Read Online We Are All Made of Stars by Rowan Coleman - Free Book Online

If I were another girl, sitting in the park, watching him strut past, cock of the walk, I’d have thought: he loves himself, that one. I’d have looked at me: short, dark, nothing special, and thought it must be a nightmare being her and being with him. But I never felt that way about Vincent, because I knew him. He wasn’t vain. He didn’t care what he looked like, or what other people thought of him. Plenty of girls would give him the eye when we were out; he never noticed. It wasn’t about showing off for him; it was just that he so loved to be as alive as he possibly could. He loved feeling his muscles ache and his heart beating, and the sun on his back or the rain in his hair. He loved every moment of it. I’ve never met a man that inhabited his body as well as Vincent, at ease right down to the tips of his fingers.
    He’d laugh at me, sitting naked in bed eating crisps while I watched him do press-ups, and I’d laugh at him.
    â€˜You should come running with me,’ he’d say, early on in our courtship, and I’d shake my head.
    â€˜You should love me the way I am,’ I’d tell him. ‘With wobbly bits! I told you on the day we met that I’m lazy. I don’t sit down at all at the hospital, so when I’m not working I like to lie down. And eat.’
    â€˜I know, and I do love you the way you are.’ He’d grab me around the waist and lift me up, clean off the floor, like I didn’t weigh quite a lot more than twelve stone – even potentially thirteen if I ever got anywhere near a set of scales, which I didn’t. ‘Especially your wobbly bits, actually, but it’s not about that. It’s about the feeling you get: the road beneath the soles of your feet, the smell in the air. It makes you feel strong, somehow, invincible. Exercise is better than any drug. I want you to feel that too.’
    â€˜And how would you know what’s better than a drug?’ I’d tease him. ‘Your body is a temple. You don’t even take caffeine.’
    Sometimes, on days like that, he’d drop me on the bed, sometimes on the rug, and kiss me all over until I pleaded for him to stop. We laughed and laughed and laughed in those early days. Every day we were together was like the first day. Perhaps it was because he was away so much, because we spent so much time apart, that when we were together we were starving for each other – desperate and hungry for every second that we were connected.
    The day he bought me these running shoes was a fiercely bright one, full of sunshine and arching faultless sky. He’d presented them to me on one knee, offering the shoebox like a ring on a velvet pillow.
    â€˜Top of the range,’ he told me, proudly.
    â€˜And pink!’ I cried out, looking at the neon articles. ‘You bought me pink running shoes because I’m a girl – sexist!’
    â€˜You like pink,’ he said, still on one knee. ‘Your curtains are pink, your duvet is pink, you have a pink toothbrush and loads of pink underwear. I got you pink because you like it, babe.’
    â€˜Yeah, when I choose pink it’s a choice. When you choose pink it’s a patriarchal statement of expecting me to conform to your masculine ideals,’ I teased.
    â€˜Fuck off,’ he said, laughing. ‘Your fucking car is even almost pink – well, purple! Anyway, whatever colour they are, they are exactly the right size for running: your shoe size plus half a size so your toes don’t get rubbed.’
    And that made me love him just a little bit more, so I accepted the shoes.
    On the first day we went out running together, I dragged my feet and complained. I whined like a toddler, and he promised me an ice cream as he ran circles around me. He finally left me waiting for him on a park bench in the sunshine, with my rapidly melting prize, as he disappeared over the brow of the hill. I was still there,