Always Burning

It's the summer before University, Ellie and Pete are about to go their separate ways so now would be a good time to admit they see one another as more than just a friend...

His lips are slightly angular, wide but not too wide, and a beautiful fresh pink colour.  I am fascinated by their shape.  They curve before the texture changes from cheek to lip, and I am so obsessed with them I want to take a photograph solely of his lips to stare at forever.  I’d carry it around with me, take it out whenever I meet a man and put it next to his face, comparing, for no man will be with me for long if he doesn’t have lips like that.

I told him once, in a fit of giggles I became serious, saying, “This is gonna sound really weird, so I’m warning you before I say it " you have the most perfect lips I have ever seen.”  And nose, and eyes, and chin " but I didn’t say about the others.  He raised an eyebrow, flared his nostrils and pouted the things at me; we giggled, falling closer into the sofa.

 

I wish I’d known then, known he felt strongly for me, but that didn’t come until later, much later, too late.

 

Slow burning.

 

I didn’t know he’d remember that.  I never asked him and we never spoke of it.  I wanted to remind him of it, assure him I had been serious, as I knew he’d thought it was a joke.  We had millions of jokes.  We could always laugh about something from our past, some childhood prank or some mess we’d gotten ourselves into.  He’d emit this wonderful boyish chuckle when something tickled him and that would always make me laugh harder.  His eyes shone emerald when he was laughing, twice I recall them shining when he wasn’t laughing, the first time I didn’t know what it meant.

 

Out in the meadow lying on jumpers facing the river, me reading Plath, him sketching the ducks.  I was so engrossed I didn’t hear him start talking, until he nudged me with his shoulder.  We were always like that at one time.  Together.  So close we were touching, but not being aware of it.  There was no electricity then.

 

  “I don’t know how Jim could stay here,” He said, dragging me away from my book as he always did " he’d thrown Dickens out of a bus window once, when I read on as he tried to talk.

 

I studied his profile as I waited for him to continue.  There was a time I thought his nose was too big, but one break time in the toilets I’d overheard Sarah Jacobs, who was two years our senior, discussing his nose, and how it was so straight and neat it made her think of him as an eagle.  A sexy golden eagle.  I’d looked at it closely on our way home that evening and decided that indeed it was a nice nose, and he was a golden eagle, but I wasn’t so certain about the sexy part, he was like a brother in my eyes, at that time.

  “All the places he could go, with his results, and he stays here.”

It was custom in our village to class here as nowhere.

  “He has a decent job in town,” I mused, in my mind’s eye seeing Jim driving in his new car as we starved at University.

  “Decent for here.  But out there, it’s nothing.  Small-time.”

The only thing Pete was afraid of was becoming that, a small-timer.  Just like his father.  Death by boredom at 50.  He wanted people to know his name.  Not because he was bigheaded or vain, but because he had talent.  While he lived and loved life, I watched other people, or read about them.

Slow burning.

  “Dismissing something so easily is immature.”  He said offhandedly.  He ripped a stem of grass up and threaded it around his fingers.

  “How do you mean?”

“Remember, years ago, during art lessons when we’d always criticise work.  Even Van Gogh’s, Monet’s, Gainsborough’s, we’d criticise and say ‘Oh I could do better than that.’ Then as we got older, more mature we’d listen to the teacher, read about the work and understand what the artist was saying: trying to achieve.  What Jim’s doing is exactly what we used to do.  He’s shutting his ears to things, he has his mind set and won’t even think about other options.”

 

I laughed lightly; he turned to shoot me an odd glance.  “Didn’t you ever have your mind set on something?  Didn’t you ever know instinctively that something is right for you?”

He looked away, into the next field, returning with shining green eyes over his sexy eagle’s nose.

 

Slow burning.

 

Our last summer before University.  He worked with his Uncle as a builder while I had a job at a Nursing Home.  We saw each other every evening while our friends were on holiday, or down the pub.  We said we were too tired to join them, but I wonder now if there was some part of me that knew when we went to Uni we’d lose touch, seeing each other only in the holidays, some part of me that was scared we’d forget how to talk to each other, how to giggle together.  I never wanted that.

