Chapter 2

Next Friday! Zoe planned for me to come next Friday. That was a long time to wait. The wait was killing me, but it was also a chance to sort things out mentally and to plan and prepare.

I started by doing some basic research online. Eh, that’s a coded way of saying I searched porn sites for girls that looked like the new-look Zoe. From my investigation, I think Zoe’s new look was what they call ‘emo’, but even after googling that I can’t quite work out what that involves exactly. It certainly only tangentially related to Ed Sheeran, whom she had a poster of on her bedroom wall. The old Zoe had only ever quoted Beetles and ABBA lyrics and stuff older than us, so I really didn’t know much about that side of her. Eventually I found a girl who looked approximately like Zoe, but in the end felt dirty touching myself when I was going to go visit the real Zoe. I didn’t think Zoe would like the idea of me masturbating over a look-alike, or surely not like the idea of me masturbating at all, and I somehow felt guilty cheating on Zoe because in my mind we were already going out with each other. We were serious. At least, in my head, I was serious.

My porn addiction evaporated. It just felt so dirty every time my urge twitched. Like all lonely boys, I had always drifted online every quiet alone chance I got. Now instead I spent every minute of every day analyzing the new Zoe. Mostly, actually, I tried to make sense of how the new confident sexy fun social Zoe fitted with the aloof clever frumpy Zoe I’d known at sixth form. Was she this way with everyone now? Did she dress like this to lectures, to go out? Would she attract attention, suitors, competitors? I was insecure, unsure. I was scared. I’m ashamed to admit it but I felt much safer with the frumpy old Zoe that no other boy would ever even notice. The old Zoe that I had had to myself, to my own dreams. At sixth form I had been safe knowing no-one else would take her from me, even if I had never had the guts to take her myself.

That’s wrong. I’m not a prick. I would never ‘take her myself’. I’d ask her permission. Perhaps the reason that I never asked her out or met her outside school was because I’m such a useless passive unassertive man? It was so much safer to fantasize, to pretend, than to face reality and do something about it. But now the time for doing something about it was approaching fast.

Z sent me a few messages on Zit but they were all practical and unemotional, making sure she’d wait for the right bus and stuff like that. We didn’t really chat, not like we used to.

Friday came. After lectures I rushed to my room, threw some clothes and a tooth-brush into a rucksack and ran for the bus station. I should have packed in advance, prepared, but I’m naturally disorganized and so I hadn’t. Zoe would have packed in advance - she was a planner, as attested by the tidy pinboard I’d seen when we video called and and the bus timetable planning she’d bombarded me with.

It was raining, a light drizzle. Its usually raining a light drizzle in England in the autumn. And the rest of the year too, for that matter. The rain ran in diagonal streaky torrents over the dirty bus windows, fuzzing the view out over the other motorway traffic as we sped towards Zoe. I was glad I wasn’t driving. I’ve passed my test, but haven’t got a car yet. Nobody has cars at uni: there just isn’t anywhere safe to park them. They’d be vandalized and broken into in no time if you tried to keep a car at uni. At least, that was the fear.

It took two hours total to get to Zoe’s town, with one change in between in our home-town. I had picked my uni precisely because it was on the other side of home from Zoe’s. What a dumb prick I’d been. Now I was sitting on the bus feeling really dumb.

There are two kinds of university in England, and you can tell the type from the name. If its called ‘Townname University’ then its probably an old established uni, like Oxford or Cambridge. If its called ‘University of Townname’ then its almost certainly a new pseudo-uni like the one I go to. These unis used to be called ‘polytechnics’ and rushed to change their names to ‘University of Townname’ when the rules changed in the 1990s or so. Zoe went to a proper Townname University uni.

The difference was startling. Whereas I studied in a grim tower-block with whitewashed cinterblock interiors the students nicknamed ‘Stalingrad’ on the outskirts of a grim industrial town, Zoe studied in a vibrant historic old uni in a historic old town. The uni had buildings scattered all around the town centre and they were old, grand, beautiful and established. When I got off the coach when it stopped in the town square there were bicycles and students everywhere. Zoe’s new look fitted right in.

Except Zoe didn’t fit right in. Zoe was waiting for me with her natural dirty-blonde hair, wearing a sensible shapeless long coat that almost touched the ground, sensible boots jutting at the bottom, under a small plain black umbrella. The long coat could have been hippy-like or grunge-like or anything else some-style-like. Except it wasn’t. The coat, the whole look, screamed ‘frump’. She didn’t look like a student, she looked like one of the other boring middle-aged people who had jobs cleaning uni buildings for minimum wage and who actually inhabited the town whilst the students flowed around them, ignoring them. It was the old Zoe. I was almost relieved, safe.

She smiled and nodded as I got of the bus. One hand was thrust firmly into a pocket and the other held up the umbrella. The relief at seeing the old Zoe kind of ebbed away as I got closer and closer. Instead, I got nervous. Was I supposed to embrace her? Kiss her? Or just hold her? What would I say?

