Daff laughs, and nudges her shoulder into mine. ‘Yeah. Plus it’s absolutely freezing.’ She dusts her hands off and watches as the crumbs rain down. ‘Come on, let’s go back in.’
We retreat inside and shut the window again. She recrosses her legs, and wraps both hands tightly around her tea mug to warm them up.
‘It’s crazy how quickly this first term has gone,’ she says. ‘Before we know it, uni will be over.’ She shakes her head at the idea. ‘We’ll be twenty-one. We’ll be actual adults.’
‘We are technically actual adults now, you know,’ I say.
She gives me a perfectly deadpan look. ‘Ben, we’ve just spent the last hour playing hide-and-seek in a hedge.’
I laugh. ‘Good point.’
She takes another sip of tea, and shuffles backwards on the bed until she’s leaning up against the headboard. She stretches her legs out again, and without thinking, I lift her foot back into its previous position on my thigh. If she finds this at all weird or forward, she doesn’t show it. She just smiles at me and says: ‘It’s crazy to think about, though, isn’t it? Once uni’s over, we’ll have no one telling us what to do any more. We’ll actually have to decide what to do with every day of our lives.’
‘So what do you want to do with them?’ I ask her.
She laughs, and wriggles back against the headboard, trying to get comfy. ‘I just want to … be happy, I suppose. Enjoy life. Have good friends. Be a good friend. Do something for a living that I love.’ She pauses for another sip of tea. ‘First up, though, I want to go travelling. Bit clichéd, I know, but when you grow up in a tiny village where you know everyone, the idea of visiting the other side of the world seems quite appealing.’ She shrugs. ‘That’s the plan, anyway. But I bet I never get round to it.’
‘I bet you will,’ I say. Because I know she will. She and Jamila will spend five months backpacking around South East Asia and Australia straight after uni, while I work night shifts in a pub in Ealing, missing her like mad.
It’s crazy to think about that period now. We’d been going out for two and a half years at that point, but it still felt fresh and new and exciting. I was still so caught up in her; so hopelessly head-over-heels. I couldn’t believe that this funny, sexy, incredible girl was actually with me. It’s a feeling that’s starting to sink back in again right now – it has been ever since that kiss in the maze.
What’s happened to that feeling in 2020? When did it get lost along the way? How did we turn into this bitter, sniping couple, constantly at each other’s throats?
We sit in silence for a few seconds, at opposite ends of my single bed, just smiling and looking into each other’s eyes. And suddenly it’s like I really am nineteen again, my brain fizzing with the excitement of having met someone this brilliant. Someone I feel an instant, inexplicable connection with.
Daff yawns and stretches her arms behind her head. The urge to lean forward and kiss her grips me tightly again, but I content myself with another large slurp of tea.
‘What are you doing for Christmas, then?’ I ask.
‘I’ll just be at home,’ she says. ‘The usual stuff: stockings, presents, turkey. My mum’s not actually that big on Christmas, though. We tend to do all the proper, extended-family stuff on January the first.’
I nod. ‘Greeks are all about the new year, right?’
She freezes with the mug halfway to her lips. ‘How did you know my mum’s Greek?’
Oh God. This is a minefield.
‘Erm … just another guess,’ I stammer. ‘You kind of … look Greek?’
Which is true, to be fair. She narrows her eyes at me. ‘Are you sure you haven’t been stalking me on Myspace, Not-Naked Ben?’
The mention of Myspace makes me laugh out loud. If I ever doubted that I am genuinely in 2005, here is the conclusive proof.
‘So, what about you?’ she asks. ‘What are you up to for Christmas? At home with your mum and dad?’
‘Well, I …’ I have to stop suddenly, because the thought of Mum almost makes me choke up. But I take a deep breath and manage to keep it together. ‘My mum goes mad for Christmas, so it’ll be the full whack – turkey, all the trimmings, tinsel everywhere …’
‘What about your dad? Is he into it too?’
I shrug. ‘He’s not really in the picture, actually.’
She looks down at the duvet. ‘Oh. Right. Sorry.’
I shake my head. ‘No, don’t be. I mean … hopefully, some day, that might change.’
She looks at me fondly, and then yawns again. As she stretches, a few more curls escape and tumble gently around her shoulders.
God, she looks amazing.
‘I feel knackered suddenly,’ she says quietly.
And this time I can’t stop myself. I move in to kiss her again. She leans forward to meet me, and we’re locked into each other once more, kissing hungrily, her hands on the back of my neck, my hands tangled in her long black curls.
And then she breaks away.
‘Ben, I don’t know if I want to … you know?’ she says. ‘We’ve only just met …’
‘Yeah, no, of course! Of course not. I mean, if you want to head back …’
She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to go.’
She pulls me gently towards her, and we both lean back slowly until our heads are resting on my squashy foam pillow. For a while, we just lie there, fully clothed, on top of the duvet in my tiny single bed, looking into each other’s eyes and smiling. And then I shift round and wrap my arm around her, so that her head is resting on my chest. Her hand finds mine and our fingers interlock. She lets out a tired, contented sigh. And despite all the madness and chaos that this day has brought, I feel totally at peace. Calm and happy and in control. Like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
‘Almost midnight,’ Daff mumbles.
I glance up at the clock above the door. It’s not far off the time that’s frozen on my watch. I think suddenly of that piss-take sales line the old man gave me: How else will you know when the clock strikes midnight? A flicker of that strange feeling I felt in the pub passes through me, but I’m too tired to properly examine it.
Daff nuzzles further into my neck. ‘This should feel weird,’ she says, sleepily. ‘I mean, I hardly know you. But it doesn’t.’
I feel my eyelids starting to droop. ‘Yeah,’ I murmur. ‘The fact that it isn’t weird is, in itself, weird.’
We both laugh softly. I pull her even closer and gently kiss her forehead.
And before I know it, I’m asleep.
I must have been dreaming about that kiss in the maze, because now, as I stir suddenly awake, it’s like I can still hear the rustle of the leaves around me. I can almost taste Daphne’s lips on mine.
For some reason, I feel dizzy and slightly winded, like I’ve just been flung from an out-of-control merry-go-round. I didn’t even feel that drunk last night, but I guess those pints of snakebite were stronger than I thought.
With my eyes still closed, I groan softly into the pillow and flip it over to the cold side. I lie groggily under the duvet, still half asleep, feeling a weird combination of things: warm and fuzzy and happy after what