Take It to Heart

“How’d it go?”

Naomi pounced on me the moment both my feet made it back onto the London sidewalk. Pedestrians whisked and sidestepped around us like rocks in a stream. Her eyebrows, waiting expectantly, nearly disappeared into the beanie on her head.

“It went okay,” I replied, tugging on a pair of gloves. “Orientation for the internship is in May.”

“Wait, you really got it? That’s amazing! But they hardly talked to you, I didn’t even finish my tea.” She held up the take away cup to show me.

The interview I’d just had with the South London Press took ten minutes. Maybe. It took me ten times as long to get dressed this morning. The interviewer asked me one question and then asked to keep the portfolio I’d compiled of articles written for the campus paper in Sheffield. When she said she’d send me info for training in May, I stared at her in silence for a solid minute before composing myself and saying thank you. By the time I got up from the little café table in central London, she’d already gone back to typing on her laptop. I was hardly more than a wisp of steam from her cappuccino.

“It wasn’t at all what I expected,” I said, letting Naomi link her arm around mine. “I’m not sure she even asked my name.”

Where there should have only been excitement fluttering around my chest, there was also disappointment. I’d wanted to ask and answer questions. Since finding out about the interview earlier in the week, I had been mulling over potential topics in my head. I had answers to everything and examples of my own experience in the field. With nowhere to go, those thoughts settled heavy in the back of my mind. What if, come May, I found something better? What if journalism really was a shit major? Would I even have time to rethink a career?

“Get that look off your face,” Naomi insisted. She tugged me toward the nearest Underground entrance. “I don’t care if you’re not as excited. We’re going to Oxford Circus, and we’re going to shop. Oh! And there’s this little plaza near Chinatown with the cutest pastry shop in it.”

With Oyster cards at the ready, we trudged down the steps into the Underground. Naomi continued to pull my arm after we passed the turnstiles until we landed on the escalator. Posters littered the walls for upcoming shows and events. And then there was Oliver, front and center on a tattered poster with big, yellow letters saying today's date.

“Oh, shit, I forgot to call Oli.”

Naomi reached out before the escalator ended and tore the paper from the subway tiles. She started to giggle, looking over the image.

“He looks so daft, the way they’ve posed him,” Naomi said. She held it out to me as if I hadn’t seen it already.

Ever since Oliver became more open with me about Bring Me the Horizon, Naomi insisted on listening to them. She bought the albums and played them in the house. My mum, still unaware of Oliver’s existence, would often yell at her to “turn that filth down,” which Naomi found endless amusement in.

“Dianne is going to go bonkers when she sees him for the first time,” she told me on the train to London, with their album playing on her iPod. “I mean tattoos are one thing, but he has them bloody everywhere.”

I checked my mobile as soon as we boarded the Victoria line. Cell service never made its way into the tunnels, but I scrolled through the last week of texts between us anyway. It was mostly emojis and quick conversations before we met up. Now that we are technically something — but still not officially anything — actual conversations replaced texting. I didn’t have to scroll far to find the information on his hotel and venue for tonight. It was a few stops from Naomi and I, though we both knew I wouldn’t be sleeping at mine.

“Are we going to meet them before the show?” Naomi asked. We were nearly to Oxford Circus.

“Maybe, but I’m not going looking like this,” I replied, uncomfortably pulling at the sleeves of my red blazer. Everything about slacks and tucked in blouses made me uncomfortable. And for Oliver to see me as a “young professional” would be absolutely humiliating.

“We’ll buy you something nice, yet cheap at Primark and then we’ll go get changed. We can grab something quick to eat on the way back to the hotel,” Naomi said. Behind her eyes she was calculating a route in her head. She’d spent much more time in London than I had. She knew the best places to eat, the fastest shortcuts, and the rowdiest nightclubs.

Naomi made maneuvering through the tubes and streets look effortless. I was always a few steps behind her, just moments from being sucked back into the afternoon foot traffic. She moved with the speed of the city. One moment we’re exiting the underground and the next we’re entering Primark. We stood in the entrance for a brief moment so she could scan the layout of the store.

“Are dresses too much for their show tonight?” She asked, plunging into the sea of shoppers.

“Yes, I think. I’m not quite sure. I still haven’t been to a show Naoms.” I hadn’t been to one, but I had a feeling that her definition of a dress was not what I wanted to wear tonight. “I’d ideally like to be somewhere between teenage fan and groupie.”

The next hour I tried on four complete outfits, all created and vetoed by Naomi. “Your hips are hard to shop for, okay?” she said before handing me another pair of black jeans.

“Then why can’t I just wear something I brought?”

“Just put on the pants,” she instructed and shut the changing room door. I could see her leaning against the opening from the inside. “And put on that flowy black shirt with the gold zipper again. Could you also put half your hair up so I can see what it looks like? How do you feel about gold eyeliner?”

