Free All This Could End by Steph Bowe Page B

left foot,’ says Spencer.
    Nina doesn’t laugh; she just looks surprised, almost curious. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ she says.
    Now, after he’s said it, after he can’t take it back, he worries. What if she tells someone? He barely knows her. She might be a massive gossip. But really, what damage could it do to his non-existent reputation?
    ‘That’s not really about you, is it?’ asks Nina. ‘It’s interesting, but it’s not like losing a toe in an accident. You need a story to go along with it.’
    ‘I don’t want people to see. It’s weird. It’s an abnormality. People don’t want to see that.’
    ‘In terms of things that people try and cover up, it’s awfully minor.’ Nina shrugs. ‘Everyone hates something about their own body. You’re not alone in that.’
    ‘I have never told anyone,’ he says.
    ‘You’re good at keeping secrets, are you?’
    ‘No one’s ever told me any. But I’m good at keeping my own.’
    ‘I’m not really much of a fan of secrets,’ says Nina, looking skywards. ‘They weigh you down.’
    Spencer can relate to that. He feels different now he’s told her. He feels as if it’s suddenly normal, and everything he built up in his head about being deformed and a freak…it doesn’t seem half as big as before.
    ‘What’s your secret then?’ asks Spencer.
    ‘Didn’t I tell you about the palm-reading earlier?’
    ‘That’s just something nobody knew about, rather than something you kept to yourself on purpose. Not technically a secret.’
    Nina smiles. ‘Some secrets aren’t yours to tell.’
    The bus ride is quiet, a few sleepy people, a sad-looking driver. Nina sits next to Spencer. He tells her about the places they drive past—shops, parks, landmarks from his childhood, his entire life along a ten-minute bus route. It’s so quiet on the bus he almost whispers and Nina leans close to hear. Every now and then her hair brushes against his face and he can’t breathe right. He can barely look at her. The light in the bus is fluorescent blue and it makes everything feel otherworldly and unreal. Is it something to do with discouraging druggies? Or an energy-saving measure? A girl is sitting beside him—who isn’t Bridie, who isn’t about to fall over herself for a different bassist next week.
    When the bus reaches her stop, Nina stands up, swings her bag over her shoulder, and smiles at him.
    ‘Thanks for inviting me out,’ says Nina. ‘It was good.’
    He doesn’t say it was Bridie who invited her out. He would like to ask for her phone number, or say something like ‘See you at school on Monday!’ He wants to tell her that he likes her, but he still feels as if he knows nothing about her, even though they’ve spoken to each other all evening.
    He wants to tell her that while he was with her he stopped feeling that his skin was too tight and that he was too awkward to function in normal society. But that would just be weird.
    He imagines asking her out, for a movie or coffee or dinner or whatever it is you do on dates, but he can’t picture himself ever actually doing it—Nina is still just as foreign and untouchable as all the Jessicas at school.

Spencer
    Nina grabs his hand and he doesn’t think, and then he’s off the bus and the night isn’t too cold for autumn. Just crisp. And he’s still with Nina.
    She lets go of his hand and asks, ‘Where’s your house again?’
    ‘Two stops down on the same bus,’ he says. ‘They come every half hour till midnight. And it’s nine-thirty now.’ Now he’s thinking too much and saying too much and she’s probably getting bored with him.
    Nina nods. ‘All right.’ She tips her head towards the apartment building on the other side of the road. ‘I live over there. It’s still early, so I was thinking we might walk up to the shopping centre.’
    There’s hardly anyone out. They walk up along the river, under the streetlights, the sand soft beneath their shoes. Cars drive past every now and