Megan

“No way,” Ian laughed as he slapped his best friend Tomas on the back. “Not with Megan you’re mental. She’s a freak.”

“You made the bet. I get anywhere with her and you’re paying for footie at the weekend.”

Sitting on the back seat of the number fifty seven, his arm wrapped around Mad Megan’s shoulders, Tomas couldn’t help thinking back to that conversation a sense of shame brewing inside of him. His cheeks reddened as he remembered how smug he had felt as Ian had patted him on the back and how he had laughed along as his best friend had proclaimed “you’re the man!”

Admittedly his date with Megan hadn’t gone entirely as planned. Most of the usual haunts he used to take his unsuspecting dates had been black balled, the cinema was derided as nothing more than a mouthpiece of the American demon whilst a suggestion they go to a nightclub had been met with a frosty stare. Yet despite the limitations imposed by Megan on where they could spend their night Tomas had found he had enjoyed walking around Hanley with nowhere to go, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.  

Sneaking a look at Megan nestled next to him on the backseat Tomas wondered at how he could have taken part in the cruel name calling he and his friends had used to subject her to. How could he have missed her ethereal beauty? Maybe she was a little strange, kooky even but he had discovered that night he found her little idiosyncrasies enchanting and from some other place he heard his Nana’s voice chiding him. “You should never judge a book by its cover.”

When they kissed, there on the back seat of the number fifty seven, bouncing along to the streets of Stoke,  Tomas found himself lost in a world where only he and Megan existed and then she pulled away to look at him, a look of ecstatic incomprehension in her eyes and her words hit him like a sledgehammer. “I can’t believe I’m here with you! I always thought you and your friends were laughing at me.”

For the rest of their journey home Megan’s words rang inside his head in all their accusatory might to a background track of the laughter Tomas and Ian had shared as they had joked about Mad Megan. Hand in hand they left the fifty seven and walked now upon the streets of Hartshill until finally they came to rest outside Megan’s front door. As they kissed and she whispered her parents wouldn’t be back until the early hours Tomas found himself ignoring the possibilities, her honour strangely meaning more to him than his desires, and so he hugged Mad Megan and made his way back through the streets to his home, alone. 

Behind the swimming baths, the following Monday morning Tomas smoked a cigarette whilst dreading the moment Ian’s bus pulled up outside their college. Eager to discover the gossip his friend arrived earlier than usual and as Tomas confessed to nothing happening Ian’s lecherous grin quickly transformed into a look of triumph. “Ha football’s on you this weekend. I told you she was frigid,” he gloated before screaming in agony as Tomas thumped him on the arm. “Hey what was that for?”

 “Leave her alone she’s not that bad. If you want the truth I enjoyed Saturday night.”

If possible the grin on Ian’s face grew wider as Tomas spoke, “don’t tell me you like her? You love Mad Megan?” Ian teased his friend.

Shaking his head Tomas thought about what he had truly felt on Saturday night. “No I don’t” he told Ian truthfully. “But I’d like to think that we were friends.”