This is Love

Why do cows wear bells? You call out from across the field floor, your shoes slick with mud. The sixth form field’s a mess of footprints and skid marks and you can still smell the rain from Tuesday night. You’re standing with your boys, dirt caking the backs of your trousers as you shove and trip one another. It’s childish, your mother’s voice takes its place at the back of your mind, but your friend’s laughter is loud in your ears and you can’t find yourself caring. She’s standing with her girls. Cracked, orange skin and layers of powder so thick you’d suffocate if they got too close. They’ve got their arms crossed and face’s twisted in mild disgust as they look in your direction. Not her, though. She’s pale, the lightest of mascara brushed onto her eyelashes, and she looks like a diamond in the rough standing with her friends. Her eyes light up when she sees you and she cock’s her head to the left so subtly you almost miss it. The hair that had been trapped behind her ear falls and becomes free. You don’t even remember what you said.

You’re young and doe eyed as you approach her. Sweaty hands, dry lips and you’re sure the gel you applied generously this morning was now a bad choice. You’ve just turned seventeen and you’re ready to know what being in love feels like. She giggles to her friends, tucks her hair back behind her ear as she asks you why? Her voice is like a melody; the same tempo of a love song you’d once heard sitting in the backseat of your parent’s car. Our song, they had said. Your father had the softest look in his eyes, his hand rested on your mother’s thigh as she sang along. You were eleven, it was Christmas, and the decorations and lights of the neighbourhood passed by in a blur. You never got the name of the song, but you can remember wanting to feel like that. Now, you’re so blinded by her smile that the punchline escapes your thoughts and is replaced by her; her voice, her jawline, her tongue caught between her teeth. You can still remember the Thursday morning when that one math teacher with the limp in his walk introduced her to your class in the fourth year of primary school. She’d scanned the room and briefly caught your eye, shoulders relaxing as she looks at you. When the teacher asked who was to be her buddy for the day, your hand raised so fast you clipped the ear of the boy with the bowl hair cut who sat next to you.

She’s uniquely pretty – a dark spot in one of her copper eyes and ash brown hair that hovers just above her shoulders. Freckles spot her face, like they’d been flicked on with a paintbrush and part of her right eyebrow, normally a dark brown to match her hair, is blonde; she would later explain this to be a birthmark. There’s the smallest of scars on her nose, where she’d once forced a stud through in the changing rooms after PE. She had taken it out that same afternoon. When you pass her in the hallway the scent of Ariana Grande’s ‘Sweet Like Candy’ body mist trails after her. You know this, because you’d went to the mall the first time you smelt it just to find out what it had been called. Long, dark lashes and dashes of white highlighter on the tip of her nose - her cupids bow. You can only imagine what she’d taste like; cheap, cherry lip balm from that one Superdrug that every girl at your school shops at. You don’t remember asking, but she agrees to a date and your mind is already planning what to wear and where to go.

You take her to an arcade, let her pick all the games and tease her when she doesn’t get as many points as you in Street Fighter 2. Enough tickets are won to get two bouncy balls, awful quality ones that are sure to get lost or deteriorate in a week, but she holds hers in her fist, close to her chest and declares that she loves it. The date’s followed up with the classic dinner and a movie combo. She likes Italian food, so you go to Bella Italia and she giggles into her menu when you mess up your order. The words get lost when they leave your lips, get tangled in the air between you and the all-too-patient waiter and reach him in a flubbed mess. The waiter nods; gives you a wink and there’s a knowing look in his eye from the time spent studying the menu. You can’t help the way you fuck up your words when you get nervous. Dinner is nice, and you haven’t felt this content with another person in a long time. When the bill comes, she tries to pay for her half, but you can’t let her do that. You bicker, though there’s no menace behind it, and she gives up with a fond roll of her eyes. You take her to watch Zombieland: Double Tap and it’s kind of bad, you never were a fan of sequels, but her skin is pressed to yours as you share the armrest and a bucket of sweet popcorn. Salted was your preferred flavour, but how could you have said no. It’s dark when you walk her home; the only light’s coming from passing cars and streetlamps that turn the puddles on the pavement an iridescent lavender. You should give her your coat, but you don’t. You should kiss her, when you get to her doorstep, but you don’t.

You ask again, the first time she makes the move to take your hand and it’s like her fingerprints were made to fit with yours. Soft, moisturised fingers against your own. Sitting in the back of her second-hand Kia Soul, she sighs, content, and you think that as long as you keep the punchline hidden, she must stay and hold you like this. Again, you say nothing, just lean in to kiss her and your heart beats to its own tune, the harmony of a love song, as she closes the gap between you. It’s messy, a little awkward with the way your noses bump against each other’s but she just laughs, takes your face in her hands and angles you right. This time it’s better, a longing in your stomach to bring her closer and you can taste that cherry lip balm as you think this, oh this is love.