Loveless

by Alice Oseman

  Rooney wandered off into the mass of stalls again. Pip, Jason and I headed towards the Domino’s stand, Pip’s eyes never leaving the back of Rooney’s head, and Jason asking Pip, ‘What the fuck was that?’

  A bonding opportunity for my only three friends was definitely a good idea, but this was somewhat counteracted by the fact that Rooney seemed to delight in irritating Pip, while Pip seemed to be infuriated by her mere existence in all of our lives, and I had already discovered that I was not a fan of clubs and bars.

  Felipa Quintana

  THE VIBES, GEORGIA. THE VIBES.

  Georgia Warr

  what of them

  Felipa Quintana

  THEY ARE BAD

  I should have seen it when we met

  She’s full of bad vibes

  Georgia Warr

  rooney’s actually quite nice

  are you just saying this because you saw her hooking up with someone?? no slut-shaming is allowed in this group chat

  Felipa Quintana

  OBVIOUSLY NOT. She can hook up with whoever she likes however much she wants, I have no problems with people who enjoy casual hooking up

  I’m just getting a bad vibe

  . . . . . . She made fun of my cacti

  Jason Farley-Shaw

  In other news

  Where are we meeting and what time??

  I don’t know where John’s Bar is!!

  Georgia Warr

  i’ll come pick you both up from pip’s room

  i’m concerned about pip arriving by herself and making a scene as soon as she sees rooney

  Jason Farley-Shaw

  Oh that’s good thinking. Smart.

  Felipa Quintana

  FUCK you both

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of going to a bar and not making a scene just because I don’t like one person,’ said Pip as she opened her door to me later that evening.

  I’d been given specific directions but still ended up having to call her and be verbally directed around the winding corridors of Castle. And if that wasn’t enough chaos to deal with on a Friday evening, Pip’s bedroom was in definite competition for messiest bedroom in Durham. There were more clothes on the floor than there appeared to be in her open wardrobe, her desk was piled high with incredibly boring-looking science books and pieces of paper, and her bedsheets were smushed into a corner, several feet away from her bed.

  ‘Sure you are,’ I said, patting Pip on the head.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Georgia Warr. Did you bring my denim jacket?’

  ‘Your denim jacket?’ I smacked my head. I could picture exactly where Pip’s jacket was in my room – on the back of my desk chair. ‘Oh, no, sorry, I totally forgot.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Pip, but she glanced down at her outfit nervously. ‘I was gonna wear it tonight, but … do you think I look OK without it? Or maybe I could wear a bomber jacket.’

  She looked really good, actually – she was wearing a stripy short-sleeved shirt, tucked in at the hips into a pair of ripped black skinny jeans, and her hair was carefully styled. And she looked very much like herself, which I thought was more important.

  Pip had always been kind of insecure about how she looked. But now that she was actually dressing how she’d always wanted to dress, and had cut her hair and all that, she exuded a sort of confidence that I could never hope to achieve – a confidence that said I know exactly who I am.

  ‘You look really nice,’ I said.

  She smiled. ‘Thanks.’

  I’d decided to wear something slightly more casual than my last attempt at ‘going out’ – some high-waisted jeans and a tight-fit crop top – but I still felt a little like I was wearing a costume. My usual comfy knitwear style wasn’t really suitable for bars and clubs.

  Jason arrived minutes later, wearing his teddy-bear jacket on top of his standard T-shirt–jeans combo. He took one look at the floor and immediately started picking up items of clothing and folding them. ‘Jesus fucking Christ, Pip. Learn to tidy.’

  ‘It’s absolutely fine how it is. I know where everything is.’

  ‘Maybe so, but it won’t be absolutely fine when you start getting spiders birthing underneath your sweatshirts.’

  ‘Ew, Jason. Don’t say “birthing”.’

  We did a quick tidy of Pip’s room before leaving. It was only a few minutes’ walk from Castle to St John’s – we had to cross Palace Green, past the cathedral, and down a little side street – and in that time, I decided to confront Pip about the exact reason for her declaration of ‘bad vibes’.

