13

Me and my best friend are 13.

We’ve named our little tit nuggets Gavin and Jason

after 2 boys from the village.

We thought we were having a sexy water fight with them and the tension is palpable until it turns ugly and mud and vinegar are added to the artillery.

The mud stains and lingering stench really see off any hint of sexy

but the names are a fixture now, so our hands are tied.

The summer is long, sticky and exciting

It feels like we are on the brink of something.

We act like we think we are grown.

We think (know) we’re hilarious

and spend too many hours recording and re-recording the first 4 seconds of the intro to the first episode of our yet-to-be-commissioned radio show.

For some reason, we’ve decided we’re singing all of the tracks instead of simply playing them as other DJ’s do

which isn’t helping to reduce studio (mic behind the sofa) time.

Astonishingly, it never makes it to air.

It’s possible we’ve got some wires crossed about the concept of radio somewhere along the line.

Sleepovers and cinema trips must always involve a pack of Minstrels and a pack of Malteasers

unnecessarily mixed into some other gluttonous treat.

Our appetite for shit knows no bounds.

This isn’t limited to snacks.

Or our teens.

We watch films that are too scary, films involving underdog animals smashing unachievable parameters to come out on top and all the obvious high school bullshit that is packaged and presented for the exact sort of idiots we are.

We lap all of them up with equal wonderment and act like we’ve uncovered something unique and underground.

We think we’re the first to do so.

The school bus also brings with it Minstrels, but Malteasers are exchanged for strawberry laces.

Every morning we hold out our little hopeful paws as we respectively gift one another our favourite sweets.

Yes, we are very cute.

But we are also fierce

and protective.

A boy on the bus gropes me after a tirade of confusing flirty abusive bullying.

She punches him and he gets a nose bleed.

One morning

we are aggressively enjoying a stress ball. Enthusiasm reaches a pinnacle. Consequently we discover that the cheap ball is in fact a flaccid balloon filled with flour and to the delight of the rest of the passengers, inadvertently end up covered head to toe in it.

In the toilets at school I try to wash it from my navy uniform. It isn’t a successful endeavour.

This is the day I start to connect the dots about dough.

Lettuce is shaken, not stirred.

She expertly picks my dad’s flat denial of the practicalities of the colander and his inability to eat an olive as the winning cards in her parental pisstake deck.

I look on in awe.

The crown remains unchallenged.

Now is the beginning of a lifelong pizza commitment that will not be broken.

We each get a guitar for Xmas

Hers is a bass and she discovers a new passion for exclaiming “check out that bass” whenever she hears music playing.

We practice only Zombie by the Cranberries on repeat for what seems like years

and call ourselves a band.

Our lists of favourite things would make the concept of juxtaposition crumble in on itself.

A confusing mix of astonishingly good taste and utter shit with such a wide space in between it’s a wonder we were able to navigate it at all.

But while the other one’s not looking we gobble up each other’s guilty pleasures and store them safely in our knapsacks for future take downs.

Take That.

Bewitched.

We both desperately try to pin Peter Andre on each other, but it never sticks.

Me and my best friend are 39.

I have loved this woman fiercely

Angrily

with jealousy

Wonderment

And endless joy.

Despite

and because of Peter Andre.

With tears running down my face

in laughter

in love

in grief.

I have loved her from the moment I spied her mischievous smile poking out from beneath her long hair,

the sun bouncing off it

as I entered our classroom for the first time.

We were 6.

And now

we are 39.

Soon she’ll be 40

and I’ll always be gleefully 2 months behind.

The summers are short and wet

and

It feels like we’ve been teetering on or over the edge of something.

We act like we think we aren’t grown.

But I will go on loving her.

And that

Is the only thing that I have ever truly known.