I loved how he always sent me text kisses first thing in the morning and last thing at night – but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want dicktures, I didn’t want sex aids he said he’d order me off the internet or him nibbling my neck or pressing against me. For me that was love with a grenade attached – it said I love you so much, I want to hurt you.
If things had been different, maybe it would have turned me on. Maybe we’d have booty-called each other from our beds, like he said his mates did with random women on Snapchat and Skype. But things weren’t different. Things were the way they were.
I had a bit of a meltdown about it at training the next morning.
‘Come on, don’t let me down, keep going, work through it, work through it…’
The sweltering sun attacked us like a baying crowd as we climbed the east-facing slope of Brynstan Hill. My body did as Pete was yelling at it to do, but my head was everywhere – on the white butterflies shimmering through the long grass, the sheep lying in the shade, the tractor ambling along in a faraway meadow. The distant cars. Hay bales wrapped in shiny black plastic, like large body bags.
‘Come on. Push it, Ella, push it! All the way now, all the way…’
Sweat streamed down my face, and the taste of tiny flies and hot hay clogged my nose and my throat. Pete pushed me harder and harder up the hill, until all my willpower left me and I stopped and bent over to grab my ankles and catch my breath.
‘What are you doing? We’re nowhere near the top yet,’ he panted.
‘I’ve had enough,’ I gasped, reaching behind me for the Evian in my rucksack.
‘Come on, just a bit further. You’ve got to punch through it.’
I shook my head, chugging down the cool water like I’d crossed a desert. ‘I don’t want to do any more today.’ I swigged again and bent over, every muscle torn up and my lungs aching when I breathed in or out. ‘I hate this damn hill.’
‘You have been keeping up with your diet, haven’t you?’
I said nothing, wiping my face on my T-shirt hem.
‘You’re sluggish today. Perhaps we should look at reeling back on the carbs.’
‘OK, I had a day off yesterday. My dad made me a bacon sandwich. It’s not a crime.’
Pete Hamlin had been our school’s Teacher You Most Want to Bang – they called him the Pied Piper, cos wherever he went there was always a line of girls following him. I wasn’t interested in him that way, but I could see that he was good-looking. He was twenty-five, with a big, happy smile, and he spoke with a posh accent, like he’d done ten years’ training with the Royal Shakespeare Company. We talked a lot. I knew he wanted to move back to London, that he liked going to see plays but hated the cinema, even that he still carried a picture of his ex-girlfriend in his wallet. We’d run up Brynstan Hill like coach and student, but we’d come back down as friends, chatting about music and books.
‘Come on then. Back at it.’
I shook my head. ‘This is as far as I want to go today.’
‘That’s not an athlete talking, Estella.’
I started undoing the Velcro on my running gloves but left them on. ‘Yeah well, maybe I don’t want to be an athlete today, Peter.’
‘This isn’t like you. Where’s my Volcano Girl?’
‘Extinct,’ I said, and started walking back down the hill.
The local paper had started the whole Volcano Girl thing, because of the way I ‘erupted’ out of the blocks on the track. I didn’t mind it. It was pretty apt if you think about it.
‘Ella, I’m being paid a lot of money to train you.’
‘Then what do you care?’ I stopped walking. ‘Why can’t we just say we ran, just for once? Why do we always have to bloody run everywhere?’
He laughed and started back down the hill to where I was standing. ‘Uh, well, there’s this little thing called the Commonwealth Games? And the fact that you’re the best runner in the county, probably the best runner in the South-West when you set your mind to it? That enough for you to be going on with? Come on, I’ll race you to the top.’
‘No, I can’t.’
‘I’ll give you a head start.’
That was when I blew. ‘WHY DOESN’T ANYONE EVER LISTEN TO ME?’
I didn’t look at him. I marched back down the hill like a belligerent Grand Old Duke of York; my one man staying exactly where he was. For a while. Until I heard his footsteps coming up behind me.
‘Is it your dad? He’s still in remission, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah, my dad’s OK. Well, at the moment he is.’
‘Has your mum called again? Your brothers? You’re always fractious whenever they’ve been in touch.’
‘No.’ I sat down on the grass, narrowly avoiding a pat of dried sheep crap. I felt like crying so badly it was hurting my neck. I chugged back some more water to drown it.
He sat down next to me. ‘Is it leaving school? I know it’s a big step, sixth form, but you’ll be all right. You should be excited about it. I think you’ll do well.’
‘It’s not any of that.’
‘Tell me,’ he said, like he was settling in for a good movie. ‘Come on, we need to clear out your brain, otherwise you’re not going to get the most out of this. You may as well go home and eat twelve Krispy Kremes and a Nando’s for all the good it’s going to do.’
‘You can’t eat Nando’s at home,’ I said.
‘You can,’ he argued. ‘They’ve got it in Waitrose. I’ve tried their pervy sauce. Believe me, it is all the noms.’
A smile tore at my lips. ‘It’s peri-peri sauce. And don’t speak young. It sounds weird.’
He laughed. ‘Come on then, what’s the matter? Is it Max?’
Trying to form the sentence in my head was getting me nowhere. We sat in perfect silence, but for the buzzing in the grass around us. His eyes fixed on me.
‘Yeah,’ I said eventually. ‘He’s been my best friend since primary school. When we started going out together it was lovely, for a while. But he wants more now. And I don’t.’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘It’s so difficult cos he’s my best friend. If I was going to kiss any boy, be with any boy, it would be him, no question. We make perfect sense. I miss him when he’s not around. Sometimes I miss him when he goes to the toilet. I know, I know. It’s so soppy.’
‘No, it isn’t. There’s nothing soppy about it. You love him.’
I nodded. ‘But I feel like I’m losing him.’
