Shy

The boom-box is destroying my ears. I'm wearing my best jeans, battered sneakers and a plain T-shirt. I knew none of the writhing teenagers would care about how I looked. I'm in Hessen Germany, partying with underage locals.
I always do the same thing at parties. I find someone who looks as shy as me and I try to strike up a conversation.
I scan the room. Most of the girls are in denim minis and leather boots. They are trying so hard to look older. I remember how we used to cover up our faces with insane amounts of makeup. There's enough mascare here to paint a ceiling.
The guys are drunk. To my ageing eyes, they look like a throw-back to the grunge era, except they don't know it's a throw-back. All plaid shirts and holes. They can't dance and they were born in 1993.
One youth is propping up the impromptu bar. Alone? Check. Shy-looking? Yup. I advance towards him. The DJ is playing some ode to grinding. I pour myself some water and smile way up at him. He's tall. He wears braces. He's eighteen.

This is pretty funny.

As I speak with him in German, he answers timidly at first, but with more aplomb as the conversation advances. A drunk crony of his crashes into me. I force water down him, and let him cry on my shoulder.
When he goes off to lie down, my tall German sits next to me. He's pegged me down as an eccentric, worldly, older French girl. He confesses that he's never kissed a girl and that he can't wait to get his braces off. We drink to their removal. He asks me about France. His hands inch towards me, then retreat.

I'm five years older. I know all the moves, baby.

I dance, lost in the weirdness of the situation. Sweaty Germans merge hazily. The Tall German comes up to me. His hand clumsily clasps my waist, clumsily draws me towards him. His eyes are full of sadness, fear, desire and resolution. And I remember every single one of those emotions. I remember being a teenager.


I stare at him, watching him stare back. I'm surprisingly moved. I want to kiss him because I never got the nerve to kiss all those other boys, when I was sixteen. I want to kiss him because he wants me to. I know I won't.

He watches me leave the improvised disco. As I gather my stuff, I know how he feels, and as I walk into the cool autumn dawn, I see how pretty the mist is. My T-shirt clings to me. As I cross a shop window, a pink face is watching me with haunted smiling eyes, filled with forgotten anguish, and everlasting shyness.