  ‘I don’t have a crush on her,’ said Pip instantly, which confirmed the fact that she definitely had a crush on Rooney. ‘I don’t get crushes on straight girls. Any more.’

  ‘So you’ve decided that she’s your mortal enemy because …?’

  ‘You know what it is?’ Pip folded her arms, pulling her bomber jacket round her. ‘She’s the sort of person who just thinks she’s better than everyone, purely because she goes to clubs and bars and she has a giant house plant and she likes Shakespeare.’

  ‘You like Shakespeare and you have house plants,’ said Jason. ‘Why’s she not allowed to like Shakespeare and house plants?’

  Pip just gave him an irritated look.

  Jason glanced at me, eyebrows raised. We could both tell that Pip was making up silly reasons to dislike Rooney in an attempt to deflect her feelings. But we also knew we should probably just let it happen because, in all honesty, it was probably the best course of action.

  We’d seen Pip through several straight-girl crushes. They were not fun for her. The sooner she could get over those feelings, the better.

  ‘You could have just said no to hanging out tonight,’ I pointed out.

  ‘No I couldn’t,’ said Pip, ‘because then she’d win.’

  Jason and I stayed silent for a moment.

  Then I said, ‘She’s been giving me some advice about stuff.’

  Pip frowned. ‘Advice? About what?’

  ‘Well … you know I was feeling kind of bad about, like …’ God. This stuff was always so awkward to talk about. ‘You remember at the prom afterparty I was feeling really down about not having kissed anyone, and … you know. Rooney’s been helping me try and put myself out there a bit.’

  Pip and Jason stared at me.

  ‘What?’ Pip shook her head in disbelief. ‘You don’t – Why is she making you do that? You don’t have to do that shit … just – God. You need to just go at your own pace, man. Why is she making you? … What? Is she trying to persuade you to start getting with people at bars? That’s fine if she wants to do that, but that’s not who you are.’

  ‘She’s not making me do anything! She’s just helping me open up to people a bit, and, like … take chances.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t have to force this stuff! That’s not who you are,’ she repeated, frowning.

  ‘Well, what if that’s who I want to be?’ I snapped back. I felt immediately bad about it. Pip and I never argued.

  Pip shut her mouth. She didn’t seem to have an answer for that.

  Eventually she said, ‘I don’t like Rooney because she’s disrupting the dynamics of our friendship group. And she’s very annoying to me specifically.’

  I didn’t even bother to answer her.

  Jason was flattening his hair awkwardly. ‘Uh … It’s good that you’ve made a friend, though, Georgia.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  I felt my phone buzz in my bag and withdrew it to take a look.

  Rooney Bach

  I’m at the bar!

  Hey maybe we could hook you up with someone tonight …

  I sent her a thumbs-up emoji.

  Rooney had managed to bagsy an entire table for us in John’s bar, which deserved a medal, because it was heaving. The bar was a tiny basement area in college, super old and very hot. I could practically feel people’s sweat in the air as we squeezed through the crowd to get to the table.

  Rooney ha
d dressed up for the night: jumpsuit, heels, hair curled into loose waves. She probably had other plans after hanging out with us at the very childish hour of 9 p.m. And while she had been waiting for us, she seemed to have befriended a large group of people sitting at the next table.

  ‘Darlings,’ said Rooney in a fake posh drawl as we all sat down, turning away from her new friends. ‘You all look so nice.’ She looked directly at Pip. ‘So stripes are your thing, Felipa?’

  Pip narrowed her eyes at the use of her unshortened name. ‘Have you been Facebook-stalking me?’

  ‘Instagram, actually. I enjoyed the photo of you dressed up as a crayon for Halloween.’

  This earned a smug smile from Pip. ‘You scrolled very far back then.’

  We had to suffer several minutes of irritating banter between Pip and Rooney before Jason and I could even contribute to the conversation. In that time, I did some people-watching, looking around the room at our fellow students. There were people on a regular night out, some dressed up and others just in their college sweatshirts and jeans. There were people in fancy dress – a lot, actually, but it was still Freshers’ Week, so that made sense.

  ‘So how did you all become friends?’ asked Rooney.

  ‘School,’ I said. ‘And we all went to the same youth theatre group.’

