The Price of a Kiss

by Cat Woodbrook

The dirt kicks up as we run. Reddish-brown puffs under the rubber of our Converses as if we are on clay clouds.

I should feel guilty about lying to him but I can’t bring myself to, my mind too occupied with her. The way her chestnut hair whips as she goes, a kite tethered but finding freedom on the wind. I keep up; it feels like I’m always trying to keep up with her. She is wild and I want to be wild in the same way; though, if I am honest, she has tamed me. Her laughter carries behind her as her feet pound on the path; it trickles over my skin, warming me nearly as much as the sun beaming down on my back. Encouraging me to run faster, to keep up, to catch her.

It’s a long way down and the track spirals, the descent too steep to go directly, but it hardly matters; there is no rush. The running is for the fun of it, for the chase. Gaz said it is was beautiful down here, and no one has used it in ages. No tyre marks on the earth we tread suggest that is the case and it has been years since a boom shook the desk in my room. The curve of the path shows another perspective: the lake accidentally made from the blasting, cool crystalline water that looks so very tempting in the day’s heat. Just as promised.

I wonder briefly if it counts as a reservoir if it wasn’t deliberately made. Maybe if Ellie and I were in Geography Club, as we should be, then perhaps I would know the answer. I would rather be here. The thought hits me doubly as she reaches to pull her shirt over her head, destination clear.

This has been weeks in the making. We aren’t really supposed to be here, no one is, but the quarry hasn’t been active for years and when it looks like this, it’s silly not to use it. Getting information about how to get here was a struggle though. Gaz wouldn’t tell me; got into too much trouble with his Maw; became really tight-lipped after the initial boasting, which is so typically Gaz. Turned out that he’d brought Fenula down here; not that I found that out though; Ellie did. Said it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her; wouldn’t stop talking about it lunchtime last Tuesday; at least, that’s what Ellie told me. Then we had to find a time that we could both sneak away. Class would be obvious, but then, when Steve asked me last Thursday, when he dropped me at school in his stupid BMW, if I was going to Geography Club that night, it was obvious. Today, when he did the same thing, I simply said, yes, that I’d get the bus home, and I will. At least the last part.

It isn’t like he is my father. In many ways, he is better. He is here for starters. That doesn’t mean that, for the lack of one thing, I have to accept the other though, does it? It isn’t that I don’t like him; Steve is alright. Bit up himself, and my god, does he go on about that sodding car. It isn’t even that cool, but Mum coos over it like it is her first born. It isn’t; I am. He didn’t give her that. Would be nice to be remembered.

Suppose it’s easy to be impressed with someone who holds down a job, seems vaguely interested, and has a decent car, when the alternative isn’t even there.

It’s nice down here; don’t know what all the fuss is about. Looks safe enough. Isn’t like there are sticks of dynamite lying around. Steve wouldn’t have agreed. Mum would; she wouldn’t even have noticed I wasn’t home; but Steve, well, he’s always going on about some horrible accident or another; makes him paranoid.

Ellie’s top layer of clothes lie on a pile of rocks taller than me at the edge of the water, which is partially overhung from the mouth of an old blast site. Trees are starting to line the perimeter, nature claiming back its own. The water is so clear, unhindered by the use of others. Unsullied by the mess that comes with humans. Its blue ripples and glimmers, matching the shifting sparkle of Ellie’s eyes as she turns back and flashes me a smile as she dips a foot tentatively in the water.

I wonder if it will happen today. It is perfect for it. She looks so happy and I so want to be a part of that happiness. The cause of it.

Fenula said it was romantic here; I hope so. I hope Ellie thinks it is as well.

I just don’t know how to go about it. We have been friends since reception, but at some point, she stopped being Ellie and became... Ellie. This Ellie.

“You coming?” she asks, her voice bright as the sun that lights her and shimmers off the surface her legs disturb.

“Yes,” I say hopelessly tugging my shirt off my shoulders and throwing it in the direction of the clothes she has discarded.

I’m self-conscious in a way she is not. She has seen me in my boxers many times, probably in less as children, but it means something now in a way it didn’t then. I try to push aside my concerns, concentrate on the fact that she feels comfortable enough around me that wading into the water in just her underwear seems not to affect her. I hope that doesn’t change once she knows how I feel. I value the comfort she feels more than a multitude of other things.