Zoe solved my dilemma as I got really close. She didn’t say anything but turned and started to walk of as I fell into step beside her. She was glancing sideways at me, smiling, close, but not touching.

“You must be tired and hungry. What kind of food do you like? That Indian over there looks nice. Do you like Indian?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. Zoe was already walking us determinedly towards the restaurant and I was following, trying to lean closer to share a bit of protection from her umbrella.

The Indian restaurant was nice. It was Friday evening, and although we were quite early it wasn’t completely empty. The waiter looked at us a bit reluctantly- this wasn’t really a scruffy pauper kinda place. “A table for two?” he asked formally, his sneer betraying his professionalism. We shed our coats and the brolly but I clung to my rucksack nervously. No way was I leaving my bag by the door. The waiter took two menus and led us to a small table off to the side out the way anyway. On the table there was a small tea candle and a red rose. The waiter fumbled in his pocket. Zoe shrank back as he leaned across and lit the candle. He disappeared, leaving us with the menus to silently contemplate this new weird uncomfortable intimacy.

I looked around. There was a small red rose on a jar on every table. Looking closely, I saw it was plastic. But it was quite a realistic red rose. You could tell which tables were occupied by the lit candles twinkling wanly. But it was quite dark and the candles made it so you couldn’t really see much of the other diners. It was dead romantic. I wondered if Zoe had planned this.

Zoe looked different in the candlelight. All girls look beautiful in candlelight, but Zoe really glowed. Her hair, her natural dirty blond, came down to her shoulders and started to curve outwards at the bottom like a bell shape, dry and tidy and shiny. Her eyes sparkled and her face wore a small grin. I took a moment to check out what else she was wearing. She was wearing a woolie burgundy roll-neck jumper but it was noticeably tighter than she used to wear. It was tight enough to show that she had breasts. Small breasts but she was a small girl and she looked cute. She looked feminine. I looked up. She had been looking at me staring at her all the time. I blushed. We hadn’t said anything to each other for ages.

She picked up the menu and started leafing through it. I did the same as a bluff, not focusing on the pages as I wondered what Zoe was thinking of me. I was wearing scruffy student t-shirt and jeans. I wasn’t dressed up. I hadn’t made any effort. I felt really small.

The prices weren’t actually that scarey, not for a special occasion, although I wasn’t sure if rice and things were included. I hadn’t been to many restaurants before, and never had to settle the bill. I just ignored the prices, knowing I was prepared to bump against my overdraft if necessary if that was the price of getting Zoe into a romantic atmosphere.

Zoe asked me what I planned on ordering and I blurted out the safe usual chicken curry, too nervous to be adventurous and order anything I hadn’t tried before. Zoe started making suggestions and I accepted her guidance and asked her to order for me. She started a little gentle interrogation such as asking if I was used to spicy food and if I’d ever tasted ‘vindaloo’ or ‘phall-extra-hot’. I confessed that I hadn’t had much experience and she rattled off some more suggestions based on this new information. I looked over the top of my menu, looking at her face as she read her menu, admiring how sensible and serious she looked as she turned the pages back and forth, her eyes scanning up and down and her brow knit in concentration.

The waiter came back and took our order. Zoe confidently ordered for us both. It was a long complicated order and I began to wonder what exactly I had got into. And I noticed she flinched again when the waiter lent across to take her menu. It was dawning on me that Zoe didn’t like people too physically close. I’d spent two years with Zoe in sixth form and never ever seen any situation where anyone had ever lent in over her. She had always sat a bit apart from everyone. It kind of made sense. I was beginning to see and think of Zoe as much more of a delicate vulnerable person than I ever had before. I used to think of her as cold and hard and strong and distant. But now I realised how little I had paid attention to her, apart from trying to steal glimpses of boobs when she stretched.

“You look well” I said to break the silence. What I wanted to say was that Zoe looked beautiful, but I didn’t dare say that. I wouldn’t have been able to say that. I’d have just croaked something incomprehensible, the words getting stuck in my throat and not coming up properly.

She smiled and thanked me but she didn’t pay the compliment back. I guess the scruffy student look that I had deliberately chosen to be compatible with ‘emo’ had missed the mark by a mile. Oh well. But the ice was broken a little and, feeling braver, I asked her why her hair wasn’t pink. She giggled and I relaxed, the happiness and relief flooding over us. We were friendly again.

We talked about inconsequential things, such as had she ever been to this restaurant before. She hadn’t, and she pointed out it wasn’t fun to eat at restaurants alone. But she didn’t seem down as she said that, she just stated it as bland flat fact and moved the conversation on.

I noticed her right hand was on the on the table top, toying with the cutlery laid before her. I reached out tentatively to touch it. As I made contact she flinched, noticing my hand for the first time, and pulled her hand and her whole body back. My heart cried out in pain. I apologised, feeling stricken. I was going to get up, get my things and go but Zoe quickly lent back towards the table again, closer together again, and said it was her fault and that she was sorry. It didn’t make me feel much better and she didn’t put her hands back on the table, but our conversation resumed and swung back to inconsequential things again.