No Big Deal

by Bethany Rutter

  Ryan mumbles something about needing to return to his DJing, gets up, and stalks back into the house, shaking his head. Mostly at himself, I reckon – but it feels like it’s at me too.

  ‘What are you doing out here all on your own?’

  Sophia’s head has appeared from round the patio doors like a cartoon character. She is absolutely not going to tolerate me avoiding the party, so she drags me back inside. Dancing to 90s R & B with Ella and Sophia is obviously the cure to all my problems. But as we dance, I feel myself zoning out, retreating into my thoughts while my body moves on its own.

  What even happened? I’m cute . . . Ryan’s cute . . . Maybe I’m not wild about him, but did I have to be? I didn’t think so. Maybe he’s not wild about me either, but at least he liked me. I’m sure I didn’t get that wrong, but the second he was faced with the actual reality of my body, he flipped out. Have I been kidding myself all this time? What. The. Hell? I thought it was going to be simple: I decide to make a bit of an effort, flutter my eyelashes a bit, do fewer weird jokes, do more actual flirting, and BAM! It would prove a recipe for success. Turns out my stupid body is going to get in the way. I thought Ryan was cool. I mean, he wasn’t the love of my life, but I thought he was cute enough to kiss at least once . . .

  Emily: Officially Too Fat for Kissing.

  Just after midnight, I take a break from dancing, and Abi takes a break from making out with Oliver. We find ourselves together on the patio bench, quietly eyeing the boys further down the lawn, who are gently swaying after a few drinks.

  ‘Oh my GOD – how did your plan work out?’ Abi asks, suddenly animated.

  ‘Disastrously,’ I say. I figure there’s no point lying. ‘I thought Ryan was a good idea.’

  ‘Yes, he totally is. Why have I never thought of this before?!’ she says, but then my words catch up with her. ‘Wait – why?’

  ‘Disaster because he seemed like he was going to go for it and then at the last minute freaked out. As soon as he touched me, he freaked out. My body freaked him out.’

  She looks awkward, like she doesn’t know what to say. ‘Damn, I’m sorry . . . I mean, I’m sure it wasn’t that. I’m sure it wasn’t about your body. I’m sure it was something else . . .’ She trails off. ‘I’m sure he didn’t do it on purpose.’

  ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t,’ I say, placing a hand on hers and squeezing it reassuringly. Even though I’m the one who needs reassurance. Of course she wouldn’t understand. But I’m not in the mood to explain the fact that it definitely was about my body. I sigh. ‘I wasn’t even that into him. I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.’

  All of a sudden, I decide I’ve had enough for tonight. I get up off the bench, say bye to Abi, and head into the house, up the stairs, and into the bedroom where I dumped my jacket earlier. I can barely summon the energy to move my arms as I rummage through the pile of jackets and sweaters searching for mine. I’m lost in my thoughts as I head back downstairs, hoping to slip away without bumping into Ryan again, when I spot something familiar: the cover of the album Talking Heads: 77 on someone’s T-shirt. Clearly this is someone I need to know. My eyes travel up from the T-shirt to its owner’s face. I feel an electric charge pass through the air around me as I make eye contact with . . .

  Who . . . ? Who the hell is that?

  Disclaimer: I have never actually been shot. I would imagine, though, that it feels quite a lot like the way I feel when I see him for the first time. I keep walking down the stairs, my heart in my throat and racing a million miles an hour. Don’t trip on the stairs . . . One foot in front of the other . . . You’ve got this . . . You remember how to walk.

  I exhale deeply as I cross the crowded room to the door, and as I breathe out, it’s as if my body is breathing out an ‘Oh my God’ and breathing in a new energy – a changed thing. The door . . . You’re walking to the door. The door that the guy is standing near. I’ve never seen him before in my life. I would remember if I had. Jesus – I would remember. Has he been here the whole night? How did I miss him until now? I wonder if we were just moving around the party in different directions the whole time.

  What do I do? Am I just meant to leave without knowing anything about him? Without even knowing his name? I have seconds to decide. Maybe I should talk to him? But what would I say? I’ll think of something.

