Living With Boys

before // december, aged 16

"I can't believe you're leaving."

It was thirteen weeks and four days after Will told me he was going on a year-long backpacking trip before he started university, and I still hadn't wrapped my head around the concept that I was going to go three hundred and sixty-five days without seeing him.

It was hard to imagine, when he was installed in his usual spot dwarfing my little pink desk chair, his ankles crossed over and his lips quirked into a small smile every time I got excited and started bouncing a little from my place in the centre of my mattress. His presence was so familiar that the notion of his absence was incongruent, a little disconcerting.

Even though I'd only moved into this apartment with Jamie and Kai three months ago, Will had already become a permanent fixture, taking up residence so frequently he should probably contribute to the rent. I'd seen him more often lately; with Kai and Valerie's newly formed relationship and consequent obsession with each other, Will had been taking up some of Kai's usual duties, driving me home from school and keeping me company in the evenings when they went out on date nights.

I tried to explain to Kai that I wasn't an excitable puppy who needed constant attention and company, but I couldn't deny that I was happier with company, and would probably have been lonely if Will wasn't putting in so much effort.

Except in less than a day, Will and Kai were leaving.

The whole thing was an exercise in resisting the urge to pout or throw a small fit, but as the outlier at just-turned-sixteen to Will, Kai and their friends' newly graduated eighteen, that would probably do me no favours on my perennial quest to seem very grown up and mature.

"I know," said Will. "I can barely believe it either."

"That's probably because you barely even talk about it," I told him. "You're literally backpacking the world. You're visiting 6 continents, and you don't even bring it up."

"I don't want to seem insufferable," Will said. "Is anyone more widely hated than the guy who doesn't shut up about his upcoming backpacking trip? Or that person who subtly tries to bring it up at every possible moment?" Will pitched his voice slightly higher, which sounded funny in his deep baritone. "'Oh, I'm exhausted. I've just been working so much lately, you know, to save up for my trip.'"

I laughed, which I knew was the only reason he'd put on the accent. But he was so wrong. I definitely would not have hated Will for talking about it. Every offhand mention of his travels was etched into my mind. I was obsessed with the concept of his trip, all of the places he would see and the people he would meet. I was consumed with the vision of him sitting at a French café or camel riding through the Moroccan desert, with the thought of who he would choose to spend his time with when he was over there. I wanted to know everything, but he was annoyingly stingy with the details.

"Sure, I get that, but this is me," I said. "If you can be annoying with anyone, I am your girl. But I actually love hearing about it, even if it makes me absolutely green with jealousy."

I said it like I was kidding, but I was absolutely not. I'd give my left tit to be eighteen with all of them, to be Kai's twin instead of his little sister, and to be able to go meet Will for some his trip like the rest of them.

"Besides," I added. "I've always been intolerably insufferable with you, so I'd be returning the favour."

Will grinned, stretching back on the chair. "Not quite intolerably. On the border, for sure, but I'm still here."

"Oh, shut up." I threw a pillow at him. He dodged it with ease. "Besides, you're only here twenty more hours, so that is not a strong argument."

He nodded sagely. "I never told you why I was leaving, did I?"