It Only Happens in the Movies

  I didn’t know where to start. The ADHD revelation made about ten million things click into place, but I wasn’t sure if he’d want to discuss it. “I’m sure your parents don’t hate you,” I ventured.

  He gave me this look then, a warning one. “They’re Catholic, Audrey. And I’m…well…where do I even start? I don’t believe in God for one. And I smoke, drink, get stoned, failed my exams, hang around with the people I do, work where I work, and, well, date enough girls that other girls get warned about me.”

  “Is that why you don’t live with them?” I asked. I’d always wondered why he lived with Tad and Jay.

  “Yeah. They hate me. I only ever see my parents at Christmas and Easter. I don’t know if you’re religious, but those two days are kind of a big deal.”

  I smiled at his attempt at a joke, and opened my mouth in faux-shock. “No way, really?”

  “Oh yeah. This guy called Jesus did some stuff. Those were the days he did the biggest stuff.”

  “Harry, if it doesn’t work out for you with the film-making then I really think you should consider becoming a priest. No one’s ever explained Christianity to me like that before.”

  “Anyway, what about you? Now it’s your turn.”

  “You already know all my drama with Milo,” I pointed out. “I made myself vulnerable to you, like, on the first day we met!” It hadn’t gone unnoticed that he’d not elaborated on his other two points. But it was something.

  “You got dumped? That’s your big bad secret?” He tutted. “Nope, not good enough, Audrey. Try harder. Some dude being too stupid to realize what he had is not a trauma, sorry.”

  “It still counts as one.” I narrowed my eyes playfully. “I only have to reveal two.”

  He narrowed his eyes in return. “Are you sure you want to be an actress? Because you’d make a great lawyer.”

  I tipped my head back and finished my wine. “Okay, okay, vulnerabilities.” I took another deep breath. “My dad left my mum,” I said, staring determinedly at the beer mat, picking it apart with my fingers. “You know when I told you stuff was going on with my family? Well, that’s what it is. They were, like, the most romantic couple ever. I’m even named after Audrey Hepburn because he proposed in Rome. And then…then, well, he fell madly in love with someone else. Jessie. He just left. Not just Mum, us.” I gulped. “He left us. Started a new family with Jessie. He’s just…not that into us any more. My own dad.”

  Harry leaned back and put his fingers together. “Woah, that explains most of Dougie’s fits of rage in college last year then, I guess.”

  I looked up. “Dougie had fits of rage?”

  Harry nodded, his face solemn. “Yeah, he punched a locker. He wrote all these weird songs in music…”

  I shook my head, to dislodge the bad thoughts. “Anyway, that’s why I’m so down on love, I guess. Because I’ve seen what happens when you fall for charm, or the promise of a happily-ever-after. I think there’s this huge void between what people think love is, what they want it to be, and what it actually is. I can’t…” I stuttered and Harry reached out and enlaced his fingers through mine. His raggedy eyebrows raised upwards in serious concern.

  This moment was real. This Harry was real. And he was holding my hand. I felt like I’d started to remove all the bandages wrapped up around my wounds from the past two years. I’d begun to let in the oxygen needed for them to heal. But opening them up made me vulnerable. I looked right into him and said the most honest thing I would probably ever say to anyone on any first date ever, breaking every single rule of how you’re supposed to behave. “I can’t get hurt again, Harry,” I said. “I need honesty. That’s all I can handle right now… I’m worried you’re going to hurt me.”

  He blinked slowly, then tilted his head. “That’s strange,” he replied. “Because I’m worried you’re going to hurt me too. In fact, right now, Audrey, I’m fucking petrified I won’t get a second date.”

  We drove home in happier air where it didn’t feel like I was about to trip a landmine. We’d walked back to the rust bucket car, stumbling over the cobbles, getting lost in the pitch black of The Lanes, squealing whenever the wind hit us, holding hands. Then we’d skidded down the dark motorway, planning our scene for the next day – chatting through how he planned to shoot it. The radio was playing, Queen came on and we sang along at the tops of our voices. The radiator blasted my face, making me feel so warm. Harry kept stealing glances at me.

