Chasing Storm Read Free

face.
    “What are you doing?”
    He runs his fingers under his nose and I pull his hand away.
    “Mmmm, mmm,” he says.
    “You’re disgusting.”
    “I’m not the one who’s soaking wet down there.”
    Tonight.
    We pass by the old theatre.
    Tim swings around in front of me, my body thrumming from his touch. “Want to see a movie?”
    “I haven’t got any money.”
    He winks. “No problem. Come with me.”
    He pulls me by the hand into an alley down the side of the theatre building, around a corner to an exit door. I look around, spotting invisible witnesses everywhere.
    Tim takes out his lock-picking kit from his pocket. He carries the damn thing with him everywhere, says it’s the only thing his daddy’s ever given him bar a good ass-kickin’. His initials are embossed into the smooth leather pouch.
    He pulls two tiny tools free and works them into the lock of the exit door, tweezing and twixing them together until with a pop the lock clicks and he turns the knob to draw it open. “After you.”
    I step into the dark hall of the exit corridor all concrete and cold confine. Tim comes up behind me, hands guiding my hips through the darkness.
    This is what it’s like to be with him, to always tread that fine line of legality. Maybe that’s what’s so attractive about him in the first place. He doesn’t live by the regular rules of others. He doesn’t care for what others think. He treads his own path.
    Of course, I’ve never been to his house. Even he admitted that was too risky. “He’s got a temper,” he told me of his dad. “Mom, too. Sometimes we get a hidin’ so bad I can’t see for a week. My brother and I just stay under the house, you know, wait it out.”
    And he’s right. He’s met me at school with a bruised cheek before, busted eye, all kinds of injuries he put down to falling off his bike or stumbling down the stairs, but I know better. I think everyone does but says nothing of it. No one wants to get involved with his family. I haven’t met any of them, but it’s common knowledge: they’ve got a reputation.
    We come out at the top of the theatre stairs. An old black-and-white is showing on the screen. Hitchcock maybe, with birds flapping about and a woman screaming hysterically down the street.
    I’ve always loved this theatre, the strange art deco sculptures and worn red velvet, the way the whole place smells of mothballs and stale popcorn. It’s in the walls, the chairs… history.
    There are only a few people in the cinema, the ageing Rosie crowd here for the afternoon session.
    “This way,” whispers Tim, leading me up to the top dress circle overlooking the cinema proper.
    An usher comes past, torch sweeping over the chairs.
    Tim pulls us down into a tight ball by the wall. The light passes over our heads. My head is against his chest, his heart beating a steady staccato against my ear while my own gallops away against my top.
    With the usher gone, we hurry past the No Entry sign and up the stairs to the dress circle, selecting two seats at the back while we sit down and giggle like fools, hands holding each other as we kiss and make out.
    I pull away just long enough to catch his eyes lit by the screen, the absolute infinite of possibilities there, and I can picture us on his bike, with new towns and adventures, the whole world before us. We make love under the stars, hitchhike our way across the country when the bike dies. We find friends along the way, strange vagabonds like ourselves who are searching for the simple life. I’ve already written the letter to my parents. Each line is seared into my head.
    “God, you’re beautiful.”
    The words take me by surprise.
    The woman on the screen screams as she’s attacked by a cloud of flapping wings.
    “Most beautiful thing in the whole wide world.”
    I squeeze his hand tighter. “Thank you.”
    I lean in closer, pressing my legs together to stifle the need that’s gathered there. “Tonight, at the skate park, I’m