  And then I remember Ryan’s touch, the way he shrank away from me, and all my confidence shrinks away too. The fire of optimism doused with the freezing cold water of rejection. I feel like I physically shudder, though I’m pretty sure I don’t.

  It’s resolved: I’m leaving.

  Before I make it through the front door, I bump into Ella, who’s indignant that I would even consider making an exit without saying goodbye. It’s hard to get out of a party anyway, and all the time I’m trying to switch off my hyper-awareness of where this mystery guy is in the room. I don’t want to know where he is or what he’s doing or who he’s talking to. If I see him again, I’ll never stop looking.

  Finally, Ella lets me leave. And I’ve managed to avoid seeing him. I push the door open and head out into the dark, cool night, lifting my head to the sky to take in the stars. Almost instantly I’m brought back down to earth as my foot makes contact with something solid on the step in front of me, making me stumble and swear. Everyone’s smoking in the back garden, so why the hell is some idiot sitting smoking on the front steps, precisely where they might get kicked by people leaving—

  Oh no. It’s him.

  ‘Woah! Sorry – it’s a bad place to sit, isn’t it,’ he says as he scrambles to his feet, hastily stubbing his cigarette out.

  I can’t think of anything clever or witty or sexy to say. Quick, think of something – anything – just make it alluring, enticing and sophisticated.

  ‘Yeah, it is a bit,’ I reply. Good one, Emily, mate. I’m glad it’s dark; I don’t think I could take being this close to him, being able to see him right in front of me.

  He checks me over. ‘You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?’

  ‘Fortunately for you, there will be no lawsuit,’ I reply. Even in the dark, I can see his gorgeous smile.

  ‘That’s a relief. Well, I won’t keep you,’ he says.

  Keep me, I think. Please keep me.

  ‘Yeah. Um, bye, I guess,’ I say, making everything unnecessarily awkward as I turn to walk down the drive. My steps trigger a security light, the glow gently illuminating the porch. I do the one thing I didn’t want to do: I turn back to look at him. I try to take all of him in at once, try to memorize the parts that I can make out in the low light. He’s tall, kind of solid-looking. He stands straight. His hair is messy, a dirty golden blond, and he keeps running his hands through it. Big, clear, bright blue eyes behind glasses. Full lips. No, improbably full lips, which are completely beautiful, and which I totally want to kiss right this second. Kind of flushed cheeks. He looks soft and warm, a gentle place to be. I want to be there—

  ‘I’m Joe, by the way,’ he says, breaking my reverie. ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘I’m Emily. And yes, I guess it was.’ I smile at him. ‘Hey . . .’ I add uncertainly, ‘I like your T-shirt.’

  He looks down at himself, like he can’t quite work out why someone might say that to him, realizes he’s wearing a Talking Heads T-shirt and grins. ‘Oh, cheers! You . . . like them? Or you just like green writing on a red background?’

  ‘No – I like them. A lot. Maybe I would go as far as to say they’re my favourite band.’

  ‘They’re something more than cool. He’s the coolest.’

  I have nothing to say to that except, ‘Yes.’ I shrug nonchalantly, although my heart is fluttering, and my head is spinning.

  ‘Glad we’re in agreement,’ he says, flashing me another smile that makes me feel weak. His teeth are straight and white and perfect. Of course they are.

  ‘Well, it was cool to meet you,’ I say, as I start back down the drive.

  ‘Yeah, nice to meet
you, Emily.’

  I meander home, all the way along the endless main road that leads from South Croydon straight to the bottom of my road in Purley. I need time to process the electric crackle that I felt inside my chest, the fizz that has just completely short-circuited me. As I wait for a set of traffic lights to change on Croydon Road, I try to assess what I know about this guy. His name is Joe. He likes Talking Heads. He’s kind of charming. He is, to use the technical term, well fit. The fact he’s well fit is certainly sweetening the deal, but . . . I just know that this isn’t all there is to it. We have something in common. And if we have one something in common (and music is an important something to me), maybe we have more somethings in common.