  Once, we both looked at each other at the same time, and burst out laughing.

  It was in that moment that I really started falling for him.

  Not that I realized it at the time. I maintained a delusion that things like that take longer, that I had some kind of self-control over my heart.

  But, the way he smiled…his teeth too big, his eyes scrunched up, shaking his head, muttering, “Oh God, I’m in trouble.” That was the moment a piece of my heart broke off and got thrown into his, where it would lodge for ever. Because you always leave a little piece of your heart in whoever you fall in love with.

  We drew up outside my home far too quickly. I could see light leaking out from a gap in the curtains. Sandra was probably still around, getting Mum drunk in the kitchen.

  I unclicked my seat belt, not sure where to look all of a sudden. “So,” I said. “I guess I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”

  Harry was biting a hangnail. “Yep. Are you ready for the hell that is a Marvel movie release weekend?”

  “I’ll bring caffeine.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “Thank you. I think I had a good time.”

  “You think?”

  I laughed. “Okay, I don’t think. I know. It was good.” I smiled over at him. “After I broke through your layer of nonsense.”

  “Just the one layer? You’ve demolished multiple layers. I feel actually naked right now.”

  A sudden vision of Harry naked popped up behind my eyelids, and I blushed, twisting away again so he couldn’t tell.

  I knew I needed to open the car door, but I didn’t want to open the car door.

  “So,” I said.

  “So,” he repeated.

  “I better go. I need to sleep. Last night is catching up on me.”

  I went for the door handle as slowly as humanly possible. Begging him to stop me, to kiss me, though the thought also made me feel impossibly nervous. I pulled down the handle and the door clicked open. No grab. No kiss. The cold air leaked through the gap. No grab. No kiss. I had no choice but to scramble out.

  “So, bye.”

  “Bye.”

  God it was cold. Every muscle in my body cramped up as the air hit me, and I pulled my coat around myself. Feeling stupid and unfinished, worrying that, again, I’d read it wrong. Read him wrong. I slammed the door shut and shuffled down the garden path, listening for his engine to rev off.

  It didn’t though.

  “Audrey, wait.”

  The crunch of gravel as Harry caught up with me, shivering in his flimsy aviator jacket. He stepped closer until our stomachs touched. My body danced at the contact, even with the winter layers between us.

  “What?”

  He took off his beanie hat, looking everywhere but at me.

  “What!?” I pressed.

  “It’s just…well…I can’t believe I’m going to say this but…I’m nervous. About kissing you.”

  My stomach felt like I’d just necked a whole tube of Berocca, fizzing and exploding like fireworks.

  “You? Nervous?”

  He pushed a hand through his hair, standing it all on end. “I’m just as confused as you are. I don’t get nervous about things like this.”

  “You don’t have to kiss me.” It was true, but I’d probably explode if he didn’t.

  “No…” He reached out and put his thumb on my cheek, in exactly the way he claimed was so hard to do in real life. His hands shook. “I guess I don’t have to.”

  I looked up at him, taking in his face. The lines around his eyes, the shadowy
curves of his cheekbones, the dimples that seemed to be permanently stapled into his face.

  “Well, don’t then. We can just shake hands and…”

  Harry leaned in and kissed me. Gently. His mouth closed, his other hand pulling around my neck, gently tugging me into it. It was different from the earlier kisses. Better. The sort of kiss where time slows, the rest of the universe fading around the edges. I didn’t feel nervous. I didn’t worry or stress about him or his other kisses, or LouLou’s and Dougie’s and Leroy’s warnings. This kiss erased it all. His kiss told me everything I needed to know. His kiss told me it was time to open up my heart again. I kissed him back. My hands running up into his hair. I got lost in the feeling. And we only stopped when we both heard the actual loud chattering of my teeth.