 

Slow burning.

 

Every evening in the meadow, or in my house, or his, or sometimes in the pub.  I knew something was happening to us.  From nowhere we suddenly became awkward with our physical closeness.  If we were watching the TV in his room we wouldn’t lie on the bed as we always had done, I perched on the bed and he pulled the chair from his desk over to the TV.  So we wouldn’t touch, and then become quiet, as was the new-found pattern.

 

I didn’t know.  Not for weeks.  Didn’t know that it was electricity I was feeling, that corny chemistry always featured in slushy stories.  I thought maybe we were growing up, growing apart, trying to detach ourselves from our friendship without feeling pain.

 

His eyes are closed now, but I can see them open.  I can see them watching me across a room of people.  Dancing people.  I stare back at him - we’ve spent the whole party standing across the room from each other, always making sure we can see the other.  Something’s going on and I have no idea what to do about it.  Just stare at his shadowed green eyes.  I drink but he’s driving so I know I can’t rely on him to have dutch courage, it has to be mine, I drink like a fish, praying with each swallow that I’ll know what to say to him to break this tension.

 

I dance and I drink and I feel someone behind me, a hand on my waist and one taking the bottle from me,

  “You’ve had enough.”

I turn around, slowly and see his face before me.  My fingers climb to his golden hair and I stare at his lips.

  “Pete - ”

He stands like a statue, winces as my hands stroke his face.  I must be hurting him so I take my hands away but he halts them with is own, pressing my fingers to his face and lips.

  “What’s going on with us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither.”

 

We leave the party, clinging to each other.  We sit in the car and talk.  He talks and I crawl all over him, kissing him, all the years I haven’t spent kissing him, I want to make up for in one night.

 

He drove while we talked.  I don’t remember the words; I only remember his lips moving.  His lips moving and his eyes shining.  Then all I can see are bright lights blinding us from the right, all I can feel is the car violently moving and crumpling and burning.  Flames over my feet, my legs, and the door blocked.  I can’t get out, I can’t get out. Pete! Burning, hurting me, burning me.

 

Burning in his car beside him, the door was jammed and he was unconscious.  My flaming legs burn and I can’t get out, and I can’t see him, or hear him, or feel him.  I’m there and I’m here, beside his coffin.

 

Standing, seeing and feeling burning.

 

It was a middle-aged man falling asleep at the wheel and hurtling from a junction without stopping that smashed into us, into his side.  I try hard not to blame him.

 

His lips are still angular, still perfect, except for the colour.  I touch them softly with my fingertips and feel the chill run up along my hand, paralysing me from the elbow.  A chill along my arm and a burning, burning behind my eyes, and in my heart.  Burning tears for him, for me, for the us that never was, and for the fear he had that came true.  He never left this town.  But he isn’t small-time, he is famous, because now you know his name: Pete Colby, and you didn’t know him.

Author's Note

I wrote this when I was 17, specifically for a local library short story competition. I have made a few attempts over the years to turn this into a novel, centred on Ellie many years later.

Reviews

[Ashwin Shanker]

I believe, every writer has to start somewhere. Not any instances of sex, yet a brilliantly written piece. It is true that every bud needs some time before it flowers, before it spreads its fragrance to the world.
Your 17-year-old self was just a bud, which has now bloomed to the erotica goddess that you are today.
Absolutely brilliant writing. Please do write more, the unique perspective that you bring is so authentic, that it would be able to help us understand. A great articulation of such is needed. Looking forward to more of your writing Emlo.

[Jibey]

It was a great effort by a budding writer... the melodramatic ending was what a 17 year old would come up with - but none the less striking in its effectiveness. I liked the way you focus on detail - his lips in particular, then his nose... and the sense of simmering desire lurking and gnawing in an innocent relationship... the heady days of discovering Dickens and Plath, of talking of Van Gogh and Monet... Your later writing has more depth and poise... but this charming piece shows the early promise of your gift... the slow burning which would later ignite.