by Alice Oseman
‘I … I didn’t know whether I was,’ I said. ‘I thought if … if I tried then I could make it happen – I just wanted to see if I could fall in love, and you were the person I thought I could fall for, like, if I tried?’
As I said it, I realised exactly the weight of what I’d done.
‘You … just used me as an experiment, then,’ said Jason, looking away. ‘Knowing full well that I really liked you.’
‘I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Well, you did.’ He laughed. ‘How did you think you were going to do that and not?’
‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could say.
‘Fuck.’ Then he laughed a horrible, sad laugh. ‘Why did you do this to me?’
‘Don’t say that,’ I said hoarsely.
Jason turned the tap off and studied his hand, comparing it with his other hand. It looked several shades redder than it should be. ‘OK. I think it’s OK.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I might go and wrap it in something, just to be safe.’
‘Oh. God, yeah, of course.’ I stood there awkwardly. ‘Do you want me to come?’
‘No.’
Fuck. This was all going to shit.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, not sure whether I was apologising for the burn or for the kiss. Both, probably.
Jason was shaking his head. It almost seemed like he was annoyed with himself, but nothing that had happened this afternoon had been his fault. ‘I … I just need to go.’
Jason headed for the door.
‘Jason,’ I said, but he didn’t stop.
‘I’m just gonna need you to leave me alone for a while, OK, Georgia?’
And then he was gone.
Jason didn’t deserve any of this.
Jason was …
Jason had real feelings for me.
He deserved someone who was actually able to reciprocate.
It wasn’t just that I’d hurt Jason. It wasn’t even having to accept that I was some kind of sexual orientation that barely anyone had heard of, that I would have to find some way to explain to my family and everyone else. It was knowing, with absolute certainty, that I was never, ever going to fall in love with anybody.
I had spent my whole life believing that romantic love was waiting for me. That one day I’d find it and I would be totally, finally happy.
But now I had to accept that it would never happen. None of it. No romance. No marriage. No sex.
There were so many things that I would never do. Would never even want to do or feel comfortable doing. So many little things I’d taken for granted, like moving into my first place with my partner, or my first dance at my wedding, or having a baby with someone. Having someone to look after me when I’m sick, or watch TV with in the evenings, or going on a couples’ holiday to Disneyland.
And the worst part of it was – even though I’d longed for these things, I knew that they’d never make me happy anyway. The idea was beautiful. But the reality made me sick.
How could I feel so sad about giving up these things that I did not actually want?
I felt pathetic for getting sad about it. I felt guilty, knowing that there were people out there like me who were happy being like this.
I felt like I was grieving. I was grieving this fake life, a fantasy future that I was never going to live.
I had no idea what my life would be like now. And that scared me. God, that scared me so, so much.
I didn’t tell Pip.
I didn’t want to disappoint her too.
The day after my date with Jason, I started to wonder whether he would tell Pip, and Pip would hate me. But then she messaged me that afternoon with a link to a really funny TikTok, which definitely meant that Jason hadn’t told her.
The day after that, Pip messaged me asking if I wanted to meet up with her for a study session in the big university library because she hated doing uni work by herself in her room, and I agreed. Jason, she explained, had rowing practice so couldn’t come. We didn’t chat much while we were there – I had an Age of Chivalry assignment, and she was doing chemistry work that looked ten times more difficult than my essay on ‘Destiny in Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval’. I was glad we didn’t talk much. Because if she’d asked me about Jason, I wouldn’t have been able to lie.
It was nearly nine o’clock at night by the time we’d both finished, so we decided to get some fish and chips, then head back to my room to catch up on Killing Eve.
It probably would have been a normal evening. It probably would have cheered me up a bit, after everything that had happened.
If we hadn’t entered my bedroom to find Rooney crying.
She was curled up under her sheets, clearly trying to hide the fact that she was upset but failing utterly because of how loudly she was sniffing. My first thought was that Rooney was never in our room at this time of the evening. My second thought was, Why is she crying?
Pip had frozen next to me. There was no escaping the situation. We could see Rooney was crying. She knew that we knew. There was no pretending this wasn’t happening.
‘Hey,’ I said, properly entering the room. Pip hovered in the doorway, clearly trying to decide whether to stay or go, but just as I turned to her to tell her to leave, she came inside and closed the door behind her.
‘I’m fine,’ came the teary response.
Pip laughed, then seemed to instantly regret it.
At the sound of Pip’s voice, Rooney peered over her covers. Upon seeing Pip, her eyes narrowed.
‘Can you leave,’ she said, immediately less tearful and more Rooney.
‘Um …’ Pip cleared her throat. ‘I wasn’t laughing at you. I was just laughing because you said you were fine when you’re clearly not. I mean, like, you’re literally crying. Not that that’s funny. It was just a bit stupid –’
Rooney’s face, very clearly tear-stained, hardened. ‘Leave.’