  Harry pulled away reluctantly and laughed quietly. “I better let you go.”

  “No…I’m-m-m-m.” I laughed. “I’m f-f-f-freezing, actually. Yeah, I sh-should go.”

  His eyes scanned my face, still scrunched up from smiling so hard. “You have to kiss me all over again tomorrow, you know that, right? For filming?”

  “I don’t think it means much romantically if I’m going to spit a crushed blood capsule into your mouth and then feed on your f-f-forehead.”

  “I wrote that into the screenplay, especially. It’s always been a fantasy of mine.”

  I hit his chest, and he caught my hand and pulled me in for one last kiss. “Night, Audrey.”

  “Night.”

  I dragged my feet towards the front door, every part of me wanting to stay on the path with him. I heard him crunch back down the gravel, heard the slam of his car door. I fiddled with the lock, my hands shaking so much that I struggled to get the key in.

  “Hey, Audrey,” he called, just as I’d pushed the door open. Harry leaned out the car window, his hat back on, the edges of his huge smile vanishing into its lining. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I just wanted to say that. I have no plans of doing anything to hurt you.”

  And he drove off, music blaring, tyres screeching round the tight corner. I stood on the threshold, sinking into the door frame.

  Every part of me felt full. Every part of me felt good.

  And, you know what? I’m sure he meant it when he said it.

  So, the couple have got together. To be honest, usually they leave it right there. Roll the credits. The end. They smooched. You feel fulfilled. You know everything’s going to be okay because the camera has panned slowly out, and the leading female has just cocked her leg backwards. But, if they don’t end a romance film here, this is where The Montage comes in. You know? When a lovely pop song plays in the background as you watch scene after scene of the couple doing cute things together to show how they’re falling in love and time is passing.

  Cute things that tend to happen in The Montage:

  Repainting something, like a room, or a shed, and then the guy daubs paint on the girl, and she squeals and soon they’re both having a super-sweet paint fight

  A long walk along the beach, and then they both run into the sea and splash water on each other. She will jump onto his back and he’ll carry her through the waves

  A shot of them sitting drinking coffee, right in the middle of the front window of somewhere. They’re talking with wild gesticulations to prove they’re having deep and meaningful conversations

  Lying with their heads together in a field or a meadow, looking up at either the clouds or the stars

  A shot of them both in bed, but not having sex. Just talking. Their heads close on the pillow. The girl falls asleep first and the boy just looks at her all meaningfully.

  (The Beach Boys: “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?”)

  I walk into school the next day and tell the girls what happened. They all squeal and start jumping and flapping their hands and I smile shyly to myself.

  Harry and I keep sneaking glances at each other at work. He throws a piece of popcorn at me when the counter is empty. I throw one back. Soon we’re chucking handfuls of it at one another until Ma arrives out of nowhere, sees the carnage, hits multiple roofs, and shouts at us while we struggle not to laugh.

  Harry kisses me too passionately while we’re filming his scenes for the movie. Jay, the temporary director, keeps having to yell “CUT!” and make us retake. His friends cheer and clap Harry on the back, while I pretend I don’t love it and push him off. A slow pan to Rosie, standing off to the side, covered in zombie make-up. She has her arms folded and is glaring at us.

  Another late night at the cinema. Harry digs out THE WAY WE WERE to watch until the early hours. We kiss passionately as the film flickers over our faces. Harry tries to put his hands down my jeans and, when I stop him, he apologizes. I go deep red, and say, “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just…well…I’m on my period.” He leaps away like I just told him I have highly contagious leprosy and we watch the rest of the movie in awkward silence.

  Going to watch Leroy in the school play to show our support, and Harry covering his mouth with his hands to shout “BOO!” in Milo’s first scene. The whole audience turns to glare at us and I hit him and refuse to talk to him on the way home, while he trails after me, still laughing, saying, “Come on, it was a bit funny!”

