Do You Remember the First Time?

to be too obvious, straight ahead of me was Olly.
    Crap. Crap. I should have called last night. How could I just leave him on his own to stew like this? I felt terrible. ‘Ol,’ I said. ‘Ol.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’d make me do this, Flora,’ he said, hands deep in his jacket pockets.
    ‘Can’t you pretend you’re a supply teacher or something,’ I said unhappily.
    ‘Yeah. Well, unfortunately all my clothes match.’
    ‘We can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘I’ll get in trouble.’
    ‘I’ve got the car,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah, I’m going to get into an adult stranger’s car outside the school gates. That’s what I’m going to do now.’
    ‘I really wish you were enjoying all this a little less,’ he said.
    ‘What, being tagged like a young offender. I can assure you I am not.’ I gestured at him to walk and steered him into the dodgy little grocer’s that appear to be close to most schools and still sell single cigarettes and chocolates without any chocolate in them.
    Tiredly, he looked at me over the penny chews display.
    ‘Is it over?’ he said starkly. I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but Ol is a very good lawyer. I swallowed abruptly.
    ‘Tell me what happens in a month,’ he said, ‘at the wedding. There must be something.’
    I shook my head.
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    He picked up a fistful of lollipops, impotently, and put them down again.
    ‘Well, I suppose that means we’re through then.’
    The fat old lady behind the counter, whose entire life had clearly insisted on a total ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy, deigned to look up from the Daily Star at this.
    ‘Ol,’ I said. ‘Olly, I’ve changed.’
    ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Olly, hitting the nearest box of Walkers. ‘I can’t believe you’d trot out that hoary chestnut.’
    The fat old lady looked on the brink of phoning the police.
    I took a deep breath. This was it. I was going to do my first chucking, destroying a four-year relationship, throwing away a pretty much guaranteed shot at marriage, a family, a life that I’d expected; at some stage wanted. I was going to break Olly’s heart, and wreck his dreams as well as my own. And I was going to do it in a school uniform. Avril Lavigne has nothing on me.
    ‘Olly.’
    ‘Are you two going to buy anything?’ said the fat lady.
    Olly glared at me.
    ‘Erm … flying saucers?’ I said, panicking.
    He tutted and put a handful on the counter. The woman eyed him up suspiciously and waited, arms folded, until we left the shop, me beadily checking up and down the road to see if anyone was looking out for us. Then I thought, sod it. This isn’t fair. And I went up to Olly and I took his arm. I had to lean up on my tiptoes to get to him.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ I whispered into his ear.
    One hand went to his head, and with the other he pushed me away.
    ‘Oh God, Flora.’
    ‘It’s impossible.’
    ‘You won’t be like that for ever. Will you?’
    ‘Who knows?’ I said. ‘I didn’t get a manual.’
    ‘Well, maybe when you come back, we can see again then.’ His voice cracked a little.
    I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’
    He held me at arm’s length. ‘Do you know, I was thinking about—’
    ‘I know,’ I said.
    He turned away. ‘I knew it,’ he said. ‘I knew it. That’s what made you do it, isn’t it? That’s what brought on this whole bloody … JESUS!’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘Counselling? No. Telling me what was the fucking matter? No, too tired. A holiday? No, I think I’ll just go for the full body time travel.’
    ‘Olly, maybe I wasn’t that happy.’
    ‘We were happy enough.’
    ‘Maybe that wasn’t enough.’
    He stared at me. ‘I know why you’ve gone back to being sixteen.’
    ‘Because I never left it?’
    ‘Because … yes. That’s exactly what I was going to say.’
    We were both quiet now, staring at the ground.
    ‘I even thought …’ He coughed, after a false start. ‘I thought it would be cute. You know, if you were thirty and I would be forty-eight. And you would call me “old man”, and play with the children, and run around, and we coulddo everything differently, and you wouldn’t have to work if you didn’t feel like it. You could potter, or go to art school, or …’ He trailed off, and blinked hard.
    I swallowed a lump in my throat. ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You’re not,’ he said, straightening up. ‘I think you’re too selfish to be sorry. You’ve bent the whole