  I have had crushes before: my neighbour; a boy from another school who was always on my bus in the morning; our Year Nine maths teacher. I mean, I thought I’d had crushes before. So why do I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck? Minutes earlier, I had no idea this boy even existed, and now I feel like I will surely die if I don’t know everything about him, touch every part of his body, consume his soul, and make him love me for the rest of my life. Based on what? Based on nothing. Is this what people mean when they talk about chemistry? Can chemistry be one-sided? Is this what love at first sight feels like?

  I feel dazed and light-headed, but at the same time, like all my senses have been turned on at once, like all the blood is rushing towards my heart, like I’m going to be lifted out of my shoes. It’s as if someone has put a spell on me, and I’m no longer under my own control. My body is prickling, my brain whirring at lightning speed. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know everything has changed. I have a purpose. I have a goal: get to know that guy.

  Before I know it, I’ve carried myself home. At the bottom of our drive, I hop from one foot to another and screw my face up in a silent scream, trying to get some of the pent-up energy out of my system in case one of my parents is still awake and wants to engage me in conversation. The energy flowing out of me is a mixture of lust for this Joe, whoever he is, and crushing despair at how much more difficult the whole thing is going to be because of . . . well . . . this body that I’m currently shaking out on the pavement outside my house.

  Bodies. Who needs them?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘Something Changed’ – Pulp

  Rise and shine, Emily Daly! Today is the first day of the rest of your life, and you are in love!

  So far, being in love mostly blows. I feel on edge and stressed and faintly nauseous. I’m giving Being in Love a one-star review. I’m loitering in my bed post-party until it’s absolutely necessary to face the world (the world that my crush lives in), and my productivity can just about stretch to scrolling through the music library on my phone and compiling a playlist to match my mood. Curating a tracklist to encapsulate the highs and lows of feeling like this:

  ‘I Want the One I Can’t Have’ – the Smiths

  ‘What Have I Done to Deserve This’ – Pet Shop Boys

  ‘How Will I Know’ – Whitney Houston

  ‘Fantasy’ – Mariah Carey

  ‘Something Changed’ – Pulp

  Before I can locate the perfect follow-up to Jarvis Cocker’s impassioned crooning, there’s a knock on my door. This means it’s my dad, since, unlike my mum, he was blessed with respect for personal space.

  ‘Emily?’

  ‘You can come in,’ I call back, and my dad sheepishly pushes the door open.

  ‘Did you have a nice time at the party last night, treasure?’ he asks, sitting down on my bed.

  ‘Yeah, it was OK. It was fun,’ I reply, not knowing what to say.

  How do I fully communicate the utterly grim misery of being rejected by someone I didn’t even fancy that much because I’m fat, then meeting the person I now fancy the most in the whole world, who I probably don’t stand a chance with because, oh look, I’m still fat.

  ‘Are you all right? You seem a bit . . . subdued. Did you have too much to drink?’ He winks slyly at me, the skin around his kind brown eyes crinkling behind his glasses. I think my dad wishes I was more rebellious, had more fun, was more creative, artistic, bohemian, whatever.

  ‘No, Dad – I didn’t. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.’

  ‘You can tell me anything, pet,’ he says.

  And it breaks my heart because I know it’s true, but at the same time, it’s not true at all. Just because he would be ready to hear anything, it doesn’t mean I’m always ready to tell him anything. Like when I was bullied at primary school, I could never, ever bring myself to tell him or my mum because I knew they would worry, and I didn’t want to do that to them. So odds are, I’m probably not about to open the floodgates and launch into an impassioned word-vomit about being gripped by a sudden obsessive fear that no one will ever want me because I’m fat . . . all before breakfast.

  ‘I know,’ I mumble instead, feeling guilty. ‘Thank you. Anyway, what did you want?’

  ‘I’m going to take Ted for a walk. Do you want to come?’

  Ordinarily I would say no, because hibernation is my default state, but I’m experiencing a rush of good feeling towards my dad and don’t want to turn him down. Plus, I’ve been a bad dog owner recently and haven’t paid much attention to Ted, so maybe now I can bond with both of them. I throw back the covers and get out of bed, slip on some jogging bottoms and my dad’s old Pixies T-shirt (I may like good clothes, but even I know that not all expeditions require them), and twist my hair into an ugly top knot. I’m almost ready to hit the streets. The not-at-all-mean streets of suburban Purley, more specifically.

