Do You Remember the First Time?

everything, excluding the bits about my worries about him, and meeting Clelland again, so it didn’t take long.
    Olly listened extremely carefully in complete silence, so he could bring his rational lawyer’s mind fully to bear on it, but still occasionally shaking his head in incredulity. Then he stood in silence for a very long time, staring out on the water. He finally turned to me and looked straight into my eyes. He swallowed one last time. I rubbed my skinny limbs nervously.
    ‘You … you wanted to wish your life away?’
    ‘Or back.’ I shrugged.
    He hung his head. ‘How unhappy with me were you?’
    I hadn’t expected that at all. I looked at his face and felt completely dreadful. We were, after all, only a month away from him going down on bended knee, and he must at least have been considering it. So I did the best thing I could think of under the circumstances. Lied.
    ‘Don’t be silly, darling. This wasn’t about you. I was just idly speculating, that was all, and this crazy thing happened.’ I tried to make it sound light and not so much of a problem.
    ‘God, I can’t … you have to see yourself say that, you really do. Do you know you have purple in your hair?’
    I nodded.
    ‘Anyway, I thought you said you wished out loud.’
    ‘Hardly. It was just a passing thought …’
    ‘Just as well you weren’t thinking about big monsters,’ said Tashy.
    ‘No, that was Ghostbusters ,’ I said. ‘I think this is more Peggy Sue Got Married .’
    Olly couldn’t stop staring at me. ‘So, have you seen into the future too?’
    ‘No, I’ve just lived it already. And only a month of it.’
    He frowned. ‘Do you remember how the market closes?’
    ‘I can’t even remember what was number one. I’ve tried this already.’
    ‘We have,’ said Tashy. ‘But my wedding is on a nice day and I fit into my dress. Ooh, I think I can have a cake.’ I loved her for trying to lift our spirits with a bit of jollity. And I hated what I was about to say.
    ‘I’m not sure you can,’ I said. ‘I’m here now. That might change everything. But you recognise me, and Max doesn’t, and my parents are all young and weird, and I don’t know what the hell’s going on and what I can change or not change. I don’t understand it at all.’
    ‘Oh,’ Tashy looked defeated, ‘OK. No cake then.’
    Olly stepped up to me and took my shoulders. ‘My God, you’re shorter too,’ he said sadly.
    ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But, on the plus side, my tits are further off the ground.’
    He looked at me, his eyes wary. ‘Well, um, this is a shock. Shall we … shall we head for home?’
    ‘Um,’ I said.
    ‘Oh God.’ He jumped back. ‘Are you even legal? Am I a paedophile? Fuck.’
    ‘It’s not that,’ I said. Poor Olly, terrified of accidentally touching up his own girlfriend. What a mess. ‘Anyway, I’m sixteen.’
    ‘OK, good.’ He thought for a second. ‘Better than good, actually.’
    ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I have to stay at home with my parents. And they’ll go nuts if I stay out all night.’
    ‘Oh. Right. Can’t you tell them you’re staying at Tashy’s?’
    ‘It’s amazing how quickly everyone remembers their teenage guile. Anyway, no, I can’t, because Tashy’s a big scary adult woman, and anyway, I’m grounded.’
    ‘Really?’ He started to laugh. ‘You’re grounded. This is fucking nuts .’
    ‘It’s not funny.’
    ‘I know. It’s nuts! Would you like me to buy you an ice cream to make up for it?’
    ‘Do you fancy me more now?’ I asked. Despite everything, insecurity was creeping in.
    ‘Olly,’ ordered Tashy. ‘ Never answer that question.’
    ‘OK.’ Olly decided that, after all, we would have an ice cream. Ice cream was one of his major food groups. We followed him over to the van.
    ‘And a flake for the little lady,’ he was saying.
    Tashy looked at me. ‘I think he’s taking it rather well.’
    ‘Rather too well,’ I said. ‘I don’t want him getting boners for teens.’
    ‘Oh, come on. You watch TV. It trains them like beagles.’
    ‘Hmm,’ I said.
    ‘I wasn’t serious about Jamie Theakston. Were you?’
    ‘Well, I find his dungeon proclivities a little overwhelming for my untouched body, but I’m not automatically ruling out any of the boy bands.’
    ‘Be serious. What about when you get back?’
    I didn’t say anything.
    Olly returned, bearing 99s.
    ‘So,’ he said, ‘when are you going to get back to us?’
    ‘Well, assuming I