I imagined myself out of my body, splatted on to the ceiling, the wall, watching me, watching her, watching us. I’d drip, drip down.

Is this it?

For a moment, I floated. This was the first good float; the first time it felt correct to be away from my body. Just one big release of everything pent up, everything validated. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t imagining it. This was all June. It felt like a moment that existed somewhere else, like this crawl space behind some bleachers was a fucking rip in the timeline and we were nestled inside it.

‘You should probably sing something,’ she said.

‘Should I?’ I pinched the smallest bit of flesh on the inside of my mouth with my teeth to make sure my senses were keeping up with whatever, exactly, was happening. I wouldn’t want to miss this. The feeling of her hands on my neck was so foreign and wonderful; she’d touched me before, I guessed, exactly like this physically, but there was something different and stirring about how she did now. ‘I can’t sing.’

‘Neither can I,’ she said. ‘Friday night and the lights are low!’ she began, suddenly clutching my hands and sending the pair of us lurching in a sort of ballroom dance fashion. She was right. She couldn’t sing. ‘Looking out for a place to gooo.’ It was completely terrible. I don’t think she hit one note.

‘June.’ I laughed despite myself, with her still trying to sing, as she pitched me around behind the bleachers after Spring Fling. I wasn’t sure why I’d said her name – not necessarily to get her to stop or to get her attention, but it seemed like saying it would help me grab hold of the situation. She laughed too. ‘June, someone’s gonna –’

She screamed. ‘Dancing queen! Young and sweet, only seventeen –’

‘Someone’s gonna hear –’

‘Dancing queen, feel the –’

‘June.’

‘OK!’ We jolted to a stop. She grabbed my biceps, too hard this time, and I pulled back, sort of from the shock. ‘OK. That’s fine.’

My arms were sore where she’d squeezed them. ‘What do you mean, that’s fine?’

June’s face shifted and she pulled me into her. I was just holding her now, my whole world the smell of her neck and the frizz from her curls.

When she repositioned her head, her lips sort of brushed up against the side of my cheek; this was different. I was absolutely sure about it. There was something so intimate about this, from the way her hands pressed into my back with too much familiarity, to the way her breaths came out in shallow gusts. This was different. This was new and wonderful and everything I’d wanted – everything I’d wanted! June in the driver’s seat! June pressed to me. June here. June now.

But it was all wrong.

This was all wrong.