The outfit looked good enough that that I willingly bought it. Naomi would have to strong-arm me into the gold eyeliner. She bought a dress for herself, of course, since she didn’t care if she stood out.

In the lift back up to our hotel room, Oliver texted me.

Table at London Cocktail Club @ 7 before show. xx

“Hurry up,” I told Naomi as she fiddled with the room key. “We’ve got an hour.”

———

The gold around my eyes sparked from the glare of the lamppost outside of the London Cocktail Club. It was the first thing Oliver noticed when he emerged from the bar to bring us inside. He pretended to shield his eyes from shine as he walked his thin frame to stand in front of mine. He dipped his head to kiss me quickly. “Hey love.”

Being with Oliver, especially the affectionate side of him, still felt out of place like he still wasn’t meant to be with me. Whenever he reached to hold my hand or touch my arm or slide his arm around my waist, I caught myself looking at him, right in the eye, as if to make sure he meant it for me. If he noticed my hesitancy, he didn’t comment on it.

Down in a basement, the bar is easily missed from the street. It’s loud and cramped with expensive themed drinks and obnoxiously dimmed mood lighting. Oliver led us to the back, where the skinniest part of the bar spits you out into another space with reserved tables and hanging lanterns.

“Rose, this is Lee, other Matt, and Jona!” Oliver shouted through the noise. We stood in front of a circular booth where only three of the faces were familiar — Matt N., Sophie, and Godfrey.

I’d just recently started hearing about the other guys in his band. After New Year’s Eve, Oliver started slowly dropping bits of information like a crumb trail to who he really is. The pieces are still out of order and missing, but I no longer feel the need to sour the Internet for a scrap of who he is.

The fancy, expensive drinks quickly became a fixture in my hand. One finished and another took its place. I tried my best to get to know the other people in the squished booth, but between them all talking and Oliver stealing kisses, we found ourselves in a pocket of our own.

“How was the interview?” His lips were below my ear.

“I got it… but now I don’t know if I want it.” My finger hooked his belt loop.

“Why?” His arm around my shoulders fell behind my back between the cushions. His palm reached the skin above my jeans.

I shook my head and lulled it back toward the booth so my lips angled effortlessly toward him. We shared small kisses like we were whispering, telling stories just for each other.

Then an hour passed, followed by another before someone decided they should probably make it to the show. It felt crazy, being on the other end of a late band. We made our way, laughing and loud, to the venue and through the back.

I almost felt like an imposter, pushed against a grimy wall on the dark side of the stage watching the band perform in a haze. I couldn’t see the crowd. The lights were too bright and the guys were in the way. But I could hear Oliver’s raspy voice. His accent was thick and rhythmic when he talked between songs — he spoke to everyone and no one at the same time. Something took over him the moment he stepped onto the stage and the aura pulsed well into the night.

Naomi, having listened to far more of their music than I had, disappeared into the crowd to see what the fuss was about. Matt’s girlfriend, Sophie, followed and soon they were two small drops in the swell of the sea. Tom ran around the stage playing photographer. He walked up to me, a Canon situated between his hands. I turned just as he lifted the body to his face and adjusted the focus. He smiled when he looked at the back of the screen, but wouldn’t let me see it. He yelled something and I nodded, despite not hearing what he said.

My ears continued to ring even after the last echo rang through the venue. The alcohol parroted the effects and I once again found myself swept up in the motion of everyone else. I clung to Oliver — his hand, his arm, his lips.

———

I watched goosbumps ripple across Oliver’s skin in the wake of my finger. One by one, I traced the feathers of the bird spread across his chest. The colorful dots soon spread across his shoulder and down the length of his arm. No matter how long I looked, I found a new detail hiding among the tattoos. My own, bare skin contrasted against his like the wall behind a painting.

“Do you regret any of them?” I asked, pushing myself up onto one arm so I could get a better look.

We lay completely naked on his hotel bed, the sheet tangled around our ankles.

“Not any that aren’t already covered.” He watched me through his long lashes, unembarrassed about where my eyes wandered.

A smile pulled at my lips. “It is a little unnerving having the woman on your thigh watch me go down on you.”

“She doesn’t judge.”

“Soon you’ll run out of room and have to tattoo your nipples.” I swept hand over his chest, making a circle around the white space.

Oliver hooked an arm around me and pulled me to him, covering his skin with mine. I had to actively work at making myself seem confident with him. Oliver was the type to walk around stark naked. Maybe his tattoos helped him feel clothed. Even after sex I felt the urge to cross an arm over my chest or pull the blankets up to my hips.

“We’re starting a new album soon,” he said, his voice muffled against my skin. Sometimes, if I didn’t say anything back, he’d keep talking to fill the silence. That’s when I learned the most. “We go to the Lake District. Isolation, ya’know?”

I nodded, but I didn’t know.

“It’s not too far from Sheffield,” he added. “You could come up.”

“Is that allowed during isolation?”

“I’ll make an exception.”