"Why do you need so many shops?" I half demand, turning in a circle to look around the shopping centre.
We caught the bus to get to this shopping centre, again, and now we're in this massive three-storey building that's mostly dedicated to goddam clothing. Theo, who is stood next to me in the middle of the ground floor, blushes and looks at his feet, which I get - I must look like a madman, spinning around like a fairy while everyone else gets on with their shopping. But it's all so rejuvenated and fascinating and, in its way, lovely. People surround us on all sides, riding up escalators and lifts and entering shops and sitting in the windows of restaurants. They're all so wrapped up in their own little lives, trying to fill each second with something worthwhile before it slips between their fingers. It's wonderful.
"Different styles, I guess," Theo mutters. "Come on. You're scaring the children."
Indeed, one little girl holding a lollipop is staring at me. I pull a face at her, eyes crossed and tongue sticking out, and she giggles. Her mother pulls her away, giving me a weird look like I might suddenly run forward and snatch away her precious little darling. Parents these days.
I remember using that move on my baby sibling when they were still alive to calm them down and how it always worked. I quickly follow after Theo, raking my eyes around the shops to distract myself.
Theo walks like he knows where he's going, but I know I would get lost without him. I'm half tempted to grab his flipping hand, just so I don't go mistaking him for another curly-haired daddy long legs and start yammering to a stranger about ghost shit.
I follow Theo into a shop on the second floor, keeping as close as non-awkwardly possible. When we're inside, he turns to me and tells me to pick out anything. Shrugging, I grab trousers and shirts and jackets haphazardly and throw them over my arm. When I turn back to Theo, he has his face in his hands.
"What?"
"Oh my god, you dress like an old man," he moans into his palms. "Let me help."
He chucks the clothes I picked out over an empty rack (seriously, that boy needs to learn to clean up after himself) and grabs me suddenly by the shoulders, staring me in the eyes. When I squirm, he pouts at me and grips harder, so I try to relax.
"You have green eyes," he mumbles. (Yeah, duh.) I can feel his breath on my face, making it hard to think straight. "Glittering emerald orbs that reflect the light of the H&M store, transforming them into glowing spheres of pure gold..." He collapses into giggles. It's a lovely sound. "Shut up," I mumble, shoving him away playfully. Charlie laughs again and pushes his hair out of his eyes, unveiling his glowing spheres of pure gold; or, as I like to call them, eyes. "You'll look great in a blue shirt," he says. "It'll bring out your eyes. Come on, grandpa." He smirks, going from adorable to something else in an instant. "I'll help you out."
He turns away, still grinning, and picks his way through the aisles, grabbing clothes and slinging them over his arm while I follow him like an obedient pet. Blue and green button downs, tops of similar shades, black skinny jeans, Converse in three different shades, hoodies, check shirts, a beanie and end even a goddam leather jacket.
"I'm not a doll," I mutter at his back as he yanks a beanie on my head and pulls it off again a second later. "No, but it's not like I get to be stereotypical every day. You have to give me this."
So I do.
When he tells me to try them on, I do so obediently. Every time I yank on a new outfit (I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE skinny jeans) Theo makes me come out and show it to him. He laughs and gives me thumbs up and crows "yas, honey!", stereotypical right down to the way he sits on that stool with his legs crossed looking like he's enjoying every second of this little fashion show he's roped me into. I stand there while he adjusts my beanie and tells me to swap jumpers and pretend I'm enjoying this half as much as I am. I think he sees through my plastered-on scowl.
Finally, we exit the changing rooms with four outfits. Charlie falls back into his usual awkwardness and half scowl as he pulls out his wallet and heads to the checkout.
"You... you don't have to," I mutter, the same thing I've been saying since he suggested this little shopping spree. (Really. He doesn't. I'm a fucking ghost.) "I want to." Is his reply. The exact same one he's been using to my exact same protest.
"Aren't you two just an adorable couple?" the woman middle aged woman with blue and pink hair behind the counter says, smiling at Theo. She tries to look at me but every time she does her eyes go cloudy and snap back to Theo.
Theo blushes and drops his debit card. When he resurfaces, he's hidden beneath his hair but still tinged like a slab of raw steak.
"We're... we're not..." "We're not dating," I snap, scooping up the clothes just as she finishes scanning the last item and striding out of the shop. I can hear Theo apologizing profusely as the doors slide shut behind me. Mind swirling, I stride over to the balcony and lean against it with my back to the shop, forgetting the height for a moment and hugging the bag of my new clothes to my chest.
