Excerpt: An Impractical Guide to Love

Then things are hazy. Snapshots of an acquaintance. I can see us in the pub together, and I can hear us laughing. I can smell him, sort of, some combination of aftershave and crisps and January winds, but none of it quite adds up to a memory. I know where we went and what we did, who we were with and when we were there, and if I prod hard at a recess of my mind I can think of the odd conversational snippet or collided gaze. There's a reality lacking in my cobbled-together perception of our early days, setting it aside from everything else in my mind, the only things I don't really trust. Did that happen? Well, I know it did. But did it happen that way, or did I make all the details up afterwards to fit in with the way I see him now?
I don't remember anything firmly enough to truly believe it until the first time we kissed, in my kitchen on a Sunday afternoon. It was a gentle, sleepy kiss, almost accidental, as if our heads just happened to be a little too close together. I didn't realise it had happened until afterwards, when we smiled slightly at each other and turned away.
Still with his back to me, he said, “Grace, this is probably a terrible idea, but I'm not sure I care anymore.”
“What makes it terrible?” I asked, pretending to inspect my fingernails.
“There's something about you. It's – I don't know, it confuses me. Normal people don't sit under someone else's tree all night.”
“No. Normal people don't suggest it in the first place, either.”
“That's sort of my point. I never do that stuff. I don't think I know who I am around you.”
“So we sat under a tree, and now you're having an identity crisis?”
He turned around and gave me an amused glare. “Yes, alright, why not? The combination of woman and tree has sparked massive mental turbulence. I am going to go to my room and compose some truly terrible performance poetry consisting only of anguished yowls.”
“That doesn't sound like an identity crisis at all. It sounds like a very positive step forward and a wise career move. You think you can stay in marketing forever?”
“Are you always like this?”
“No, just around you.”