My phone vibrates in my trouser pocket as I unbuckle. I pause, fly open, and try to not let the panic creep onto my face as she watches me retrieve my phone. It’s Steve. A simple, ‘Where are you?’ stares back, black on blinking background.

“Everything ok?” her voice raises up at the end and I lift my gaze to her.

“Yeah.” I shrug, ignore the message, shove my phone back in my pocket, and finish undressing. He won’t find us here.

The water is cool, a welcome relief from the way my skin is burning up from the sun and nerves. I stride in with more confidence than I feel, an act that is easier thanks to the balming effect the liquid has on my skin. I’m level with her in seconds; she looks up at me in that way she does and I have never been more pleased that there is now a difference in our height. I wonder if this is the moment, if I should take the plunge, but before I do, she grins and I’m suddenly doused by a wave of water and her laughter peels through the air. I get her back, my hands pushing though water and soaking her and the cavern is filled with splashing and giggling until our hair is dark and dripping.

We still again, drawn to each other as the pool calms around us. There is a water droplet resting on the eyebrow of her right eye and I long to reach up and brush it away. So I do, smoothing down the coarse, short texture under the pad of my finger and listening in amazement as her breath hitches.

It feels like the right moment. “Can I?”

She seems to know what I’m asking, her head nodding in the cradle I have made for her jaw in the cup of my hand. The touch is brief, overwhelming for me, and I both hope it is the same and not for her. It is enough and too much at the same time and my head reels with the recollection of how soft her lips were.

“Wow,” I breathe, immediately embarrassed by the sound, but her smile grows larger, pulling all her features in to give a look of absolute elation and my heart joins them.

“I’ve been waiting ages.” She giggles.

“What for?” I ask, my brain still not fully functional.

“You to be brave enough to do that,” she clarifies before hopping onto her tiptoes, water sploshing with the abrupt movement to plant a chaste kiss, and then she slips from my reach. I watch her go, transfixed by the way she moves and the shift between us. She lies against one of the smoother rocks where we left our clothes, lets the heat of the last of the day’s sun dry her skin. I follow with somewhat less finesse, find a spot near but not touching; this development is new and I don’t want to push my luck, already thrilled by my success so far. We lie within touching distance and drip dry, sharing stolen glances met with twitching lips.

As nice as it is, the sun can only last so long, and with it, the heat; also, our perches, while smooth, are hard, and those things are what prompt us to move. It is done begrudgingly, even though we both have families to return to. And if Ellie isn’t going to end up in trouble, then we need to go soon.

“Ow!” Ellie jumps next to me, pulling her shirt back off her shoulder to reveal an already swelling, bright red lump.

“Are you ok?!”

“Aw shit!” she exclaims grabbing her trousers from the rocks as several wasps, angry and buzzing fly free.

“There must be a nest,” I say, stepping closer to peer into the rubble. Sure enough, I can see the frantic movement of insects that have been trapped by the fabric, high pitched in their humming irritation.

“Shit, shit, shit!” I turn back to Ellie to see her just as frantic as the wasps, the contents of her bag being strewn.

“Ellie?”

“I’m allergic!”

The terror that grips me is extreme, the fear on her face a reflection of that coiled deep in my belly. “You have a pen right?!”

“Not with me,” is the answer that comes, thick and difficult from her throat.

I search too, rummaging through what she has already discarded. Her breathing becomes slower and slower: now long dragging breaths that sound like she is pulling air from the bottom of the lake beside us. I look up and the face I have observed so carefully all day, known for what feels like my entire life, is almost unrecognisable to me.

I rush to Ellie’s side; I don’t think the way she is lying looks right, like a rag doll discarded. I rearrange her, try to remember what was said in the silly first aid class about good positions for airway clearance. The rasping noise she is making rattles within me.

“It’s ok, Ellie; I’ll get help; I promise; I’ll get help.” I fumble to find my own phone. “Just stay with me; promise me you’ll stay with me.” Four missed calls from Steve and three text messages; I have never been so pleased to see his name. I press dial and he answers immediately, the engine noise tells me he is in the car.

“Where the hell are you?!”

“Tall Trees Quarry, down by the lake.”

“What the hell; I’ve told you how danger-,”

I cut him off, “Ellie can’t breath, wasp sting.”

I don’t hear the change but I know he has slipped from step-father into professional mode, “Epi-pen?”

“No.”

“Antihistamine?”

“I’m not sure I could get her to swallow.”

