Page 31 of Breaking the Dark

“Four years ago.”

“Yeah! Me too!”

“That was after my A levels.”

“Oh,” she says. “Right. I left after my GCSEs. So you’re two years older than me?”

“I’m twenty-two.”

“I’m twenty. Well, almost twenty. Next week. What have you been up to since you left school? Did you go to uni?”

“No. My parents needed me to work.”

“Seriously? God, that’s surprising. You were so clever at school. I remember. You were like an actual genius.”

He flushes at her words, stands a bit straighter. “This is just temporary,” he says, gesturing at the shop. “I still want to go. One day.”

“What would you want to study?”

“Quantum physics.”

“Quantum physics? What’s that?”

He shrugs. “It’s the science of matter. Of energy. Of what makes everything exist.”

“Wow,” she says, exploding her fingers outwards at her head, to suggest her mind being blown. “You really are a genius!”

“Well, not really, I just like…you know, understanding how the world works. And seeing how much further it could be taken.” He smiles and tucks the tissue paper back around the sandals before replacing the lid. “The world is full of untapped potential.”

“A bit like you,” she says, deliberately allowing her fingertips to brush against his skin as she passes him a ten and a twenty for the shoes.

He presses the penny change into her hand and she feels it, the electric tang of his interest, his excitement.

He laughs nervously. “Yes. I suppose so.”

She touches her lips with the tip of her tongue and cocks her head. “You know, my head, it’s so full of ideas. Full of plans. My brain, it never stops, it’s like a whirring machine, all day long. But I can never quite find the key to it all. What it is I’m searching for. I feel like I need to talk to someone who can help me make sense of everything. Someone with a big brain and big ideas. Someone like you…”

She watches his face react to this announcement, the pale flush grow deeper.

“Maybe I could take you for a cocktail tonight and pick your brain a bit.”

“I mean, er…”

“What time do you get off work?”

“Five. But then I have to go home and help my mum with dinner.”

She throws him a look of disappointment.

“It’s just…it’s what we do.”

“Every night?” She folds her arms across her chest. “Really?”

“Yeah. Every night.”

She sighs and leans closer towards him across the counter. “Meet me after dinner. I’ll be at the Claremont, in the lounge bar, eight p.m. Cocktails on me.”

“But I—”

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