The first day I met Jamie it was unexpectedly warm. I was sporting a matching pair of pink cotton shorts and t-shirt with an embroidered strawberry adorning the hem. It was an exciting morning for my Mum as she giddily packed the set for P.E. class, singing around the house about how cute I would surely look. He hadn’t said much to me as the teacher explained the rules of the agility course and how you can’t take the hula-hoops home with you as they’re school property so, everyone was to please stop asking. Standing in the corner with nobly knees and a freckled nose, he watched the scene of frantic children before him with a calm demeanour.
“McGregor!” I heard a stern voice pipe up. Spinning around, I had spotted the teacher classically standing with hands fixed on her hips looking at me with a mix of exasperation and expectancy. She pointed to the freckled boy in the corner, “you and Jamie are the red team. Go stand with your partner.” I blinked once more, absorbing the information before trotting over to where he stood.
“Hello,” I said in, what I’ve been told by many, is a soft-spoken tone.
“You’ve got strawberries on your shorts.” That’s all he said, not even a hello, or how-do-you-do. What a strange wee boy, I had thought. Thing is, I have been afflicted in life with being pulled into the gravity of people who intrigue me. It can be the smallest thing, a laugh, a look in their eyes, the way they hold their shoulders. It can be the smallest thing, and then I’m sucked into their orbit, stuck with their being etched onto my mind forever more.
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Unfortunately for me, I found Jamie to be very intriguing.
He still has the essence of that freckled child I once knew, the fluffy and unruly auburn hair, the gentle crook of his nose that bent more out of shape as he sniffled (which he often does as colds never seem to escape him for long), the look of calm he eyes often seemed to in-still. I’d never much concerned myself with romance growing up, preferring to focus on what lay ahead of me, the idea of a childhood romance especially irked me. Yet, here in front of me, sits proof of one existing. I don’t know that if I were to show pictures of him to my Canadian friends that they’d understand what I was so enamoured with, because I was deeply enamoured. It is something in his person, indescribable really, that charmed me most. I can’t say that it’s completely disappeared as I struggle to conceal a warm smile at his incessant sniffles.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he says, looking directly at me, as he tends to do.
“Yes, well, I am.” I respond, shrugging. “Surely you must’ve assumed that I’d be returning with everything that happened.”
“No, I didn’t assume at all.” His directness stings for a second and he spots it. “Sorry, Eilidh. I didn’t mean it like that. Just thought that this is the last place you’d want to be.”
“I never thought that, a Lochbar is my home,” I say with a sincerity that scares us both. Jamie goes to speak but all is interrupted by Innis stomping into the living room and declaring that the time for visitors is over.