  ‘Oh my God, that’s right! You’re all theatre kids! I forgot!’ Rooney’s face lit up. ‘This is amazing. We can all go to the welcome meeting together next week!’

  ‘It’s sad about your society getting shut down,’ Jason said.

  ‘Yeah! Shakespeare Soc. I was so set on joining it, but … it just doesn’t exist any more. Surely that’s some sort of crime against Britain.’

  ‘So you like Shakespeare?’ asked Pip. She sounded sceptical, almost.

  Rooney nodded. ‘Yeah! Love it. Do you?’

  Pip nodded back. ‘Yeah. I’ve been in a few at school.’

  ‘Same. I was in Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado, Comedy of Errors, and Hamlet at school.’

  ‘We did Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest.’

  ‘So I have more experience?’ Rooney said, and the curl of her lips was unmissable. It was like she was starting a fight.

  Pip’s jaw twitched.

  ‘I guess,’ she said.

  I caught eyes with Jason over the table, and the way his eyes widened told me that I wasn’t imagining this. Jason could tell what was going on too.

  Here they were, Rooney and Pip, two very different sorts of chaotic energy colliding before my very eyes. I felt overwhelmed.

  ‘So, are you and Georgia, like, best friends now?’ asked Pip with a weak chuckle.

  I was about to protest being dragged into whatever this was, when Rooney replied instead.

  ‘I’d say we’re pretty good friends already,’ said Rooney, smiling and looking at me. ‘Right?’

  ‘Right,’ I said, because there was really nothing else I could have said.

  ‘We do live together,’ Rooney continued, ‘so, yes. Why? Jealous?’

  Pip went a little red. ‘I was just wondering whether we’d have to fight for the title of Georgia’s ultimate best friend.’

  ‘Am I not even a contender?’ Jason pointed out, but both the girls ignored him.

  Rooney took a long sip of her beer, then leant closer to Pip. ‘You don’t strike me as much of a fighter.’

  ‘Is that a dig at my height?’

  ‘Just saying. I think you might be naturally at a disadvantage compared to most people.’

  ‘Ah, but I have the Short Person Anger advantage.’

  Rooney smirked. ‘Can’t relate.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said loudly, and Pip and Rooney both looked at me. ‘We’re supposed to be having fun and getting to know each other.’

  They blinked at me.

  ‘Isn’t that what we’re doing?’ said Rooney.

  ‘I need a drink,’ Jason said loudly, standing up. I stood up with him, giving him a supportive squeeze on the arm, and we left Rooney and Pip to their bizarre banter competition.

  I knew that relying on alcohol to relieve anxiety was not great. On a physical level, I didn’t even enjoy the taste that much. Unfortunately, I had grown up in a place where almost everyone my age drank, and I’d accepted drinking as ‘normal’, like a lot of other things, even though often it wasn’t really what I wanted to do at all.

  Jason ordered a cider and I ordered a double vodka and lemonade, and also two beers for Pip and Rooney.

  ‘I know she’s done the whole deflecting-feelings-by-being-angry thing before,’ said Jason grimly as we waited at the bar for our drinks. ‘But I haven’t seen her like this since Kelly Thornton in Year Ten.’

  ‘This is definitely worse,’ I said, thinking back to the time with Kelly – a lengthy feud over a stolen pencil – which had ended in Pip throwing a half-eaten apple at her head and getting two weeks of detention. ‘I just want everyone to be friends.’

  Jason chuckled and nudged me with his shoulder. ‘Well, you’ve got me. We’re relatively drama-free.’

  I looked up at Jason. His big brown eyes and soft smile were so familiar to me. We’d never had any drama. So far, anyway.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Relatively.’

  I proceeded to get drunk in record time. Maybe because I’d skipped dinner in favour of reading fanfic and eating a bagel in bed, or maybe because I drank the equivalent of six shots in forty-five minutes, but whatever it was, by ten o’clock, I felt genuinely relaxed and happy, which was definitely a sign that I was not in my right mind.

  To reiterate: I’m not advocating this sort of thing. But, at the time, I didn’t know how else to deal with what a long, stressful week it had been, and the prospect of many more long, stressful weeks I had to come over the next three years.

