Page 5 of A Flash of Neon
Caitlin’s smile faded a little. My nonchalant act almost had her convinced. “OK, then. Let’s see a photo.”
“I don’t have one,” I said quickly. “I didn’t take any, and his mum doesn’t let him use social media.”
“Oh, how convenient.”
She laughed, any doubt she’d had that I was lying vanished. Hannah gave her a look, like it was time to wrap this up – she could never go as far with the teasing as Caitlin did.
Caitlin held up her hands in mock defeat. “OK, Laurie. If you say so.”
I thought that would be the end of it. Instead, Neon became a running joke for Caitlin: she’d ask if I’d heard from him recently, or demand more details about our first kiss together. She never accused me outright of making the whole thing up, but it was clear she kept mentioning him because she wanted me to crack and admit it.
The harder she tried, the more determined I became not to. So I said I had his number and we spoke on the phone sometimes. I said the Statue of Liberty snow globe that Gio brought me back from a holiday to NYC three years ago was actually a gift from Neon. The longer my list of lies became, the harder they were to untangle. Soon it felt like there was no going back.
One day, I created an online profile for him. I posted photos of places around Manhattan and Brooklyn, things he had made or eaten, a pet dog that I named Cauliflower. And then, knowing that Caitlin and Hannah would go looking for them if I ‘accidentally’ left my phone unlocked, I began to send myself messages from his account. ‘We’ talked back and forth for ages, about everything: our families and friends, books and music and TV, the things that worried us or that we were scared of. It was partly like a diary, partly like a novel. I created a character with a life much more exciting than mine, in a big, shiny city that I’d only ever seen on a screen, but I poured all my own thoughts and feelings into it too.
I was even creating accounts for his made-up friends and relatives to make his profile look authentic. Caitlin still wasn’t convinced he was real, but at some point it didn’t matter. I’d stopped doing it for her. Neon had become someone I could rely on. He was always there to listen. I could tell him anything without worrying that he would laugh at me behind my back or use it against me later on. He may not have been real, but he felt like a real friend.
When I told Caitlin and Hannah that Neon was coming to visit me, it wasn’t because they had been asking questions or teasing me about him – they hadn’t even brought him up that day. I just wanted it to be true so badly, and I’d become so used to trying to prove to them that he was real that I let it slip out. I never actually planned to come to the station today. There are messages scheduled to arrive to my account from his in a few hours’ time, saying that he’s so, so sorry but his mum received some really bad news and they have to fly back to New York immediately.
But now … here he is, standing on the platform in front of me.
Caitlin and Hannah bombard Neon with questions, but I still haven’t said anything. All I can do is stare at the birthmark above his eyebrow. If it wasn’t for that, I might think that this was some horrible practical joke – that Caitlin had managed to track down a random boy who looked exactly like Neon, and could do a convincing New York accent, and had somehow persuaded him to come to Scotland to freak me out. But there’s no faking that birthmark.
“Do you mind if we go and get something to eat?” Neon rubs his stomach. “I’m starving.”
“Yeah, of course.” Caitlin puts her hand on my arm. When she smiles at me now, it’s genuine. “Do you want us to come too, Laurie?”
Somehow I manage to nod. I’ve wished that Neon was real lots of times. I’ve imagined what it would be like to actually have him in my life, a real person and not a figment of my imagination. In those daydreams, I always felt so happy to see him, but now I’m completely numb. Because, as I follow him and my friends out of the train station, the truth hits me: I have absolutely no idea who this boy is.
Hannah’s shooting-star earrings jingle as she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”
Ten minutes after Neon’s arrival, we’re sitting at a café in the shopping centre with half-drunk hot chocolates or frappuccinos in front of us (except Neon, who says he’s all coffee’d out after the train and pulls a pack of shortbread from his backpack). I’m still too shocked to speak much – Hannah even had to order my drink for me – but my friends keep the conversation going with a million questions for Neon. They want to know what living in New York City is like, what he did while he was in London, how he got his mum to agree to him taking a solo trip to visit me while she stays in Edinburgh. Each of his answers matches exactly with the story I made up for him. Each of them makes me feel like I’m losing my mind.
Neon leans back in his seat. “I can’t believe it, either. Laurie and I have talked about it for so long. It doesn’t feel real.”
He smiles at me. We’re sitting beside each other, Caitlin and Hannah on the other side of the table, and I can’t stop looking at him. I’m searching for a giveaway, something to prove that this boy isn’t the Neon that I made up, because he can’t be. But there’s nothing. He’s exactly like I pictured him, right down to the slightly chewed thumbnails.
Neon doesn’t seem uncomfortable with my eagle-eyed stare, or surprised that I’ve barely uttered a word since he got here. I nod and open my mouth to say something now, but all that comes out is an unintelligible mumble.
“To tell you the truth,” Caitlin says, “Hannah and I didn’t thinkyouwere real.”
Neon looks at her, his dark eyebrows rising slightly. “Oh, really? Why?”
“Well…” Caitlin waves her hand in a vague circle in front of him. “Your name, for one thing. And the fact you’re from America.”
Neon snorts. “OK, so my nameispretty uncommon. But what’s unusual about being American? There are over three hundred million of us.”
“Yeah, I know, but…” Caitlin is getting flustered. She looks at Hannah for backup, but Hannah is busy taking an extremely long sip of her hot chocolate. “It’s hard to explain. It felt too good to be true, Laurie meeting someone like that.”
Hearing her say that out loud makes me wince. Neon pokes himself in the chest, the cheek, the forehead, then looks back at Caitlin with a tight smile. “Nah. Definitely real. You should probably apologise to Laurie for calling her a liar, though.”
He says this in such a cheerful tone that at first Caitlin and Hannah don’t notice that he’s criticising them. Their smiles falter.
“We never actually called her a liar,” Caitlin says awkwardly.
“No, Neon’s right.” Hannah licks a smear of hot chocolate from her lower lip and looks at me. There actually is some regret in her large blue eyes. “I’m sorry, Laurie. We should have believed you.”
Caitlin mumbles that she’s sorry too. I don’t know what to say. Iama liar, at least where this is concerned. I’ve told my friends hundreds of lies about Neon over the last six months. Though, when I was telling them, they didn’t feel like lies. Neon had become almost as real to me as the kids in our class at school.
