And yet it didn’t really feel wrong, to be in love with her. It was strange, really, the way I loved her. It was simply there, natural, almost casual. Almost as if there was no way I could have been known her at all without being in love with her. Loving Connie came as naturally to me as breathing, after I came to know her. And after I came to know her there was no conceivable way I could ever go back to being without her. I loved her the way I loved old literary novels and the smell of summer fruits. I loved her as I loved collecting New Wave records and the musty taste of Marlboro cigarettes. Without any consideration or effort at all. It was a fundamental part of what made me me. If there had been an easier option I’m sure I would have seized it. Even if it came easy to me, to love her, it was not easy, all the same. To think what that love might cost me, should anyone else discover it, or should the weight of unrequited desire prove too heavy…They were things I could not bear thinking about.

Connie returned home the night before school started back and with Claire’s permission, she was allowed to call over to see me. With little to no notice, I still looked no better than an extra on the set of Night of the Living Dead.

“You look like shit,” she said when I opened the front door to her, thirteen days since I had last seen her. She looked me up and down, nose wrinkling before she finally grinned. “Good to see you, Ryan.”

“And you,” I shrugged, as if the urge to barrel into her wasn’t crippling. “Were you gone somewhere?” My hands flailed awkwardly at my sides and I had to fight back the grin that threatened to burst through. Her skin was more freckled than it had been, last I saw her, and tanned, too.

“I won’t be staying too late, I’ll need to get home before Emily—she lost her key again.”

I didn’t want her to hug me in fear she might also fall sick but she swatted away my insistence. “We’re back to school tomorrow, idiot. If you manage to get me out of that for two weeks, I might just have to marry you. Do you think you’ll be in school tomorrow?”

“Can’t see why not. I mean, yeah, I still feel like shit but I can’t spend any more time in here. I’ll lose my bleedin’ mind.”

“Thank God. I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t.”

I cocked my head to the side. “Is Connie O’Reilly actually admitting that she missed me?”

“Never. It’s just been boring, is all. I need someone to rant to about that shagging funeral.”

“Hmm. I think you missed me.”

“You wish, Ryan.”

We settled down in the sitting room and I scanned through the pile of videos in the corner while she made herself comfy on the couch. “We’ve watched all of these a thousand times. We could pop around to Blockbusters?”