And then, almost immediately, I hear another crackle of feet on twigs. I crane my neck to see someone else rounding the opposite corner and beginning to emerge through the leaves. I squint to try and make them out …
And as I do so, something even stronger than déjà vu slaps me hard across the face. A sense memory so vivid it makes my head spin.
All these years I’ve been telling myself the story of what happened in this maze. And I realise now I’ve been telling it wrong.
It was Alice who got to me first.
I see her now through the gaps in the hedge, creeping past just as she did back then, scouring the branches for any movement. The precise thought I had at the time flashes suddenly into my brain: I could make a sound now. I could let her know where I am.
But I found that I didn’t want to make a sound. I didn’t want her to find me.
Alice squints right through the branches, and for a second I’m certain she’s looking straight at me. But then she draws back, turns and keeps walking.
I breathe out shakily, because it’s all coming back now and I know exactly what will happen next. I’m not sure how I could have forgotten it – the booze, I guess, or just the gradual erosion of the intervening years – but the memory is now crystal clear in my mind.
Right on cue, Daphne appears, peering gingerly into the hedge opposite. And without thinking, I do exactly what I did fifteen years ago: I reach up to bend one of the branches above me until it snaps cleanly in two.
She jumps at the sharp sound and turns in my direction, a smile playing on her lips.
It wasn’t random chance at all.
I wanted her to find me. I made her find me.
She gets nearer and nearer until she’s standing right over me, grinning down through the leaves.
‘So,’ she whispers. ‘Not a great hitman, not a great hider.’
I just about manage to croak a laugh.
‘Is there any room in there?’
I lift the biggest branch and she climbs under it and sits down opposite me, cross-legged. Our knees are already overlapping, but then she has to lean forward to readjust her position, which brings our faces so close they are practically touching.
‘Oops,’ she whispers. ‘This is a bit, erm …’
She lets the sentence hang there, unfinished, as we look into each other’s eyes. My heart is thumping so hard that I’m sure she must be able to hear it. But I can’t help it. My head is suddenly filled with the memory of this moment, fifteen years ago: our first kiss. How right it felt, as I leaned forward and touched her lips to mine. The way she smelled, the way she felt, the way she tasted.
She tucks a stray curl back behind her ear and smiles at me. And God, I want to kiss her again.
She tilts her head slightly, and without thinking, I reach up and touch her face, very gently. She smiles again, and the tip of her nose brushes my cheek as her lips find mine. And as we kiss, everything around me seems to fizzle and dissolve, until there’s only the two of us left.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, lost in that kiss.
I must have kissed Daphne a million times over the past fifteen years, but I can’t remember any of them feeling this perfect. It’s like my whole body is being lit up from inside. I don’t want it to ever end.
But then, suddenly, it does.
There’s a sharp crackle of leaves, the branches are pulled back, and there’s Alice, staring straight down at us.
Daff pulls away, and the look on Alice’s face brings me right back to earth with a jolt. It’s exactly as I remember it: the initial flinch of confusion that melts instantly into a kind of embarrassed disappointment. She sucks in her bottom lip, glances down at the grass and mutters: ‘Sorry.’
Daff shoots me an ugh-this-is-awkward grimace, but I have no idea what to say or do. The moment is so insane and unreal it feels like it’s happening to someone else.
Thankfully, I don’t have to do anything. Marek and a couple of others materialise out of nowhere, right behind Alice, giggling like idiots. They barge into our hiding place, and suddenly there are enough bodies in the hedge to muffle the awkwardness.
I’m doing everything in my power to avoid eye contact with Alice – which is not difficult, really, since the space is now so crowded that my face is pressed directly into Marek’s armpit. And even though I feel sick with guilt about Alice finding me and Daff together, I’m still thrumming with the exhilaration of that kiss. I can’t help it. It’s all coming back to me now: the way I felt at this moment, fifteen years ago. The ballooning sense of excitement in my stomach. The tingly feeling that this might be the start of something really good. The absolute certainty that there was no way in hell I could wait the whole Christmas holidays before I saw Daphne again.
Finally, after what seems like centuries, the last person finds us and the game comes to an end. We all scramble out of the hedge, and start traipsing back out of the maze. I lag behind, right at the back of the pack, trying to figure out what I’ll say to Alice when I get out.
But it turns out I don’t need to worry. By the time I step out of the maze, Marek is already leading the charge back towards the bar for last orders. Everyone is staggering drunkenly after him, and I can’t see Alice anywhere. I linger by the maze’s entrance and watch the bodies disappear into the night, terrified that Daphne might have disappeared with them …
Then, suddenly, she’s right beside me in the darkness.
‘Not sure I’m up for another drink,’ she says.
‘No, me neither.’
‘So …’ I feel her hand brush gently against mine. ‘I guess this is goodnight, then …’
The first time around, it was. We were still surrounded by people, so we just exchanged a brief, awkward ‘See you later’, and then I headed off for one last beer, before stumbling back to my room to lie wide awake in bed, reliving the memory of that kiss.
But this time, I don’t want the night to end. I still can’t make head or tail of what is happening, but I know for absolute certain that I don’t want Daphne to leave.
‘Do you want to …’ I begin. But I can’t think of a way to add ‘come back to mine’ without sounding like a massive sleazebag.
Daff must pick up on this dilemma, because she tilts her head at me playfully. ‘Not-Naked Ben, are you asking me back to your room?’
I laugh. ‘Well, yeah. But for entirely innocent reasons, I promise.’
She still looks dubious – which is fair enough, really. I don’t know how to communicate that I am actually telling the truth. As amazing and electrifying as that kiss was, the idea of us going any further honestly hasn’t crossed my mind. I just want more time with her – with this Daphne. This happy, funny, carefree girl who is so different from the woman I live with in 2020. I want to get to know her all over again.
‘A cup of tea,’ I say. ‘That’s all, I swear. If you fancy it?’
She sizes me up with her big brown eyes. And then that amazing smile spreads across her face. ‘OK, yeah. I could murder a cup of tea, actually.’
We wind our way slowly back