The afternoon goes quickly. The table's cleared and the TV's turned on.
Christina spends the afternoon on the sofa with Evelyn and Mum, going through every detail of her doomed love affair with Will. She even asks for their advice on childbirth. "Tell me," she says, "does it hurt as much as they say?"
Dad's engrossed in his new book, Eating Organic. He occasionally reads out statistics about chemicals and pesticides to anyone who's interested. Tobias mostly talks to Caleb. He teaches him a new coin trick.
I keep changing my mind about him. Not if I fancy him or not, but if he likes me. Every now and then his eyes catch mine across the room, but he always looks away before I do.
"He wants you," Christina mouths at me at one point. But if it's true, I don't know how to make it happen.
I've spent the afternoon flicking through the book Caleb got me, A Hundred Weird Ways to Meet Your Maker. It's quite funny, but it doesn't stop me feeling as if there's a space inside me that's shrinking. I've sat in this chair in the corner for two hours, and I've separated myself. I know I do it and I know it isn't right, but I don't know how else to be.
By four o'clock it's dark and Dad's switched on all the lights. He brings out bowls of sweets and nuts. Mum suggests a game of cards. I sidle out to the hallway while they rearrange the chairs. I've had enough of stagnant walls and bookshelves. I've had enough of central heating and party games. I get my coat from its hook and go out into the garden.
The cold is shocking. It ignites my lungs, turns my breath to smoke. I put my hood up, pull the drawstring tight under my chin and wait.
Slowly, as if arriving out of the mist, everything in the garden comes into focus – the holly bush scratching the shed, a bird on the fence post, its feathers fluffing in the wind.
Indoors they'll be dealing out the cards and passing round the peanuts, but out here, each blade of grass glistens, spiked by frost. Out here, the sky's packed full of stars, like something from a fairytale. Even the moon looks stunned.
I squash windfalls under my boots on my way to the apple tree. I touch the twists in the trunk, trying to feel its bruised slate colour through my fingers. A few leaves hang damply in the branches. A handful of withered apples turn to rust.
Caleb says that humans are made from the nuclear ash of dead stars. He says that when I die, I'll return to dust, glitter, rain. If that's true, I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I'll be reformed as apple blossom. I'll drift down in the spring-like confetti and cling to my family's shoes. They'll carry me in their pockets, scatter the subtle silk of me across their pillows to help them sleep. What dreams will they have then? In the summer they'll eat me. Tobias will climb over the fence to steal me, maddened by my scent, by my roundness, the shine and health of me. He'll get his mum to cook me up in a crumble or a strudel and then he'll gorge on me.
I lie on the ground and try to imagine it. Really, really. I'm dead. I'm turning into an apple tree. It's a bit difficult though. I wonder about the bird I saw earlier if it's flown away. I wonder what they're doing indoors if they miss me yet.
I turn over and press my face right into the grass; it pushes coldly back at me. I rake my hands through it, bring up my fingers to smell the earth. It smells of leaf mould, worm breath.
"What are you doing?"
I turn round very slowly. Tobias' face is upside down. "I thought I'd come and look for you. Are you all right?"
I sit up and brush the dirt from my trousers. "I'm fine. I was hot."
He nods as if this explains why I have wet leaves stuck to my coat. I look like an idiot, I know I do. I also have my hood tied under my chin like an old woman. I undo it quickly.
I lie back on the grass to get away from his gaze. Cold seeps through my trousers like water.
He lies down next to me, right next to me. It hurts and hurts to have him this close. I feel sick with it.
"That's Orion's Belt," he says.
"What is?"
He points up to the sky. "See those three stars in a line? Mintaka, Alnilam, Alnitak." They bloom at the end of his finger as he names them.
"How do you know that?"
"When I was a kid, my dad used to tell me stories about the constellations. If you point binoculars below Orion, you'll see a giant gas cloud where all new stars are born."
"New stars? I thought the universe was dying."
"It depends on which way you look at it. It's also expanding." He rolls over onto his side and props himself up with one elbow.
"I've been hearing from your brother about you being famous."
"And did he tell you it was a complete disaster?"
He laughs. "No, but now you have to."
I like making him laugh. He has a beautiful mouth and it gives me the chance to look at him. So I tell him about the whole radio station ridiculousness and I make it much funnier than it really was. I sound heroic, an anarchist of the airwaves. Then, because it's going so well, I tell him about taking Dad's car and driving Christina to the hotel. We lie on the damp grass with the sky massive above us, the moon low and bright, and I tell him about the wardrobe, and how my name has gone from the world. I even tell him about my habit of writing on walls. It's easy to talk in the dark – I never knew that before.
When I've finished, he says, "You shouldn't worry about being forgotten, Tris" Then he says, "Do you reckon they'll miss us if we go next door for ten minutes?"
We both smile.
Flash, flash, goes the sign above my head.
