With my whole body tingling, I put my fingers to my lips as I watched the van drive away, and then ran back to the house.

29

May 2013

Scottish Highlands

The entire week I was on edge. I could barely sit still. I thought about Fred all the time. Dad sighed and huffed as he tried to get me to concentrate on my books, when all I could do was look at the clock, willing time to pass, for Fred to come again.

When I wasn’t with Dad I spent time in my room, playing my song and looking at myself in the mirror. I rearranged my hair time and time again, putting it up in a high ponytail, down low, a French plait, tried tossing it around, messing it up, and brushing it one hundred times like they’d done in some book or other I’d read, but all that did was make it static and frizzy.

Strange feelings ran through me – a yearning for something, without really knowing quite what. I replayed films I’d watched with Dad in my head, thinking about how the men and women touched each other, how they reacted. What they did together when they were alone.

None of them seemed to feel like I did when Fred touched me – like I didn’t want to let him go, like I wanted to press myself against him, until … until what?

What happened when it faded to black as they were kissing in the films? What happened then?

There must be something else. When Fred kissed me, it was both weird and scary but also not nearly enough. There was something more, I was sure.

I squirmed in my chair and touched my lips. I looked in the mirror and saw that my cheeks had gone pink.

After spending an hour getting ready – which was quite a feat considering I had next to no clothes and absolutely no make-up – as I reached the tree where I met Fred last time at ten to six exactly, it suddenly occurred to me that he might not come.