“Hi, I’m Oli,” he said.
“Oh, hey, I’m Evelyn…well, Evie.”
He smiled again. The cheekbones. The almighty cheekbones. His face looked like it had been chiselled out of butter by the gods, and yet he was all shy and looky-downy. Ding ding ding. My innards were lighting up like a slot machine. I promptly forgot all about worrying I’d fail my AS level due to Brian’s teaching.
“I’ve not seen you in class,” I said, knowing I certainly would’ve noticed THOSE cheekbones before. “Did you just switch AS levels or something?”
He coughed and his smile dropped slightly. “I…no…er…there was a problem with my admission…” His voice went up like it was a question, and he carried on. “They thought I was staying on at my old school’s sixth form…paperwork muddle. This is my first full week.”
I nodded. “Oh okay. That’s…er…weird. So, you like films, huh?” I gestured towards the screen at the front of the classroom, and then cursed myself for stating something so obvious.
“Yeah. I’m not much of a reader, I prefer my stories in visual form. How about you? You’re, like, the only girl in this class, have you noticed?”
“Oh, am I? Right…” And we both blushed, his sculpted cheeks and my normal puffy cheeks each glowing red. “But, yeah, I love films…they’re escape, aren’t they?”
Escape was undermining it. Films had been my saviour over the past few years. The roll of opening credits the only thing that could distract my brain when it swan-dived into the neurotic abyss. I must’ve watched hundreds of movies during my meltdown. Locked in my sterilized room, a tiny TV in the corner, I was able to lose myself in the stories and get caught up in the characters. For two hours at a time, I could forget all the whirring non-stopness of gut-twisting anxiety. I could merge myself into the lives of people capable of leaving the house, capable of having storylines.
“I guess they are,” Oli said. “So, anyway, shall we do this assignment then?” He couldn’t quite hold eye contact. Which was a shame because his eyes were a shocking green colour. Like basil, or something more romantic-sounding than basil. But basil is a pretty lovely shade of green to have eyes made out of.
“Yes. Sure.” His shyness made me shy and I found myself playing with my hair. “So what are your top three films since 2000?”
“Well, Fight Club, obviously,” he started, ticking it off on his finger. He didn’t even need to think about it. He’d obviously honed the list loads of times in his head. I was impressed. “Then Pan’s Labyrinth, and, well, Donnie Darko. Of course.”
I nodded, secretly correcting him in my head. Fight Club came out in 1999, but he seemed too shy for me to say so. “Donnie’s my number four. He doesn’t quite make it into the top three though.”
“Ahh, so what are yours?”
I didn’t need to think about it either. “Amélie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Big Fish,” I reeled off.
It was his turn to nod, and it was an appreciative one. “Interesting choices…for a girl.”
“And that’s supposed to mean?” I asked.
“Well…er…” Oli realized his mistake and he spluttered and stumbled over his answer. Shy shy shy shy SHY. “It’s just…erm…well…not a regular girl’s top three, I guess…in a good way…seriously…in a good way…I meant that in a good way.” His basil eyes downturned and I could see him hating himself internally. It felt weird, making someone else nervous rather than being the nervous one. Quite powerful. I liked it. He was so shy though that I dropped his “good film choices for a girl” comment. Maybe I fancied him a bit.
“So what film got you into film then?” This is a film-person question. We’ve all got one. The film that made films a way of life, rather than just passive entertainment.
“The Godfather, Part II.”
I burst out laughing and Oli’s cheeks burned brighter.
“What’s wrong with The Godfather, Part II?” he asked, a bit mortified.
“Nothing’s wrong with it – it’s a great film. It’s just also the biggest gender cliché ever of a bloke’s favourite movie. And you just made that comment about me having good film choices for a girl.”
“But, it’s Al Pacino…” His eyes didn’t meet mine and I let it drop. Again. I really did fancy him, I guess.
“Never mind. I like The Godfather too.”
“Oh…cool…” He stared at the desk. “So what film got you into films then?”
I smiled, recollecting the first time I’d seen it. “It’s a weird one. Edward Scissorhands.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
The first time I saw Edward Scissorhands
I’d just started to get sick, and no one knew why or what or how yet. Mum had tried to force me to go to school again, but I’d barricaded myself into my bedroom by pushing all my furniture against the door.
Have you ever barricaded yourself into a room? Honestly, it’s the most definitive way of confirming that, yes, maybe you have gone mental.
And that confirmation unleashes the emotional landslide – where, suddenly, after fighting for so long, your brain gives up and erodes in on you, spiralling your thoughts into monsters who seize the city and tell you nothing is going to be okay ever again. That this is your new life now. Fear, and pain, and confusion. And your mum hammering at the door, screaming that she’s calling the police for your truanting, and you don’t even care – just as long as you don’t have to leave the house.
Eventually Mum gave up – thinking if she stopped “giving me attention” I would “snap out of it”, because that’s what every parent of someone who gets head-ill believes at some stage.
I was left in peace.
To ruminate into madness.
The problem with that is, there’s only so much delirious spiralling you can do before your brain gets a tad bored. Not bored enough to move the furniture, open the door and say, “I’ll go to school now.” But sustained crying was exhausting and, without drinking, due to the barricade and such, it got hard to keep producing tears. So eventually I started looking for things to do and found an old DVD Jane’d lent me – she’d been going through a Johnny Depp obsessive period – and shoved it into my laptop.
Films had never been a huge deal to me before. They were things in the background in a friend’s room, or a way of passing time on Christmas Day when the family is bored of one another. But the moment Edward Scissorhands began, with its haunting music and blizzarding snow and magical fairytaleness, it did the impossible. It made me forget what was going on in my head. For one blissful hour and a half I was distracted by this story of an odd boy who didn’t fit in, in a boring town just like mine. It was like going on brain holiday. And it was so beautiful and poignant and perfect. That was the film that did it.
And for the following years film was my only escape. I chased gorgeous story after gorgeous story, usually old romances, my film pile growing ever bigger and my movie knowledge ever greater as my brain got gradually worse, and then much worse, and then better.
“So why Edward Scissorhands?” Oli asked, his basily eyes wide with interest.
“Oh. I just like Tim Burton,” was my reply.
Eight
Sarah couldn’t wait to hear about my disastrous date. Naturally.
“How did it go?” she asked, before I’d even sat down. Her pen was already poised above her notepad.
I picked up the dilapidated rabbit. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I am first?”