VERY MILD SPOILER ALERT FOR A FOX OF STORMS AND STARLIGHT. It’s a minor explanatory thing that comes out in chapter 9 of Fox Book, which provides motivation for a major plot point that happens in chapter 12 (there are 49 chapters).
CONTENT NOTIFICATION: Kevin’s point-of-view scenes have a lot of swearing. Sorry-not-sorry. But maybe don’t read if the f-word offends you.
Also, this is an unedited draft. Feel free to let me know in the comments if you spot typos etc, but yo: unedited draft, so read accordingly.
Catch up on Chapter 1, chapter 2.
3: Kevin
I’m standing by the cricket nets—nah, let’s be honest, I’m loitering by the cricket nets, I know that cause Mr Reiger’s told me like a billion fucken times—and it’s a good thing I’ve loitered here so many times before, because I’m getting nervous.
Haven’t been nervous in years.
Haven’t cared enough.
It’s been half my life since I cared about anyone else’s judgemental fucken opinions, but here I am, underneath a blue sky that goes on forever in every direction, the smell of the gum trees wrapped around me like safety, like home, slouching next to nets that’ve seen plenty of better days, and my stomach’s flipping around like an eel.
Like it’s [something important].
Like I’m waiting for the girl I like to show.
It feels weird, admitting it even to myself. But I ain’t gone and made however many roses it is now, watching to see as each one lights up her face like the sun, just because I felt like making a dick of myself.
I scuff at the ground, kick up some of the grass and stare at the black dirt underneath. Shove my hands deep in my pockets.
Wish I had a ciggie, but I promised my mum I’d stop after Nan died last year.
I’m going to be better than that. I’m the crab that’ll crawl outta the pot.
The bell went ten minutes ago. The fuck is she?
I clench my hands into fists, because I can’t afford to even think that she might not show.
It’s not that I’m scared of rejection. Had plenty of that in my life, lived to tell the tale. Whatever, man, people suck and I don’t care what they think anyway.
But Sunny…
I’m not afraid of her rejecting me. I’m afraid of how badly I want her not to.
So when I see her turn round the corner of the red-brick maths building, school bag on both shoulders, a couple of books clutched to her chest, glancing back over her shoulder like someone might be following, my stomach turns itself inside out.
I think I’m gonna puke.
Fuck, man.
This is why you don’t get attached to people.
She’s still glancing around furtively, but everyone who’s visible is leaving the grounds themselves, and no one cares what she’s doing, where she’s going.
I care what she’s doing.
I care where she’s going.
And fuck me if she doesn’t spring across the grass like Persephone, dark and glorious and hot as fucken Hell itself.
She’s close when she finally looks up and meets my eyes, and once again I’m thrown back a little. She’s so quiet all the time, never speaks in class, talks quietly with her friends, and you think she’s shy and uncertain…
But then her gaze hits mine like an arrow, like that, and I can’t believe anyone could see her for less than what she is.
If she’s Persephone, I guess that makes me Hades.
I’m okay with that, I think.
“You came.” Shit, that’s about five billion percent lamer and more honest than I was planning on being, and my hands are sweating, so even though I just want to grab her, hold her, even if we were alone and no one was here to see, I couldn’t, because my hands are gross. Maybe it’s not just my hands that are gross. Maybe it’s me all over, and—
She smiles. Her eyes turn into half moons. Her face is brighter than her name. “Of course I came.”
She says it like it’s factual, like the possibility of her not coming is about as farfetched as the moon falling from orbit. How the fuck is she so certain about everything?
I want to run my hands over my head, and it’s years since I’ve felt so, so… discombobulated. By anything.
But part of being a giant show-off—which I’ll be the first to admit I am, I’ve just turned it off the last few years because who’s here that I’d care to show off to?—is knowing how to perform.
I know my lines here.
Uncertainty isn’t any part of them.
“You like the flower?”
I mean, duh, no shit Sherlock, but like any good teacher, I know better than to ask a question I don’t know the answer to.
’S why I didn’t ask her to meet me here, see? Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to.
Sunny blushes prettily, until her cheeks look like rose petals themselves, and I find myself squinting at her, wondering what colours you’d have to use to capture that tint exactly.
And fuck, man.
I haven’t painted since primary school. I shake my head, just a little toss of bemusement, because it’s right there, right at that moment, that I realise just how much of a fucken gonner I am.
Keep reading: Chapter 4
(P.S. Merry Christmas, for those celebrating today! <3)