  I suppose it’s fair to say I was not enjoying my university experience thus far.

  We headed into town at around ten o’clock. Rooney was insistent. I would have protested, but I did want to see if clubbing was any better if you went with your friends. Maybe I would enjoy it if Pip and Jason were there.

  Pip and Rooney were both at least a bit tipsy and had been dominating around eighty per cent of the conversation. Jason had been kind of quiet, which wasn’t unusual, and he didn’t seem to mind when I slotted my arm through his as we walked into the centre of Durham, to try and minimise the amount of swaying I was doing as I walked.

  Rooney kept swapping between bantering with Pip, then turning round to me, her long hair flying about in the gusty October air, and shouting, ‘We need to get you a MAN, Georgia! We need to find you a MAN!’

  The word ‘man’ grossed me out because it made me picture a guy far older than me – no one our age was a man yet, were they?

  ‘I’ll find one eventually!’ I shouted back, even though I knew that was bullshit and nothing in life is certain and I didn’t ‘have time to figure things out’ because I might just have a brain aneurism at any moment and then I’d be dead, without having fallen in love, without having even figured out who I was and what I wanted.

  ‘You don’t have to find a man, Georgia,’ Pip slurred at me once we were inside the club, queueing for the bar.

  It wasn’t the dank, sticky club from the other day, but a new one. It was fancy, modern, and out of place in historic Durham. It was playing cool indie-pop – Pale Waves, Janelle Monáe, Chvrches – and we were surrounded by people dancing under neon lights. I had a bit of a headache, but I wanted to try and enjoy it. I wanted to push myself.

  ‘I know,’ I said, thankfully out of earshot of Rooney, who was talking intensely to Jason about something. Jason looked moderately overwhelmed.

  ‘I’ve already accepted that I’ll never find anyone,’ said Pip, and it took a moment for the full implications of that to sink into my brain.

  ‘What? What happened to you’ll find someone eventually because everyone does?’

  ‘That’s a straight-people rule,’ Pip said, and that shut me up
for a moment. Every time she’d told me ‘you’ll find someone eventually’ … had she even believed it about herself? ‘It doesn’t apply to me.’

  ‘Wh– don’t say that. There just weren’t many out girls when we were at school. You didn’t have many options.’

  Pip had kissed two girls during the time we’d known each other – one of whom repeatedly denied it ever happened, and the other told Pip she didn’t actually like her that way, she’d just thought it was a joke between friends.

  Pip looked down on to the sticky bar surface. ‘Yeah, but, like … I don’t even know how to, like … date. Like how does that even happen?’

  I didn’t know what to say to her. It wasn’t like I had the answers, and even if I did, we were both too tipsy to make much sense of them.

  ‘Is there something bad about me?’ she said suddenly, looking me right in the eyes. ‘Am I … really annoying … am I just really annoying to everyone?’

  ‘Pip …’ I wrapped one arm round her shoulders. ‘No, God – no, of course you’re not. God. Why d’you think that?’

  ‘I dunno,’ she grumbled. ‘Just thought there might be a specific reason as to why I’m forever alone.’

  ‘You’re not forever alone when I’m here. I’m your best friend.’

  She sighed. ‘Fine.’

  I squeezed her, and then our drinks arrived.

  ‘D’you think, since I’m your best friend, you could try not despising Rooney with every fibre of your being? At least for tonight?’

  Pip sipped her cider. ‘I will attempt it. I can make no promises.’

  That would have to be good enough.

  As soon as we’d finished our drinks, Rooney started dancing. She also seemed to be on speaking terms with various people in the club, so kept vanishing to socialise elsewhere. I felt bad for thinking it, but I actually didn’t mind, because I got to have some time to myself with my best friends.

  And it turned out that clubbing was slightly better when you were with people you know and love. Pip managed to get us to do our usual stupid dance moves, and after that I was smiling, and laughing and almost felt happy. Rooney even joined us, and Pip managed to keep her dagger-eyes to a minimum. If it weren’t for the scary older students crowded around us and the ever-present threat of Rooney trying to set me up with a guy, I would have been having a genuinely good time.