As we go through the broken bit of fence and up the path to his back door, his arm brushes mine. We hardly touch at all, but it's startling.
I follow him into the kitchen. "I'll just be a minute," he says. "I've got a present for you," and he disappears into the hallway and runs up the stairs.
I miss him as soon as he goes. When he isn't with me, I think I made him up.
"Tobias?" It's the first time I've ever called his name. It sounds strange on my tongue, and powerful as if something will happen if I say it often enough. I go into the hallway and look up the stairs. "Tobias?"
"Up here. Come up if you want."
So I do.
His room's the same as mine, but backwards. He's sitting on his bed. He looks different, awkward. He has a small silver parcel in his hand.
"I don't even know if you're going to like this."
I sit next to him. Every night we sleep with only a wall between us. I'm going to knock a hole in the wall behind my wardrobe and make a secret entrance to his world.
"Here," he says. "I suppose you better open it."
Inside the wrapping paper is a bag. Inside the bag is a box. Inside the box is a bracelet – seven stones, all different colours, bound with a silver chain.
"I know you're trying not to acquire new things, but I thought you might like it."
I'm so startled I can't speak.
He says, "Shall I help you put it on?"
I hold out my hand and he wraps the chain around my wrist and does up the clasp. Then he threads his fingers with mine. We look down at our hands, together on the bed between us. Mine looks different, entangled with his, the new bracelet on my wrist. And his hands are completely new to me.
"Tris?" he says.
This is his room. With only a wall between my bed and his. We're holding hands. He bought me a bracelet.
"Tris?" he says again.
When I look at him, it feels like fear. His eyes are green and full of shadows. His mouth is beautiful. He leans towards me and I know. I know.
It hasn't happened yet, but it's going to.
Number eight is love.
My heart stumbles. "I can do that."
"No," Tobias says. "Let me."
Each buckle gets his absolute attention, then he slides my boots off and places them side by side on the floor.
I join him on the rug. I undo his laces, but each of his feet on my lap in turn and pull off his trainers. I stroke his ankles, my hand running under his trousers and up to his calves. I'm touching him. I'm touching the soft hair on his legs. I never knew I could be so brave.
We make it a game, like a strip poker, but without the cards or dice. I unzip his jacket and let it fall to the floor. He undoes my coat and slides it off my shoulders. He finds a leaf from the garden in my hair. I touch his dark curls, twine their strength through my fingers.
Nothing seems small with him watching, so I take my time with the buttons on his shirt. This last one condenses into a planet under our gaze – milky white and perfectly round.
It's astounding that we both know what to do. I'm not even having to think about it. I'm not being dragged along. It's not slick or knowing. It's as if we're discovering the path together.
I hold my hands over my head like a child as he peels my jumper off me. My hair, my new short hair, gets caught in static and crackles in the dark. It makes me laugh. It makes me feel as if my body is plump and healthy.
The backs of his fingers brush my breasts through my bra, and he knows, because we're looking at each other, that this is OK. I've been touched by so many people, prodded and poked, examined and operated on. I thought my body was numb, immune to touch.
We kiss again. For minutes. Tiny kisses where he bites my top lip gently, where my tongue edges his mouth. The room seems full of ghosts, of trees, the sky.
Our kisses become deeper. We sink into each other. It's like the first time we kissed – urgent, fierce.
"I want you," he says.
And I want him right back.
I want to show him my breasts. I want to undo my bra and get them out. I pull him towards the bed. We're still kissing – throats, necks, mouths. The room seems full of smoke, with something burning here between us.
I lie on the bed and buck my hips. I need my jeans off. I want to display myself to him, want him to see me.
"Are you sure about this?" he says.
"Very."
It's simple.
He unbuckles my jeans. I undo his belt with one hand, like a magic trick. I circle his belly button with my finger, my thumb nudging at his boxers.
The feel of his skin next to mine, the weight of him on top of me, his warmth pressing into me – I didn't know it would feel like this. I didn't understand that when you make love, you actually do make love. Stir things. Affect each other. The breath that escapes from me is dazzled. He breathes it in with a gasp.
His hand slides under my hip, I meet it with mine, our fingers lock. I'm not sure whose hand belongs to who.
I'm Tris.
He's Tobias.
It's utterly beautiful not to know my own edges.
The feel of us under our fingers. The taste of us on our tongues.
And always we watch each other, check with each other, like music, like a dance. Eye to eye.
It builds this ache between us, changing and swelling. I want him. I want him closer. I can't get near enough. I wrap my legs around him, sweep his back with my hands, trying to pull him further into me.
It's as if my heart springs up and marries my soul, as my whole body implodes. Like a stone falling in a pond, circles and circles of love ripple through me.
Tobias shouts for joy.
I gather him and hold him close. I'm amazed at him. At us. This gift.
He strokes my head, my face, he kisses my tears.
I'm alive, blessed to be with him on this earth, at this very moment.
Thank you for reading!