Outer Space / Carry On | Michael Clifford AU

20.

I guess Eloise's words stuck in my head because I invited Michael to come to the quirky bakery with me after school. He seemed happy about it, but definitely surprised. I wondered how he couldn't see right through me already. I'm pretty sure our kiss was still written all over our face.

"Isn't it awkward to be wearing our school uniform on a date?"

"This isn't a date," I laughed. "It's just two friends going out for tea and croissants."

"I've never met anyone under the age of sixty who drinks tea."

I bumped my shoulder against his. Bad idea. I needed to keep as much distance between us as possible. Now that I'd felt his hands and his mouth, I couldn't look at him the same when our limbs came into contact. "Well, now you have. I don't do coffee very well," I explained. "It's makes me antsy."

Even without caffeine, I was antsy now. Why do books and movies only ever make a big deal about the first kiss between two people? It's the second kiss that really gets to you, because there's precedent for it to happen again.

Only you have no idea when it will happen...

If it will feel the same as the first time, or if his hands will touch you differently...

Or if your hands will remember to do something other than lay limply by your sides like wet jeans on a clothesline. (Can you see why I was antsy?)

Michael sounded confused. "Antsy?"

I glanced up at him. "Like, shaky, and nervous. I don't know. I'm just not great with caffeine, so I stick to herbal tea."

"No wonder you can't paint, Alice," he joked. Sometimes when he let out a short laugh, he stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth. I wanted to kiss that exact corner, I decided then. (Is that a thing I do now? Walk around listing the places I want to kiss people) Michael spoke again. "I wouldn't be able to paint without caffeine either."

"Maybe that's why you're always awake after midnight... Too much caffeine."

We turned the corner, and I could just make out the quirky bakery up ahead. From here, you'd think it was closed. No one walking in or out. We walked a little faster. "Maybe," Michael said. "I mean, probably, but I'm quite fond of the hours after midnight. They're endless with possibility."

"Exactly like art." I said it mostly to my shoes. Endless. Infinite.  Unbounded. Art can make anything happen. Once upon a time mine could, anyway.

Whenever I came to the quirky bakery, I always had a brief moment of panic before I walked in. Just a fleeting moment of fear, that when I stepped through the door all of the quirk and porcelain cats would be replaced with more ordinary things.

I breathed out with relief upon walking inside with Michael trailing behind me. The quirky bakery lived to see another day. And so did I.

"This is the coolest place I've ever been too," Michael whispered, his eyes dead serious. He looked around, like an overwhelmed kid with five dollars to spend in a giant candy store. "Where do you want to sit?"

The whole place was empty, giving us the choice of anywhere we wanted. I pointed to the velvet arm chairs coated in the afternoon sun. "Over there." And then, "Why are you whispering?"

Michael looked around, his whole body seeming too tall and big for a dainty place like this. He stood out, taking up more space in the world than us mere mortals. He took up all of my peripheral vision. Even when he wasn't around. He was always there, happening outside of everything else.

His eyes were still serious when he turned to me to speak: "I don't want to disturb all the cats."

-

We ended up ordering two peppermint teas (I think Michael was just being polite), a blueberry bagel and a jam donut. Michael cut his donut in half, and handed me the other piece.

"Don't say I never gave you anything," he joked. I wish he knew how much he'd already given me. (You probably shouldn't think that about someone you just met.) (Don't tell Charlie about this. He will call you crazy.) "So," Michael began. My eyes stuck on the icing sugar dusted above his top lip. "How's the non-painting going?"

I took a sip of my peppermint tea. I'd almost filled up an entire sketchbook with lists and words, so I guess some people might call that a success. Part of me wondered if I should just quit art and take up writing instead.

"I've been writing a lot. Sometimes I draw little squiggles. You know, like a heart or an arrow. But I don't think I'm any closer to painting." I paused for a moment, my smile growing. "You know, if you showed me what you've been working on, I might feel really inspired."

Every day, Michael showed up to school with leftover paint staining his fingers. Either he never showered, or he painted a lot more than he lead on (like before school, for example.)

"I'm going to be entirely honest," Michael swallowed a piece of his donut. "I'm totally a chicken. I'd rather you see me naked... I'd rather the entire school see me naked, than to see my art."

My head fell a little as a laughed. "The whole school? Really?"

Michael shrugged, a leftover smile stuck on his face. I got the feeling he'd notice my cheeks redden when he mentioned me seeing him naked. "My final project... it's like... I've moved all of the thoughts from inside my head to the outside. It's kind of confronting."

"Outside where?" I asked, thinking that maybe if I pressed, he'd accidentally tell me something worthwhile. I knew I was being pushy but my curious meter was all filled up, with no room to breath or fill in the gaps with my imagination.

"Just... Outside," Michael smiled knowingly. (I wanted to always remember that I'd never seen Michael smile so much as he did today.) He knew he was being vague.

"You should have been a poet," I pointed out. "Then you could have at least made yourself some money from speaking in riddles."

Another smile. I was starting to tally them up. "There's two types of art, Alice. The kind you make for other people, and the kind you make for yourself. My little drawings and the stuff I do on my chalk walks... they're for other people." He inhaled, and then exhaled heavily. "But some stuff, bigger, heavier stuff, that's just for me."

He stared at me seriously. I still didn't have a colour name for Michael's eyes. Peppermint Meadow, or Dewy Mornings, maybe. Neither did his eyes justice.

I nodded slowly to respond, thinking about the unfinished rainbow portrait of Mum. I knew where he was coming from. If someone asked me to see that portrait, I'd probably dig myself a rabbit hole to disappear right down. That's when I realised...

Before I could stop myself, I threw the words down on the table. Big, heavy, the kind you can't take back. "I want to tell you something."

And then, in the middle of a bakery surrounded by porcelain cats, I gave Michael the rest of the words. Ones that I'd never let pass my lips until now, not voluntarily anyway. 

I told him about my Mum. 

About how I used to think she was a princess, and about the Best Day Ever, and how she got sick and then how she left the cruel world behind.