Page 16 of The Interview

“Fuck me,” Marley mumbles.

“Jesus fucking Christ, hide your eyes, girls,” Cam says behind us.

I hear a gagging sound and know without looking that it’s Kiks.

“Well, well, well, Uncle Marley,” Lu teases. “Is your left bollock actually hanging?—”

“Lu!” I cut her off before she states the obvious, what we can all see up on the screen.

“Cocky, much?” Makenzie calls from somewhere.

In that moment, the mood in the room changes as quickly as I know firsthand that life can. From the shock and solemnity of the first picture, my cheeks now hurt from grinning at the second.

“What can I say? There’s a reason my wife’s always happy,” Marley says with a grin.

“Always, Rock Star. Always.” We both turn to see Ash has now joined our growing audience. “Although, if the rumours are true, your sister’s about two inches happier than I am.”

And there she is, my beautiful, straight-talking sister from another mister. She winks and gives us a little wave.

I turn back to the screen in time to see the next image appear. It’s Jimmie and me dressed in identical outfits: big hair, black headbands, white vests with a black mesh cropped top over it, black rara skirt, and flat white pumps. Apart from a little too much eyeliner, our faces are bare of makeup. Fresh, young, glowing.

“Mum, you were such a babe. Just look at you,” Kiki calls out.

“Your mother still is a babe,” Cam corrects, and my smile grows.

The next picture appears on the screen.

It’s a different bar, but we’re still in Portugal.

It’s Sean and me.

Young.

So fucking young.

Tanned.

I’m wearing a short, black leather skirt, an oversized Sex Pistols tee—it was one of Marley’s—that hangs off one shoulder and is tied in a knot under my boobs, leaving my waist and belly on show. My hair is big and curly, probably permed, held up on one side, and I have high-tops on my feet.

Sean’s arm is slung across my shoulder. He’s wearing white shorts and a black and white Ramones tee, with black and white trainers on his feet. His hair is pushed back off his face.Again, it’s curling behind his ears and collar. My fingers tingle as I, onceagain,recall how it felt: so fucking soft.

It looks like we coordinated our outfits. We didn’t. It was a pure fluke, but everyone gave us shit that night anyway.

But none of that is what’s striking about the photo displayed on the screen.

What floors me, and once again brings silence to the room, is the way Sean is looking down at me. The absolute adoration in his eyes, the lopsided smile on his lips. It’s the way I’m looking up at him, looking so much older than my almost fourteen years, because I’m not smiling. Not with my mouth, anyway. I’m smiling from my heart. It’s radiating from within me, and in the way I’m looking up at Sean. Anyone looking at this picture knows they’re looking at a couple of kids in love. A couple obsessed. A couple who, in that moment, the rest of the world did not exist for.

This picture captures what, for years, I’ve failed to put into words when asked about the love Sean and I had shared.

Yes, we were young and dumb, we onlythoughtwe had it all figured out, but what we knew with absolute certainty was that we were it for each other.

We just knew.

“That’s it. That’s them,” Marley says beside me. “When people used to ask me about Maca and my sister, if I was worried about her being so young, this picture explains exactly why I wasn’t. This picture is… it’s just them. This is what no one else saw. I did. Jim, Lennon, we’re the only ones who really knew how deep and obsessive their love for each other was. Right from the very beginning…” Marley trails off.

“We weresoyoung,” I whisper.

“You were. We all were.”