There is a groan beside me; Ellie nods her head towards the bag. I root again, find a blister pack, loratadine.

“If she is at all responsive, give her one.”

“Ok.” I pop the tablet, push it past her swollen lips. I see the effort it takes for her to swallow it down and feel oddly proud of her for managing it.

“Did you get one into her?”

“Yes.” I can feel the pressure building behind my eyes; I shake my head like a wet dog to clear it.

“Can you carry her?”

“Yes,” I say with more determination than I have ever felt.

“Then do it. I’m on my way.”

“Ok.” I shove the phone into my pocket without ending the call and gather her as best I can.

“I’m going to end this call, Kyle, and ring an ambulance,” I hear before the line cuts. I suddenly feel so very alone.

The walk back is so much longer than the one down. Ellie is heavy in my arms, becoming more and more of a dead weight—a thought I insist on pushing from my head because of what it suggests—but I cannot get past the fact that the arm round the back of my neck, that was braced, now hangs limp, and the hand curled in the front of my shirt, only barely clings on. As her embrace weakens, mine strengthens and my strides increase. There is no way I am failing her.

The path starts to open up but I know we are still at least a mile from the main road. I can feel Ellie’s breath still, strained but wet on my neck where she had tucked her head, and it is the only thing that makes it so that I can still put one foot in front of the other.

A sound makes me raise my head and this time I can’t stop the tears. Steve is at the other end of the stretch of dirt track, coming in my direction as fast as his ex-rugby-playing-now-beer-loving body can carry him. The medical bag that lives in the boot of his car, the one I constantly complain about because it gets in the way of my biking gear, in hand. I curse myself for the snide comments about him not being able to leave the job at work.

I keep going and he is at my side moments later, encouraging me to put Ellie down but I refuse. I can’t let her go; I won’t. Instead, I sink to the ground still clinging her to me. There is so much movement and noise from Steve. The first being the sharp stab of a pen into her thigh. Her pulse is taken, cuffs attached. He mutters to himself barely acknowledging me but I don’t care; I just want her to be ok, and in this moment, I know Steve is best placed to make that happen.

“I’ll take her if you want,” is the first thing he says that registers and it makes my fear spike anew.

“No!”

“Alright, son,” he soothes, and for the first time in my life, I don't correct him. “Ok, but we need to get her to the ambulance, alright?”

I nod, haul myself to my feet despite the dull aching complaint of my limbs, and set off again, this time, with him beside me. When we get round the bend, I can see the lights through the hedgerow. An ambulance is pulled in at the gate, the car he loves so much abandoned on the side of the road with only as much care as his hurry allowed.

“You’ve got to let them have her Kyle; she needs proper medical attention,” he insists firmly when he sees me recoil at the paramedic advancing.

I kiss the top her forehead. “I don’t want to let you go.”

“Alright, Steve,” the paramedic says with a nod.

“Come on, Kyle,” he encourages. “She’ll be fine with Gwen; trained her myself.”

“What’s her name, Kyle?”

“Ellie.”

“Looks like you and Steve have done a grand job getting Ellie this far, Kyle, but she needs more help; will you let me help her?”

I hand her over. Gwen lets me into the back of the ambulance to get her comfy as she attaches all manner of things to her skin. Steve appears at the back door, a list of technical terms I don’t understand are exchanged, all of which Gwen seems to scribble down. “Come on, Kyle. We will follow them but it will be much quicker getting her checked in and treated if we give them space.”

I can’t remember the journey to the hospital; I think the exhaustion hits me as soon as I sit in the passenger seat. The next thing I know, Steve is shaking me gently and we are parked in the staff bays.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know, son.”

“Will she be ok?”

“There is no guarantees with these things, Kyle, you know that, but I think you got her to us in time.”

Normally I would be embarrassed by the way my emotions flood me, but I do not have the bandwidth to give it any thought. Steve doesn’t judge me for it, simply keeps a watchful eye, eventually placing his heavy palm on my forearm in what I imagine he hopes is camaraderie. Strangely it works.

My outburst subsides and we both stare blankly out of the window. Steve’s phone buzzes and he picks it up from the cubby the behind the gearstick.

“Gwen says she is making a good recovery.”

I’m too wrung out to show any more emotion, but that doesn’t stop the relief from flooding me internally. Instead, what comes out is a very monotone, “We kissed.”

“About time,” says Steve, and for the first time today, I see him smile.