Page 19 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘We all donated towards it. Most of us work Saturdays at bike shops and get paid in bolts and brakes, and, well … it’s a bit of a Frankenstein bike, but now he rides with us.’

He’s got layers, boy. I like him so much.

‘In art I actually made my friend Aoife a shell out of clay for her jewellery but when it came out of the kiln it just looked like a Cornish pasty.’

Lowe tries not to but once he sees I’m laughing he can’t not.

‘So what do you like?’ he asks.

YOU YOU YOU!

‘I write?’ I offer apologetically.

‘You’re a writer – that’s cool.’

‘Well, I’m not a real writer,’ I say. ‘You kind of have to be a dead man to be a writer and I’m kind of … an alive girl.’

‘Writing’s cool,’ he nods. ‘You can be like Bob Dylan.’

‘Yeah see, a dead man?’

‘Bob Dylan’s not dead!’

‘Oh. Sorry.’

‘I’d like to learn the guitar, really,’ he confesses. ‘Be like Bob Dylan. That’s what I’d actually like to do.’

‘What? Like on stage? We listen to more punk in our house. I don’t know much Bob Dylan.’

‘Whaaaattttt?’

And then, shy quiet Lowe begins to sing, like he has nothing to prove, his voice so natural and yet perfect in its own way. He can’t help but smile as faint words fall out of his grin, delicate notes, so gentle and sweet. He smiles as though he’s aware that singing at me like this could be an awkward cringing serenade, but surprisingly, it’s unvain, appropriate, instinctive, like a lullaby to soothe a baby. If that is how Bob Dylan sounds then I’m angry at my parents for never showing me him.

‘When you get famous, don’t forget me, yeah?’ I joke out of awkwardness.

‘I think you’re pretty difficult to forget.’

He reaches inside his pocket for his inhaler, the blue one, and shakes the Ventolin.

‘Ooooo my dad has asthma,’ I announce like it’s our common ground. Really cool, Ella.

‘Ah, well, see, I’ve actually got a very special type of asthma.’ He puffs on the inhaler twice, holds it up like an asset. ‘So, if we’re gonna start hanging out, you’ll be seeing a lot more of this cool little guy,’ he jokes sarcastically.

But – I’m sorry – hanging out – what does THAT mean?

‘Fine by me,’ I say in probably the most ‘chill’ tone I’ve ever used.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM! says my heart, in a very unchill tone.

‘Hey, I could make you a mix tape, if you want?’

Are you serious? The act of him physically making something for me is too much.

I find a Biro (I’ve never found anything quicker in my life) in the kitchen drawer stuffed with all the takeaway menus in Dean’s house, and write my address on the back of his arm in blue. PRAYING Lowe never takes it upon himself to hand-deliver a letter. He wouldn’t, would he? I don’t even want to imagine him dealing with our rickety gate, walking into our overgrown front garden, stepping over the old bath filled to the brim with a swamp of spawn and algae with his fresh trainers, to reach our front door. Can’t think of him rapping on the bull’s-jaw door knocker, oxidized turquoise; weirded out by the rusted chainsaw that’s been strangled by the poison ivy – like the plants have won – and the Eighties hoover with a puddle of fox wee in the motor; freaked out by the spiders’ webs as big as bedsheets, sweeping from door to window, hosting a buffet of dead flies. The huddle of opinionated, chuckling stone gargoyles that stand about like smoking bouncers.

‘I will send you a tape,’ he warns, watching the letters appear on his skin. ‘I’m not joking – I will.’

And I melt like a gooey chocolate fondue. ‘Good,’ I say. Good.

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