It’s summertime, and Sunny and I are alone on a hazy country road. We’re driving to his parents’ holiday home in Cornwall. A breeze from the open windows dances with our hair. He’s singing along to some country love song. The memory is distilled under a layer of fondness, thick like resin, one of those moments that will remain exactly like this. Almost insulting in its own perfection, as if through the flared lens of an inexperienced filmmaker attempting to replicate a much better coming-of-age movie. It’s all there, all the elements you’d expect. The beginning of a journey, the fumblings of early adulthood, and most importantly the first real regrets of our lives. And they will echo, because every canyon started out as a river and every river started out as a fickle stream.
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“When you love someone, they say you set ‘em free,” the radio sings.
Sunny stops the car.
“What the actual fu-”
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“But that ain’t gonna work for me ... ”
He grabs me by my shoulders, and my entire body becomes rigid and useless. But he just sings away into my face, winding a mockery of a romantic gesture.
“I don’t wanna live without you ... ”
When he leans in close to sing the final lines, his eyes sparkle. A strong, pulsing force overtakes my chest.
“I don’t wanna go down any other road now ... ”
I smile back at him, wriggling free of his grip. He turns to gesture at some imagined person outside the car, waving those animated hands and scrunching his face up with passion.
“Lookin’ in your eyes now, if I had to die now,
I don’t wanna love nobody but you.”
The song ends. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Sunny is quite possibly my only friend. My closest friend anyway. There is a lot I could say about him, so I’ll keep it brief.
The choice in Sunny’s nickname is quite obvious. His disposition when happy is akin to a blemishless summer sky, the reflection of calm waters, of breezy rivers and still, lazy ponds. His smiles and his arms are always wide and open, tiny gaps between his teeth. Sunny’s parents hadn’t been the brace type. They were the run-barefoot-in-the-mud type, the climb-trees-and-never-clean type. He wore washed-out neutrals in the summer and old sweaters in the autumn, and always runners. He had to keep light on his feet; you never knew when the need to run would arise, he had told me near the start of our acquaintance, laughing on a friend’s couch. If I didn’t know him as well as I did I would point to that and say ‘Look! A flaw.’ A lack of commitment, a need to always shift his weight from one foot to another, light flickering inside of a moving train, the first sparks of a fire. But it wasn’t a flaw, it kept him fresh, it kept him awake and new. Same old Smoky, same new Sunny. Where I drained people’s energy, where I demanded and required and gave very little, Sunny always gave everyone his all, until there was little left.
“I can’t believe it, Smoky.”
“You can’t believe what?”
“That this is my life. This summer ... ” He says his girlfriend’s name. “And I’m so glad to have you here too.”
“Oh shut up.”
“No, I mean it. I’m glad you’re here.”
I shrug. “Better than staying home.”
“She’s so special, Smoky.”
“Yeah,” I say, looking out the window.
“I think – fuck it, I know I do – I love her.”
I grin, then laugh. Praying he interprets it as surprise, not desperation. A sharp, loud exhale that seems to come from the deepest part of my lungs. It feels like a cough and tumbles out of me, jagged and condescending.
“Wow,” I say. “That’s a pretty big deal.” He doesn’t notice though, continuing to play with the collar of his shirt.
I stare at the sun and squeeze my eyes tightly until little colourful shapes appear behind my eyelids.
“You okay?” He asks. I realise I’ve been silent for longer than usual.
“Yeah. Just tired,” I lie. “You’re such an idiot.” That part’s true.
“Can’t hear you,” he says, beginning to turn the volume up on Better than Revenge by Taylor Swift. I pry his fingers away from the dial.
“Absolutely not. Sunny’s Music Half-Hour is over; it’s my turn.”
He sighs dramatically, drumming his fingers on the wheel.
Whenever I look outside I feel like the landscape is jeering at me, the curve of the hills on the horizon like smug grins.
A flock of gulls flies overhead. Why are you not satisfied? Why is this the one thing you cannot get over?
Their screeches are harsh laughter. The wind is pinches of cold.
As we pass by country mansions with long brick driveways, I imagine people raising wine glasses in sunrooms and chuckling amongst themselves. Don’t you know? You’re Smoky, that’s why he won’t ever want you.
Everyone wanted Sunny. Understandably. Given a choice between a slice of heavenly rays (which taste like lemon meringue) and liquid smoke. You’d always choose the cake.
His girlfriend greets us in the driveway. Her ballet flats graze the gravel as he swings her in his arms. They’re pale pink with little bows.
I introduce myself.
