Page 62 of The Good Boy

“I don’t think they work, they smell awful,” Rory says. “But what if that’s what Miles wants too? And Genie, I’m pretty sure it is. I’m pretty sure you are what he wants.”

“Do you really think so?” I ask. “Like, can you confirm it with your spidey senses? Because it seems an awful lot like he’s into Claudia.”

“I don’t have spidey senses,” Rory says. “But I have eyes, and he looks at you like I look at cheddar.”

“You look at cheddar like it is the most wondrous thing on Earth,” I say.

“Exactly.”

“But what about Claudia-from-work?”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” Rory says. “Claudia is just a girl from work who asked him out. I bet he doesn’t look at her like cheddar. Maybe like those plastic cheese-slice things that will do if there is no cheddar around.”

“The last time I was really in a relationship with someone,” I say tentatively, “it broke my heart. I lost... myself, I suppose. So I’m scared. I’m scared of wanting someone as much as I guess I want Miles. And I’m scared of hurting Miles and letting him down. Most of all I’m scared of losing one of my best friends if things go wrong.”

“But imagine,” Rory says. “Imagine if things went right?”

I try for a moment to picture that, and immediately shake the thought away. My theory is that as soon as you show the worldyour vision of happiness it does its best to provide the exact opposite.

Then this image seems to swim into view, at exactly the same time as I am looking at the real world. A blue day, blue sky, blue sea, wet sand turned blue with reflections, and perfect happiness. Suddenly I can feel the sun on my bare shoulders and the soft sand beneath my feet. I can smell the scent of the sea and feel a kind of contentment I have never known. And it’s completely real, just as real as Rory and me sitting here in my house. Two realities happening all at once. Desperately, I try to hang on to the seaside feeling for as long as possible, but it fades and almost all trace of it has gone, like a dream just before waking. Except there’s a piece of wet seaweed under my foot.

“That’s weird,” I say.

“What?” Rory cocks his head.

“It was like a daydream, I guess, except normally when I daydream it’s me and circa-nineties Keanu Reeves dancing the tango.”

“That is too much information,” Rory says.

“This one just appeared. Like I could see you, and the room, and also this other time that’s not quite yet but already is...”

“You know who you sound like,” Rory says.

“Nanna! Oh my god, I sound like Nanna, Rory, it’s happening!”

“You’re growing into the family magic!” Rory says happily. “I thought this for a while. What with the chatting to Dotty’s ghost husband, and the snowflakes in your hair—but this is conclusive!”

“I’m going insane!” I reply. “There will be pills for this. I’m sure there will be pills.”

“What did the last person do to you?” Rory asks after a moment of silence. “Did they kick you, like the before-man kickedme? And starve you and make you fight bigger dogs?” He looks around, as if he thinks that bad man might be somewhere here, ready to hurt him all over again. “Whatever it was, Genie, it must have been bad. It must have scared you a lot because there aren’t many people in real life who get to be a bit magic. That’s special. And you want to take a pill to shut it off.”

“Because I suppose I find it all a bit hard to believe,” I tell him. “I mean, that stuff, it doesn’t actually happen.”

“Yes, it does!” Rory gestures at himself. “The proof is incontrovertible.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” I say. “But it’s scary.”

“Tell me about him,” Rory says.

“His name was Aiden. I met him in my first term at college. It was a warm September. So the gang were on the beach and this guy comes over and just starts talking to me. He was a bit older, and so good-looking, with amazing hair. I was smitten. It felt like the start of everything. And he made me feel so...” I shiver at the memory. “He made me feel like the most important person in the world. Kelly, Dave, and Miles weren’t that into him. They said he was a prick. But I thought he was perfect. I couldn’t see anything but how brilliant we were together. The truth is, he wasn’t a monster or a genius. He was just an ordinary guy, a couple of years older than me, pretending that he had it all nailed down, when he actually didn’t have a clue, just like the rest of us.”

That night at the Christmas dance flashes into my mind, and all the things that didn’t happen.

“Maybe if I’d listened to my heart then things would have been very different,” I tell Rory. “But I thought I knew what I wanted. I was absolutely certain that Aiden was it.”

“So then what happened?” Rory asks.

It takes me more courage than I knew I had to talk about this part.

---