Perfect

We’re on the beach, and Teddy puts his arms around me and I feel his hot breath on the top of my head. It sends a bolt of electricity through my body right down to my toes and, like a reflex, my hands rise to hold on to his forearms, gripping them with just enough pressure to show him that I like it, that I want his arms around my body. He lifts me up a few inches from the stones, squeezing my sides, and it hurts a little, but still, I like it. I want him to be close to me like this. I wish he would kiss me again but I don’t know how to make it happen. 

Suddenly, Sabine is there too, crashing into us and knocking us over onto the cold ground where the stones dig into my shoulder. At least one of his limbs is underneath my back, another is on top of my legs, and there, on top of both of us, is Sabine, laughing so hard she can’t breathe properly. It’s so funny to see her like this that Teddy and I start laughing too, and we laugh so hard we can barely breathe. 

We don’t ask her why she rammed into us, or what’s so funny, it’s not important. Instead, we sit up with our arms resting on our knees and look out at the sea. It’s calm and grey, the waves barely making themselves heard over the seagulls squawking above the beach. Sabine takes out a bottle of wine from her backpack and we pass it between us. I’ve already had two pints of lager at the pub and the wine makes me feel pleasantly untethered, and excited, like anything might happen. Teddy hands me a packet of cigarettes. I take one out and light up and we share it, passing the butt between us, my lips touching where his lips have touched. 

Sabine stands up, stumbling a little, which is not surprising given the vodka tonics she drank with her lunch. She takes off her coat and chucks it on the stones, and then, laughing, she slips her feet out of her shoes. Teddy and I watch, knowing where this is heading and, without another word he stands up and holds out his hand towards me. I look out at the sea and shiver, but then I look into his face and see his ruffled hair, and I take his hand and allow him to pull me up.

Laughing, we slip off our clothes. I wait for Sabine to remove something before I do the same. She takes off her trousers, and I take that as my cue. She pulls her T-shirt over her head and I look up and she’s there, right in front of us, in her underwear — mismatched and faded — and I sigh, relieved that at least my bra is the same colour as my knickers. 

“Last one in’s a fucking loser!” Sabine shouts, and then she’s gone, running full pelt across the stones towards the sea. 

“You coming?” Teddy says, already walking towards the waves.

“Yeah… just…” I start to pick my way over the rocky beach, certain that Sabine’s feet must be made of leather. 

“What?” shouts Teddy over his shoulder, but the wind has picked up and I don’t think he can hear my reply.

“I’m coming! I just… these fucking stones!” I shout as my foot scrapes down the side of something sharp. 

Sabine is already in the water as Teddy gets to the edge. He looks back at me and hesitates.

“I’m fine!” I shout, waving him towards the sea. “I’ll be there in a minute!”

Teddy turns and runs over a wave that has just broken and then dives under, disappearing for a few seconds before he pops up next to Sabine. They’re both a few metres out and I pick up my pace, even though every bit of my body is telling me to turn back and put on my clothes, to get my feet off these sharp stones. Suddenly I feel a lot more sober. 

“Come on!” shouts Sabine. Her hair is sticking to her face and she’s smiling and waving. “Come on, Pol! Get yourself in here!”

“Yeah, come on, Pol!”

They both start shouting for me to join them and it works. I force myself to go a bit faster, ignoring the pain searing through the soles of my feet and the goose-bumps covering every inch of my naked flesh. When I get to the edge of the water, I feel giddy. I could turn back. I could say I don’t feel like swimming, but they’d never let me get away with that, and I am standing there in my bra and knickers. I’m in my underwear on a stony beach near Hastings. We’re having fun. I want this to be fun. So, I take a deep breath and wade in.

The water is so cold I have to gasp air into my lungs. I desperately want to go back to where we left our clothes. I want another cigarette. It’s bloody November. I want to be indoors somewhere warm. But then, Teddy’s arms find me again, and Sabine’s too, and they’re both holding onto me, whooping and laughing, and then I’m laughing too — almost screaming — at the ridiculousness of it, and we swim a few strokes and Teddy dives down and brings up a handful of seaweed which he throws at Sabine. She puts it on her head like a wig and we laugh some more. 

At some point — it could be after a minute or after an hour — Sabine says she’s had enough and we scramble out of the waves and get back to our things. The sky is darker now, and whatever sunlight there has been is fading fast.

“Fuck, I’m so cold!” Sabine mutters. We haven’t got any towels. With chattering teeth we pull our coats over our soaking wet bodies and carry our clothes back towards the road.

“We can’t get on the bus like this!” says Teddy. “They’ll never let us on board.”

Instead of the bus, we run through the streets of Hastings back to Sabine’s house. We don’t stop to take silly pictures. We just run, and laugh, and by the time we get to Sab’s street Teddy has his arm around me again and we are all walking in a line, taking up the entire pavement, with Teddy in the middle. We get inside and take it in turns to use the only bathroom. Sabine lends me a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. She stands on a chair in the tiny kitchen and brings out a bottle of vodka her father has hidden at the back of a cupboard. We drink, and drink, and eat a whole loaf of bread between us, toasted, and smothered in butter. I smoke more cigarettes than I’ve ever smoked in one evening.

I won’t remember what we talk about, only that we talk about the sort of things that leave you feeling closer once you’ve said them. I won’t remember going to bed, either, but I wake up the next morning with Teddy’s arm underneath my neck and him snoring softly beside me on the blow-up mattress on the floor. Sabine is sleeping beside us on the battered leather sofa, her face stuck to the seat pad. I need to pee, but I hold it in for as long as possible. I wonder, as I try to ignore the mounting urgency in my bladder, if things will always be this way when the three of us are together. I wonder if it will always feel this perfect.