Little Star

‘Of course you do. You’re an item.’

‘And what if we’re not? Are you pissed, by the way?’

‘No.’

‘You sound pissed.’

‘I’m just a little bit happy. Aren’t I allowed to be a little bit happy?’

Johannes shrugged, and Teresa grabbed a handful of cheese puffs out of a bowl, munching them as she sank back on the sofa and looked around the room. With a few exceptions they weren’t too bad after all, the people in her class. She looked at Leo and remembered the time he helped her fix her bicycle chain when it came off. She looked at Mimmi and remembered they’d quite enjoyed doing a Swedish project together. And so on.

For the first time in ages a faint longing stirred inside her. She wanted to join in, if only a little bit. Get closer, be part of things, do what the others did. A part of her knew that she actually didn’t want to and couldn’t anyway, but right now that was the way she felt and because it was pleasant, she stayed with the feeling.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ said Johannes, who hadn’t spoken for a while.

‘What?’

‘What would have happened if I hadn’t moved house.’

Teresa waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she helped him out. ‘You turned into a bit of a dude after that.’

Johannes gave a stiff little smile. ‘Not really. I just did what I had to do to fit in, kind of. Sometimes I think… shit, if only I’d been able to stay there. We had fun sometimes, didn’t we?’

‘Do you really think about this?’

‘Yes. Sometimes.’

Teresa swallowed a lump of soggy cheese puffs. Then she swallowed again and said, ‘Me too.’

They were sitting close together. By this stage Teresa was so familiar with every form of sorrow that she could pick the different kinds with the precision of a car spotter. As soon as they got close, she could identify the model. This was melancholy. Grieving for something that has been and can never be again.

But it was a pleasant sorrow, a Moomintroll sorrow so unlike the one she carried around in her everyday life that she welcomed it like a warm, woolly blanket. There was an ache in her breast, and when Johannes put his arm around her, she leaned her head on his shoulder.

Johannes.

She closed her eyes and gave herself up to her dizziness and her lightly borne melancholy. She was almost happy. There was a flash and she opened her eyes. Karl-Axel had crept up close and taken a picture of them with his mobile. Johannes didn’t seem to care, and Teresa closed her eyes again.

Johannes. If only everything had been different.

That time on the rocks. If she had let him put his tongue in her mouth, if she hadn’t pushed him away. If he hadn’t moved house, if she hadn’t…perhaps she wouldn’t have got so fat, perhaps she wouldn’t be taking the pills now, perhaps…

‘Hi.’

Teresa opened her eyes again. Agnes was sitting next to her on the sofa. Even though Johannes didn’t take his arm away, Teresa sat up straight as if she had been caught in the middle of some forbidden act. Or thought.

Agnes was looking shyly at Johannes. Teresa couldn’t understand how anyone could resist such a look; she would gladly have sacrificed a finger to look like Agnes for just one day.

No. Not one day. One week. One month. Her little finger for one month. Not her index finger. Her index finger for one year. Her whole hand for her whole life? Her left hand, in that case.

Johannes touched her shoulder. ‘What’s the matter?’

Teresa didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there caught up in thoughts about looks and body parts, but when she came out of them she could feel that something had changed in the atmosphere between Agnes and Johannes, and she was sitting between them like a third wheel. She got up and went into the kitchen.

On the worktop she found half a glass of red wine and knocked it back. She thought it tasted peculiar, as if it had been mixed with spirits.

Her right hand for Johannes. Special offer-one kidney, her right hand and twenty kilos of flesh. Shylock. The Merchant of Venice. A pound of flesh. What does that mean?

She went for a wander around the house. People were sitting in groups, and she felt slightly sick when she realised they were just talking lumps of flesh. Jenny was posed unnaturally against a door frame, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she talked to Albin, whose hand was resting on her hip.

They’re going to fuck. Everybody’s going to go off and fuck.

Teresa’s gaze locked onto Jenny’s hip, and she thought about the set of exclusive chef’s knives she had seen on a magnetic holder in the kitchen. Shylock. If she sliced away Jenny’s hips, Albin wouldn’t have anything to hold onto.

‘What are you looking at, headcase?’ Jenny hissed at her and Albin adopted a stance that suggested he would defend his fuck if necessary. Teresa pulled a face at them and wobbled into the living room. Agnes and Johannes were snogging the face off each other on the sofa. Teresa hadn’t really thought they were capable of such a thing. Particularly Agnes, who was always so cool when it came to expressions of affection, but now she was half lying on top of Johannes, her tongue slurping away in his mouth as her hand squeezed his inner thigh.

Teresa stood staring at them. Johannes seemed to be having some difficulty keeping control of his hands; a couple of fingers slipped inside the waistband of Agnes’ jeans at the back, but didn’t dare go any further. They were among other people, after all. Instead they rubbed themselves against one another, licking and sucking and enjoying themselves inside their bubble of arousal.

Teresa stared. Alternate streams of hot and cold liquid flooded her body. The stereo was playing that song about dying.

We’re gonna die at the same time, you and I

We’re gonna die-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie-ie…

She tore herself away. She moved through the house as if she were underwater, towards the front door. There was only one thing she wanted. She managed to get down the steps and over to the garage, where she fell to her knees next to the box, took out a bottle of Bacardi Breezer and drank. Relief, for a few seconds. She emptied the bottle in thirty seconds then remained on her knees for a long time, swaying back and forth with her head in her hands.

‘For fuck’s sake, are you pinching my supplies?’

Micke was standing in front of her, a drunken smile playing around his lips. When Teresa opened her mouth to apologise, he waved dismissively and said, ‘It’s cool. What’s mine is yours and all that shit.’ He leaned against the door frame and lit a cigarette. When he offered Teresa the packet, her eyes filled with tears.

‘Micke. You’re so bloody nice. So kind.’

‘Sure I am. You want one or not?’

‘Can’t you fuck me? Now?’

Micke gave a snort. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re pissed.’

‘I’m not pissed. Everybody else is pissed. They’re all pissed and they’re going to fuck.’

Micke was standing directly in front of her. Teresa placed one hand over his crotch, squeezed his cock. Micke waved her hand away half-heartedly, but when she began to rub she could feel him growing hard.

‘For fuck’s sake, Teresa. Pack it in.’

But she didn’t want to pack it in. She wanted to be fucked and snogged like everybody else and she wanted to be close and part of it all. Through the water billowing all around her and making everything blurred, she shuffled forward on her knees. She watched her hands like two alien fish as they undid Micke’s belt and pulled down his zip.

When she took his semi-erect cock in her mouth, Micke groaned out loud. A couple of thrusts in and out and he was completely hard, and there were no more protests. He placed his hand on her head, buried his fingers in her hair and pressed her towards him.

For a little while she enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling. The warm piece of flesh in her mouth, the sounds Micke