  LouLou watching us intently as we piss about hoovering up popcorn. Harry leaves to fiddle with the projector and she comes up to me and says, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” shaking her head, like I should know better.

  Harry meeting and charming my dad and Jessie, and taking the twins out to the park for the morning. He has Albert on his shoulders and is running with him around the playground, until he slips on black ice and they both fall to the floor in a heap of shrieking pain. Albert is screaming his head off and we have to go back to the cottage to patch up his head. Harry apologizes ten million times but still gets glowering looks from Jessie.

  Dougie coming home for Christmas and pretending to square up to Harry. Then, within minutes, hugging and bonding, and leaving me bored and left out on the edge of the sofa while they chat about EVIL DEAD II.

  Watching a rough cut of one of the scenes we’d filmed together, the blue light glowing off our faces. Me pointing at it excitedly, him smiling…and then, him snapping the lid of his laptop down and pulling me on top of him on my bed…

  Christmas zipped past in a haze of work, family arguments, more work, and me continuously dodging Harry’s invitations to come back to his flat. Sex, and the somewhat inevitability of it, loomed over me and I was tortured with flashbacks of what happened with Milo. Kissing Harry was good. Kissing Harry was amazing, even. But I dodged many opportunities to be alone with him in scenarios where more-than-kissing could happen. And he wasn’t pushing it. In fact, he didn’t bring it up. Just shrugged whenever I said, “Oh I can’t come round tonight, I need to be with Mum.” Once, he opened his mouth to say something but I just sort of flung myself onto his mouth and kissed him until he forgot whatever he was going to say.

  Dougie returned for the holidays, dragging two guitars behind him, and quickly told me everything I was doing wrong with Mum.

  “You can’t keep leaving her,” he said, after finding all the empty wine bottles in our recycling.

  “I’m working, Dougie, and she’s not alone, she’s with Sandra a lot of the time.”

  He pulled a face. “That pathetic alky? Audrey, you’ve got to look after her better.”

  Dougie’s idea of looking after her better involved spending many evenings listening to her whinge on about the legal process and nodding whenever she laid into Dad. He even refused to go visit Dad and the twins on Christmas Day – acting like I was the universe’s biggest traitor for popping round in the afternoon to give the twins their presents. They clawed and pawed at me, while Dad kept asking why Dougie hadn’t come, his mouth a thin straight line, and when I babbled about the house, Jessie’s mouth got even thinner than his. She sniffed in deeply, gave Dad a “look” and said, “Audrey, I don’t understand. She always knew she would hav
e to sell the house. This was part of the divorce settlement. You’re almost eighteen… God, that woman!” And I’d stood up and said, “What do you mean by that?” And Dad had to come between us, shouting, “Hey, hey, hey!” and I’d picked up the kids, kissed them each on the forehead, decanted my presents and stormed back home. Where Dougie and Mum were curled up in a duvet, sipping brandy and watching Love Actually. They ignored me, even though I’d fought her corner. I sat mutely on the carpet, messaging Harry and trying not to roll my eyes as the little kid chased that girl through the airport.

  “Just imagine how that would’ve turned out if the kid wasn’t white,” Leroy always says about the airport scene in Love Actually. “It would be renamed Shoot-Dead-First-Ask-Questions-About-Romantic-Intent-Afterwards Actually.”

  Harry came over in the evening. “Aww, Audrey, Christmas is always bollocks,” he’d said, kissing my shoulder, moving his way up to my neck. While I half relaxed into it, half freaked out that he would try and slide a hand into my knickers. “I’ve had to go to church TWICE in the past twenty-four hours. Midnight Mass and then morning mass. And then Mum and Dad spent lunch asking me disapproving questions about my promotion to shift manager. I mean, only they could think a promotion is a bad thing. They still want me to be an accountant or something boring and sensible, rather than a director. Anyway, do you want a present? I heard somewhere that the birth of Baby Jesus means I have to get my girlfriend a gift, one that will be judged on adequacy by everyone who asks her what her boyfriend got her.”