"Why did you snap?" Thero asks a couple of minutes when he re-joins me. I can hear the frown in his voice even when he's behind me. I fix my eyes on the shoppers below. None of them look up at me. "Look, I get it - no homo or whatever - but you didn't need to get nasty," he says, his tone heavy with disapproval and a touch of hurt.
"She was really sweet. She said sorry for embarrassing us."
"It's not..." I run my hand down my forehead and sigh into my palm, still not looking at him. "It's not that you're gay. I just... I did..." Fuck, I'm getting as flustered as Theo. "Assuming that kind of shit when I was a kid... didn't end well for anybody. I'm not used to you guys - your generation, that is - being so open about it."
Theo, after a moment of painful silence, comes to stand beside me. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. His fingers are linked and he rests his forearms on the railing, shoulder brushing mine slightly and back curving downwards.
"That fucking sucks," he says finally, echoing me. I turn around to look at him, right arm resting on the railing and half standing with one knee crooked.
From this vantage point, I'm finally looking down at him. I can't help but smile. I want to say something - I want to thank him - but he speaks the second I open my mouth. "Well, we've got the clothes now," he checks his mobile phone, "and two hours until sunset. Do you want to buy any more?"
"I think that's enough - what are you even going to do with all of them... when I'm gone? It's a waste." Theo grimaces and so do I.
I mentally kick myself for... well, this whole situation. I feel like I've fucked up everything. Then he grins, looking up at me through his hair. In the late afternoon sunlight, his skin glows almost as brightly as mine.
"Wear them, of course. Green isn't my color, but I can pull off just about anything." He winks at me, and I can't help but reciprocate his smirk. "Have you figured out the whole vegetarian thing?" I nod. "Are you then?"
I shake my head.
"Good. Nandos?" "What's Nandos?" Theo shakes his head, standing up straight and sighing.
"God, you really do have the most awful existence," he jokes.
Fucking tell me about it.
--------------------------------------
Theo has to order for me again (seriously, what even) and as we wait for the food and eventually eat he tells me about all the technological and cultural stuff I've missed while trapped in that school; and, damn, there's a lot of it.
After the food (which he pays for, of course - I try not to think about how much money he's wasting on me) we head towards the stairs.
"Well," Theo says as we start thundering up the first flight (well, he thunders; my feet are practically silent) "it kind of breaks my tradition of trying to see the sunset from a new place every day but, God, I have to show you this view."
"Are we going up on the roof?" Theo nods. "How are you allowed?"
"Having a rich dad means you can flutter your eyelashes into all kinds of shit," Theo says, more than a little bitterly. But then he smiles, a gesture I mirror without thinking about it. I'm actually so glad he's not mad at me.
He wasn't kidding. We reach the top floor and Theo talks to a couple people. After only about a minute or two, one of them unlocks a door for us and Theo steps forward. Before he can pass through, the woman who unlocked the door closes a hand around his arm.
"You aren't going to jump, are you?" she asks, her smile teasing like it isn't even close to a possibility.
"Of course not," Theo says, smiling politely for once. The woman lets him go, shaking her head humorously. Theo, smiling over his shoulder at me, steps out into the sunlight.
The sun is just starting to dip, sending the first stretches of gold across the sky. As we step out onto the roof, grey stone at our feet and a barrier surrounding on us on all sides, Theo steps away from me and heads straight to the edge in the direction of the sunset. I follow him, making sure to keep a significant distance between me and the barrier even as Theo presses right up against it like a bird about to take flight.
From a safe distance, I look down at the town, at the heads dipped to the pavement in determination and cars crawling down the roads. Then I look a Theo and realize that, if I were still alive, I would be breathless. And not just from the height.
It's like he's forgotten me, just like everyone before him. He looks out at his town and at the sunset and I can see it, I can see the joy he has at being alive in his eyes, which seem to take in all of the light instead of reflecting it. It's like he's trying to soak up every inch of the moment and the sunset before it's gone.
In that moment... I can't explain it. But he looks like he's the unearthly one in this situation, not me, even though it's my skin that glows like it's been sewn with diamonds in the golden light. But, unlike in my case, it's not a bad thing. His eyes are half closed, his skin glowing softly, a smile of contentment on his lips.
Before I can lose myself in him, I turn back to the sunset. I step a little closer to him so that our shoulders are just brushing so that I can feel his body rise and sink with each breath and his warmth through the small part of our skin that's touching.
I don't think I've ever shared a more comfortable silence.
And we stand there like that, shoulder to shoulder, until the sun dips low over the horizon, listening to the bustle of the town like we're apart from it like we're the only two people in the world.