Every Man I Fall For

The house always felt warmer with my father in it.

“Oli Oli Oxenfree? Is that you?”

I can’t help but smile at the familiar nickname, as I shut the front door softly behind me and listen to the sounds of Charlie’s car pulling out from the kerb and speeding away.

“Hey Papa, it’s me, sans the Golden Child”

I take off my shoes and walk through to the kitchen, where my dad is standing, drying up a bowl with an old tea towel. Something about him there, in his ratty slippers and old windcheater, makes me smile with genuine warmth. He looks up as I walk in, and smiles right back at me, the laughter lines around his eyes crinkling up.

“I’m assuming that he’s fine? I don’t need to go do a pickup?”

“He’s sleeping it off, will probably stumble in some time tomorrow morning with a terrible headache.”

“Nothing short of the usual then” he says, laughing to himself.

I shoot him a conspiratorial grin, then call goodnight to him as I make my way upstairs. School seems so close, too close, and I almost regret wasting the day away. Sighing, I pull off my pants and change in to a large t-shirt, socks still on because I hate having naked feet. Call it an eccentricity.

As I lie in bed I stare at the smooth plaster ceiling above my head, like I have every night since I can remember, and I dream about a present I will never experience. The warmth of a friend, a lover. My final exams and the freedom they will bring. And then, guiltily, for the first time in almost a year, I let my mind consume itself with eyes and knees and knuckles, with downy arm hair and bony shoulders, with broad teeth and heaving ribs. And just like I always have, I half-heartedly reprimand myself before I let my wanting thoughts carry me to sleep.

…

Adrian still hasn’t made it home by the time I’m walking out my front door at 8am the next morning. This is a little out of character, as he usually gets in at around 5 or 6 after waking up in a strange house and spooking himself, but it’s not enough to seriously worry me. He’s a grown boy.

The walk to school is monotonous. For some reason, today doesn’t hold the same mystery for me as it usually does. I often take my time in the morning, stopping to breathe in the dewy air and watch as the sleepy world wakes up, but today I have little humour for my own romanticism. I just put on my headphones and plod the well-worn concrete path to school, and am consequently 15 minutes early.

I hate arriving on the bell, because I hate the rush, but I also hate arriving too early. Something about the emptiness of the building in front of me always just reminds me of how insignificant this place is, and how much time I’m wasting by being here. Scowling, I lean against a tree and pull out my battered packet of Marlboro Reds from the front pocket of my schoolbag, before cranking the volume on my music. I don’t smoke often, just as I often deny myself most pleasures, but today it seems necessary. I’ve had this particular pack for two months now, and I’m sparing with them. Still, there is something melancholically beautiful about the tendrils of smoke falling from my mouth, and sometimes I visualize them as my regrets and mistakes: spilling from my body forever. Then I remember the permanent impact they leave on my lungs and feel a little less comforted.

People are slowly filing in in groups of twos and threes, some alone and walking a little too fast. I don’t feel like the centre of attention exactly, but I’m aware that people are looking at me. I suppose I could look ‘dangerous’ or ‘cool’, leaning here, one knee up with a foot planted firmly on the bark behind me, cigarette dangling from my mouth and hands cupped around the end as I attempt to light it with a match (I’ve never got on well with lighters), but the reality is definitely a lot less interesting than the picture.

I watch as Harriet ambles quietly through the gates, hair in a messy bun and her large, ray-ban style glasses perched on her small nose. Her skirt is a little too long and uneven at the hem, and she is moving quite serenely in the small bubble around her, her nose in a book. Harriet always astounds me with her ability to ignore the people around her, namely the general population, and go about her business as if she were the only person in the world. But she’s fine with that. It makes me wonder, as I’m so often inflicted with my own sudden bouts of heartbreaking loneliness. In some ways I’m a little jealous of her, I suppose.

I continue to watch her from my vantage point, tapping the ash from my cigarette. If not beautiful, Harriet is certainly pretty. She’s petite and softly curvy, with a narrow waist and slim shoulders and arms. On weekends she wears pinafores and collared shirts, and she also has a propensity for knee high socks. Rarely seen without her tortoiseshell glasses, she has the appearance of a trendy librarian, but somehow it works for her. While she might not be lusted after, she’s had her fair share of suitors, and I know for a fact that Matthew Morgan has been holding a candle for her since our first PE lesson of Year 10, when she told him that he had a ‘pleasant physique’.

I consider my relationship with Harriet.

Most people in our grade, and probably in our whole school, naturally assume that Harriet and I are, whether officially or not, an ‘item’. We’ve always been close. I’m over at hers for dinner every other week, and we’ve been having annual sleepovers on the first weekend of June since Year Six. Despite what people may have heard, however, we’ve never been anything but friends. Of course there have been times where we’ve tested that... I specifically remember one occasion in Year 8 (which we’ve always referred to in confidence as ‘The Incident’) when we kissed just to see what it was like, and I remember my brain screaming wrong wrong wrong wrong.

The truth is that to me, Harriet is like a blanket or a picture you drew as a kid that you can’t bear to throw out. And for a few heady summer months when I was 15, in between scratchy, open-mouthed kisses and broad shoulders and after tangled limbs and deep, cracking voices, that’s how I thought I would begin to feel about most girls.

Harriet must feel my eyes settling comfortably on her, as she looks up from her book almost directly in to them before sliding the mark in and tripping awkwardly over to me. Her book is clutched in front of her stomach with both hands, all her earlier grace gone with her reverie, and it takes her a minute before she is firmly planted in front of me, soft eyes on the cigarette which is hovering somewhere near my face.

“Rough night?”

“I suppose you could say that.” I reply, before bringing the cigarette to my lips for one last drag.

Almost on queue, my Art teacher sails past in the cloud of juniper scented perfume and Indian bangles that I’ve come to associate with most Art teachers.

“Cigarette out please, Mr Hartcher.” She says, en route, and promptly sails away again.

“Sorry Miss” I reply absently, though she’s now out of earshot, before dropping the filter to the ground and extinguishing it with a savage twist in to the soft grass with the toe of my right school shoe.
Harriet stares at it with the eyes of someone who isn’t really seeing what’s in front of them, before snapping them back up to me.

“I’ve got Extension and you’ve got Ancient first period. Come on.”

“Should I be concerned that you’ve memorised my timetable?” I ask, pushing myself off the tree and picking up my discarded school bag.

“I’m your best friend. It comes with the territory.”

I smile as I follow her in to the building, minutes before the warning bell sounds.