Celebration, At Last

Etta James’ ‘At Last’ played through my earphones as I waited for the last train out from Ayr. The platform was empty, save for a teenage girl talking loudly down the phone. The music washed over me. I was finally alone, and my mind brimmed with thoughts of the rug of monotony that had finally been pulled out from under my feet. It was April 4th, and the chilly Spring air sent shivers down my spine. I had crossed the point of no return. Anticipation ricocheted through my body, bursting out of me in a giggle that blossomed into a gleeful cackle. Finally. Finally. Finally.

We had talked on the phone all morning, joking about an arena where my (non-existent) suitors could fight each other to the death. I told him I was sad, and all I wanted was for someone to hold me and stroke my hair. He made me giggle with bad German accents, and out of nowhere told me, ‘I think people do find you attractive.’ Amidst our new-found earnestness, and the soft whisper of my intuition, it wasn’t a surprise when he got out the car at the train station, and the familiar eyes of my friend burned with a blue electricity that warmed my cheeks to fiery red.

Alone, between Culzean Castle and the stony beach, I hugged him till I felt the air leaving my chest. He teased that these were not fortuitous times for claiming I couldn’t breathe, and stroked my hair, patting it clumsily with his boy hands. I reached out to the ginger curls on his own head, and taught him how to be gentle with me. We clung to each other again, as if it was more natural for our skin to touch than not. When he let me go, I scoured the grass at my feet for the severed corpse of my purple teddy bear earring that had been sunken by the tide of affection.

Waves crashed against great black stones as we descended to the beach. He asked if I was okay to cross them, and I hesitated for just a moment, until he offered me his hand. My heart did not skip a beat. Perhaps in fiction the friends-to-lovers trope is stolen glances and well-hidden pining, but when his hand slid into mine, it was not a momentous twist of fate that spun me around till I collapsed from dizziness. It was a natural progression.

I melted into the sensation of his damp palm against mine, while he reminisced about his homoerotic rugby days and sand seeped into my trainers. A forest rose up above us on the cliff, and we climbed a wooden staircase in single file, our hands still intertwined. Casually, he told me his ex-girlfriend and flatmate had both said he was a bad kisser.

I asked, ‘So how bad of a kisser are you then?’

He said, ‘It seems like you want to find out,” and sent me into a stunned silence. Daffodils bloomed in the undergrowth, and the sun shone down upon us as we traversed the narrow cliffside path.

He led me to a bench overlooking the grey-blue sea, and our hands rested on the wooden surface between us.

‘I’m telepathic,’ he said.

‘Oh, so what am I thinking right now?’ I stared directly into his blue eyes, a challenge waiting to be answered.

‘I think I know what you’re thinking, but I may be very oblivious.’

‘I promise you: I am infinitely more oblivious than you are,’ I assured him. ‘Tell me what I’m thinking.’ My green eyes met his blue ones once again.

‘I could be very wrong,’ he said, already leaning towards me, ‘but I think you’re thinking this.’

I hadn’t been kissed in so long I could barely remember what it felt like. His mouth was warm and wet against mine. Our arms didn’t gravitate towards each other, our hands didn’t claw at the other’s body, desperate to be as close to each other as our human forms would allow. I giggled into his mouth, and told him his ex-girlfriend was right. But when we stopped touching, all I knew was that I wanted to kiss him again.

‘Error 404: brain broken.’ He broke the stunned silence as we walked back into the forest. I stared at the path ahead of me, and he educated me on a historical event that slipped from my mind too quickly to form a memory. A threshold had been crossed, and nerves and hope and joy mingled together in my mind, feelings filling the empty space where thoughts used to be.

We don’t talk about it, as he cuddles me on the sofa, my face pressed against the breast of his tweed jacket. We don’t talk, while he holds me in his arms, tapping out the beat of krasnaya armiya on my shoulder as his singing voice resonates in my ears. We dance in the kitchen to the discordant alternation of Warren Zevon and Taylor Swift, and still, we don’t say the unsayable, admit that our friendship is over, in one way or another.

11pm at the train station in Ayr, he kisses my cheek and sparks of hope burst in my heart. Nothing is set in stone, the path ahead is as treacherous as the Culzean shore, but as his lips brush against my skin I know there is cause for celebration, at last.