I Wrote the Sky

April was dramatic, but she knew that she was. We didn’t make plans to see each other the next day and it was nice, I hung up the phone after we’d chattered for a while and crawled into bed. I never really appreciated my bed. For the most part – depression aside – I wasn’t really the type to stay in bed out of choice, but I clambered in and it felt like I was in some kind of warm haven.

I let myself get eaten by my duvet cover. I was so comfortable, and I was happy. Bizarre, really, how tiny things can make us happy. Even if it’s just for a short amount of time. I really was blindingly content that night, just being in my own bed.

‘Late night?’ dad asked when I padded downstairs the next morning. The clock ticked just passed 11AM, I filled the kettle up and put it on to boil.

‘Early, actually,’ I replied, ‘tea?’ Dad nodded, and I washed two mugs up. The kitchen was a bit of a state. Neither of us were particular clean freaks, and even though this was the type of situation that would usually make my head throb, I was never in the kitchen long enough for it to bother me.

‘You’re usually with April by now,’ he said. He glanced at me with one eyebrow slightly raised. He wasn’t implying anything, but in that very parental way – he was implying everything.

‘I’m having a day off.’ I added sugar to his tea, and stirred them both.

He sat down at the table and pulled the TV guide out of the paper. I finished the tea and passed him his cup, then sat down opposite him.

‘When does your shift start?’

‘One,’ he said as he circled some documentary in the guide. He worked in a supermarket. All his adult life – he worked in a supermarket, and he was proud he did. Mum was always the one with the ‘bread-winning’ job, so after she left things got tight.

I was always on the lookout for work too, even though dad always insisted it wasn’t necessary.

‘Could you get me some more tobacco?’ I smiled sweetly over my tea, ‘Please? I have the money upstairs.’

He held my stare for a few seconds. He didn’t really mind me smoking, but he didn’t really like to get involved with it at all. He cracked first, saying, ‘Fine, but only because you’re my favourite child.’

‘I’m your only child.’

‘Exactly,’ he said.

My dad was always kind, he was always more hands-on and at home growing up than mum. She didn’t like to spend more time at home than she had to – or at least that’s how it always seemed. I don’t know. I always tried not to think about it, there was no reason to.

*

There was a slight pause before he spoke, and I held my breath.

‘Jan?’ Andy asked, and I exhaled. I didn’t like phoning people. I imagined they’d just look at my number on the screen and ignore the call straight away.

‘Are you busy?’

‘Uh, no actually,’ he replied.

‘Park?’I pushed my hair behind my ear, “I just need to get out of the house for a bit, y’know?”

I pulled on a pale jumper and slipped into some pumps. I looked up at the mirror in front of me and I didn’t look too bad. My hair was a little sun bleached and lighter than it usually would be, it looked nice.

‘I’ll be there in fifteen,’ he said after a moment’s pause and I hung up without feeling the need to say goodbye.

*

As it turned out, James was Andy’s April. That probably should’ve been obvious from our first meeting how similar we were, but for some reason it wasn’t.

We tend to think of people as individuals first, but I’ve started to see people as their relationships instead. People are friends and lovers and enemies, and that’s sometimes more important than their core. We’re shaped by the people we cling to.

April was this massive force in my life. She was the driving force, and would draw attention to herself if she could, but that doesn’t make her bad. As much as I did things for April, she did things for me. If people were looking at her, then they weren’t looking at me and I needed them not to. Especially when I was younger, I needed space to come to terms with everything. With my mother, with myself, and I just couldn’t break down. I didn’t have the time.

And if I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was the same sort of situation for Andy. It was weird, being at the park with someone new. It was weird being at the park at all, actually. The park was for kids and drug dealers and April and I very rarely went there.

It was just a step too far into being ‘stereotypical teenagers’ for April, but sometimes I liked to dip my toes into that pool. It made a nice change.

‘Tell me something that doesn’t involve April,’ he asked me. I’d just finished telling him about yesterday’s hair drama.

I looked up sharply, and he just sort of shrugged like he knew. Like he was the same. I felt embarrassed and comforted all at the same time. How did I talk about me? From where I was sitting (on the swings, staring at him on the swing next to me) there wasn’t anything about my personality that April didn’t come into somehow.

I cleared my throat and stared up at the sky.

‘Well, what do you want to know?’

‘Anything,’ he pushed himself gently, rising slightly off the ground on his swing, ‘tell me a story.’

‘Well,’ I said. I chewed my lip and thought for a second, and then I remembered: ‘April’s family goes on holiday every year.’

He nodded, eyes fixed on his scruffy shoes.

‘And I had nothing to do, for like two weeks - it was the school holidays too – a whole Easter holiday with no company. I mean, I had other friends at the time, but I always saw them with April. I had no idea how to be with these people on my own, so I took my own mini holiday, I guess.’

I smiled at the memory, and for a brief second it came rushing back to me. The freedom of spending your time exactly how you want it really is underrated. Early mornings, long walks, milky coffee, scuffed up walking boots and blisters that were like postcards on my feet. Walking reminders of all the lovely places I’d been to on foot.

‘It sounds really silly but it was actually a lot of fun. I did get a little lonely, but it was nice to have time to myself,’ I swung a little higher; I didn’t want to talk about myself anymore, ‘God, sorry. I sound like some kind of wide-eyed flowery book character.’

‘A little,’ he said, ‘but the difference is that you’re an actual person.’

‘Yeah,’ I stuck my feet out in front of me and watched my shoes as I came flying back down on the swing, ‘I guess they have to base clichés on something.’

He smiled and came to a halt. Hopping off, he held an arm out to me and I linked through and rested my hand on his forearm. He was just a little taller than me and he smelt like sun cream. New and shiny, a plastic wrapped friend that I’d just been given as a belated Christmas present.

‘Shall we sit, m’lady?’ he said, rippling it off with extra cheesy charm. I giggled and nodded.

We walked over to the grass, away from the park itself. Everything about the situation made me content. We’d been nattering for a good hour on the swings, about April a little, but also just a lot of sound small talk. Words that mean nothing definitely have their place.

I let go of his arm and plopped myself down on the cool grass. I could feel all the little shapes and individual blades of grass pressing themselves into my bare legs. Printing themselves onto my skin like temporary tattoos. He sat opposite me and pulled out a can of Coke.

‘Diet?’ I laughed.

‘Hey, I drink it for the taste,’ he replied. He took a mouthful and passed it to me. I did the same then passed it back, and we did that until the whole can was gone. A little cycle, we didn’t speak we just swigged Coke. Spreading spit and germs through a tin can.

I had the last swig, and when I was done I placed the can on the grass and crushed it with the palm of my hand. I turned it upside down, bottom facing up, and I’d made myself a little temporary ashtray.

I lit up, and I gave Andy his first cigarette. I felt a little bad, like I was taking his virginity or something, but it made me a little happy to see him cough and choke on it. I put my hands on his chest made sure he was taking it back. I made sure he was doing it right.

He said he’d never felt more alive and that was a little sad. I told him that too, but he disagreed. He fished out another can of Diet Coke and toasted to new friends, and new self-destructive habits.

But I don’t want this chapter to end with cigarettes. I feel like I talk about them too much, like they’re a whole other character in this story and they probably were, but that’s boring. That’s teenage rebellion gone stale and everyone sees through it.

No, for now, this temporary ending is myself and Andy, lying back along the grass not watching the clouds. Eyes closed and arms over faces, we stayed put for hours baking in the sun. That’s the important part, the important part is that we were there.