films too. Good ones.”
“And what constitutes a good one?”
“You know. Good acting, good dialogue. It has to give you the feels.”
I laughed again. “Did you actually just say ‘give you the feels’?” I shook my head. “You are SUCH a strange one.”
“What? It’s a good expression!” He wasn’t even blushing. “Anyway, explain please why romance films are a menace to society?”
My eyes filled up as I thought of earlier. I thought of what Dad must’ve believed when he got down on one knee, in Rome, and proposed to Mum even though they’d only known each other six months. I thought of how happy they had been to tell everyone that story. Their story, over the years. So pleased they had their own narrative – one that matched the movies. Love at first sight. Beautiful backdrop. Whirlwinds and grand gestures. I thought of all the films we’d watched together on Saturday nights, the messages always the same. Love conquers all. Love is happiness. Love is fireworks. Love is giving you the feels. Love means never having to say you’re sorry. Love is easy. Love is unwavering. Love is for ever.
We watched no films where couples yelled at each other in the kitchen. No films where, ten years after kissing on top of the Eiffel Tower, the couple didn’t even sit on the same sofa. No films showing how…bored Dad would look whenever Mum said anything – glazing over, like she was the shipping forecast, rather than the woman he adored so much he pawned half his stuff for a diamond ring…one he tried to get in the divorce. When my parents’ love soured, Dad didn’t try to resuscitate it. Because there was no one telling him that was possible. Instead he jumped ship and started all over again with someone who gave him new feels.
“They’re dangerous because they’re not real,” I said. “Not really.” I chewed my lip, trying to gain control of my emotions. “I mean the beginning bit of love is always great, but that’s the only thing romance films focus on. It’s a cop-out. It’s taking the easy way out.” Like Dad.
Harry was miraculously quiet, his face uncharacteristically serious. He looked up at me, and our eyes met properly for the first time. Him staring at me, me staring at him. This boy I didn’t know, sitting on my purple duvet. He smiled without his teeth. Small, shyly. I found myself smiling back. Like an impulse.
Then he ruined it by saying…
“You’re not like other girls, are you?”
And I activated.
Every single emotion I’d been squashing into my guts exploded like a burst appendix. I jumped off the bed and turned to him with a scowl I was sure he’d need permanent therapy to recover from. “Are you kidding me, Harry?”
“Woah, Audrey. Hey, hey, hey. It’s okay. It’s a compliment.”
I felt like screaming. “It’s NOT a compliment.” I threw my arms up, any motion to get rid of the rage pulsing through me. “It’s an insult to every single woman on this PLANET. Don’t you DARE try and pull that shit on me.”
“What shit?!” Harry was stupid enough to ask. “I was saying something nice…”
I shook my head so hard. “No, you were saying something clichéd and UNTRUE. I AM like other girls, Harry. Don’t misinterpret my hatred of romance as some kooky, laid-back, manic pixie NONSENSE. I am DAMAGED. I am not CUTE. I am emotionally-fucking-traumatized right now, okay? I am screaming on the inside. I am too angry and messed-up to contain all the stuff girls spend every day containing. That’s why I seem different. That is not sexy.” I started crying then, huge embarrassing hiccups of it. Some of it despair, most of it anger. I pointed at him. Harry was just sitting there, open-mouthed, looking like I’d smacked him over the head with a novelty mallet. “I hate romances because my family is imploding, okay?” I wobbled. “I…I…I’m so fed up of all the LIES everyone tells each other. How none of it lasts. All of it is one big facade…” And I crumbled into ash, sinking into my bed and sobbing into my hands, as Harry nervously patted my heaving shoulders. I gave him credit for not arguing with me. For understanding, even though we were basically strangers, that I needed to cry.
In time, I managed to contain myself. To relock the vault of repressed sadness I’d accidentally blown open, letting everything out. I looked up at Harry through the clumps of my wet eyelashes. “See,” I said. “I’m just like other girls. Totally insecure, needy, temperamental and nuts.”
He smiled without using his teeth again. “You’re just like any human,” he corrected. “Stop painting all girls with the same brush. God, Audrey.”
And I laughed, almost in surprise. He smiled a bigger grin then. “I’m sorry for multiple things right now, Audrey. Sorry for saying you’re not like other girls and mistakenly thinking it’s a compliment…”
“It’s not. It’s sexist bull…”
“Yes, you’ve made me aware of that. Sorry, I guess, for hitting on you when you’re obviously going through a lot. And…” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about whatever is happening to your family. That sounds…rubbish.”
I nodded. “It really is rubbish.”
“I think I can see where the zombie bride’s anger is coming from.”
“Oh, Harry, you have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
He grinned. “I’m starting to realize that.”