  I pad downstairs in search of trainers and find my mum sitting at the kitchen table with her back to me, tapping away on her laptop. The way she whips around when she hears my footsteps alerts me to the distinct possibility she’s up to something dubious. I crane my neck to see what’s on her screen, and just before she has a chance to hit the X and close the window, I spot the words ‘Wellness System’. Dubious indeed.

  ‘Are you going out with Dad?’ she says breezily, as if she’s got nothing to hide.

  ‘Uh, yeah. Are you coming?’ I’ll play along. I don’t care what she’s looking at (except I clearly do).

  ‘No, I’m just going to stay here,’ she says, smiling weakly.

  ‘OK.’

  I turn away and busy myself with finding Ted’s lead, but while I’m rummaging in the cupboard, I take out my phone and search for ‘Wellness System’. To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out to be a new diet concept. Here we go again.

  As the front door slams behind us, I wonder if I should bring what is clearly Mum’s latest diet fad up with my dad, but I decide not to. I have nothing new to say about her obsession with dieting. I’m tired of hearing about diets, tired of talking about diets, tired of feeling like she’s scrutinizing and evaluating my body every time she looks at me.

  It’s the perfect kind of day, with a pale sun in a blue sky and a cool breeze on the trees. For once, I’m glad to be outside. We stroll up and down the streets of our neighbourhood, chatting about my sister and how she’s doing in Manchester, trading opinions on the new album by John Grant before concluding we both like it. It hits me how well I get on with Dad, not least in comparison to the non-stop tension I have with my mum. I’m grateful; some people don’t even have a peaceful relationship with one parent.

  I’m doing well keeping up with the conversation, but in my head, my thoughts keep tuning in and out to Joe. What’s Joe doing right now? Where does he live? What’s his story? What’s he thinking about right now (because it sure as hell won’t be me)? . . . I’m glad he can’t see me at this very moment because I probably look like a rubbish bag full of soil. But I’d like to be able to see him, just to keep an eye on him, see what he’s up to. Normal stuff. What I’m saying is I want to go full creep and install CCTV in his home, I guess.

  After we decide that Ted has stretched his tiny legs long enough, my dad, aka Masterchef, remembers he needs to bu
y capers to give lunch that certain sharp, salty je ne sais quoi. A trip to Big Tesco is in order on the way home. Now, there is truly nothing I love more in this world than a huge supermarket. A supermarket on two levels with a slow-moving travelator and rotisserie chickens is my idea of a good time, so I’m not complaining. Except, of course, I have to stay outside with Ted because I can’t be trusted to choose the right kind of capers. So, I’m holding him in my arms and rocking him like a baby when I hear someone shout my name. Musical, slightly accented: ‘Emily!’

  At first, I can’t locate the source of the voice, but after a few slow-mo seconds spinning around looking for who has spoken my name, I lock eyes with . . . No! It can’t be. But . . . it is. Camila! Thank God she’s back! Except as I take her in, it doesn’t really look like her at all. As I’m trying to process what I’m seeing, her mum, who’s busy loading bags into the boot of their car, waves to me, and Camila jogs over, beaming, and throws her arms around me. There’s a lot less of her for me to hug back.

  To my adoring mind, Camila has always been the most beautiful angel to grace the planet. The Chilean genes on her mum’s side give her thick, heavy, straight dark hair, and the Swedish on her dad’s give her a wide, open face. Except, today, her hair is lighter, bleached with ashy highlights throughout, and her wide face appears less fleshy. She’s also wearing make-up, when in all the years I’ve known her, she’s shown no interest in it. I’ve always been the one into clothes and beauty, while Camila stuck to a pretty standard uniform of neutral basics, trying to draw as little attention to herself as possible. Because Camila, unlike me, has always thought there is something wrong with being fat. And now, after only a couple of months in Sweden, she’s melted some of it away. Not loads, but . . . some. Enough to make a noticeable difference. And along with the makeup, the hair, the clothes, it all adds up to a totally different picture.