‘Um …’ Pip rummaged into her bag of fish and chips and withdrew a large clump of paper napkins. She jogged over to Rooney’s bed, placed them right at the bottom of the duvet, then jogged back to the door. ‘There.’
Rooney looked at the napkins. Then up at Pip. And, for once, she didn’t say a thing.
‘I, er …’ Pip ran a hand through her hair and looked off to one side. ‘I hope you feel better soon. And if you need any more tissues, erm … I can go get some?’
There was a pause.
‘I think I have enough now, thank you,’ said Rooney.
‘Cool. I’ll just go then.’
‘Cool.’
‘Are you … are you OK?’
Rooney stared at her for a long moment.
Pip didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Yeah. No. Sorry. I’m going.’ She swung round and practically ran from the room. As soon as the door clicked shut, Rooney slowly sat up, picked up one of the napkins, and dabbed her eyes.
I sat down on my own bed, dropping my bags on to the sheets.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked.
This made her raise her head. Her eye make-up was smeared down her cheeks, her ponytail falling out of place, and she was wearing normal going-out clothes – a bardot top and tight skirt.
There was a moment of silence.
And then she started crying again.
OK. I was going to have to deal with this situation. Somehow.
I stood up and walked over towards her kettle, which she kept plugged in on her desk. I filled it up from our bedroom sink, then put it on to boil. Rooney liked tea. The first thing she did after getting back to our room was always to make a cup of tea.
While waiting for it to boil, I cautiously sat on the edge of her bed.
I suddenly noticed there was something on the floor under my feet – the photo of Rooney and Mermaid-hair Beth. It must have fallen off the wall. I picked it up and put it on her bedside table.
What was this about? The play, maybe? That was about eighty per cent of what she talked about.
Maybe it was a r
elationship thing. Maybe she’d had an argument with a guy. Or maybe it was a family thing. I didn’t know anything about Rooney’s family, or her life back home at all, really.
I’ve always hated being asked if I’m ‘OK’. The available answers are either to lie and say I’m fine, or to massively and embarrassingly overshare.
So instead of asking Rooney that again, I said, ‘Do you want me to get your pyjamas?’
For a moment, I wondered if she hadn’t heard me.
But then she nodded.
I leant back and grabbed her pyjamas from the end of the bed. She always wore matching button-up ones with cute patterns.
‘Here,’ I said, holding them out for her.
She sniffed. Then she took them.
While she was changing, I went over to the kettle and made her some tea. When I returned, she had transformed into Bedtime Rooney, and accepted the mug.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled and sipped it immediately. People who drink tea must not have any sensation left on their tongues, I swear to God.
I linked my fingers together awkwardly in my lap.
‘Do you … want to talk about it?’ I asked.
She snorted, which was at least slightly better than the sobbing.
‘Is that … a no?’ I said.
She sipped again.
There was a long pause.
I was about to give up and go back to my own bed, when she said,
‘Had sex with some guy.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘What … recently?’
‘Yeah. Like a couple of hours ago.’ She sighed. ‘I was bored.’
‘Oh. Well … good for you.’
She shook her head slowly. ‘No. Not really.’
‘It … was bad?’
‘I just did it to try and fill a hole.’
I considered this.
‘I may be a virgin,’ I said, ‘but I sort of thought that filling a hole was usually the point.’
Rooney let out a cackle. ‘Oh my God. You did not just make that joke.’
I glanced at her. She was grinning.
‘Are you referring to a different hole?’ I asked. ‘A non-vaginal one?’
‘Yes, Georgia. I’m not talking about my fucking vagina.’
‘OK. Just checking.’ I paused. ‘I thought you were all sex-positive and stuff. There’s nothing wrong with casual sex.’
‘I know that,’ she said, then shook her head. ‘I still believe in all that. I’m not saying that having casual sex makes me a bad person, because it doesn’t. And I really do enjoy it. But tonight … it was just …’ She sipped her tea, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘You know when you eat too much cake and it makes you feel sick? It was sort of like that. I thought it’d be fun, but it just made me feel … lonely.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t want to pry, so I just remained silent.
Rooney drank the rest of her tea in a few big gulps.
‘D’you wanna watch some YouTube?’ she asked.
This threw me. ‘Er … sure.’
She put down her mug, stood up, threw open the duvet and slipped inside. She shuffled over to one side and patted the space next to her, indicating for me to get in.
‘I mean … you don’t have to,’ Rooney said, sensing my hesitation. ‘D’you have a lecture in the morning, or something?’
I didn’t. I had a fully free day of no contact time tomorrow.
‘Nah. I have to eat my fish and chips anyway.’ I retrieved my dinner, then lay down next to her. It felt right and wrong at the same time – a mirror world. The same as my own bed but everything was opposite.
She smiled and pulled her floral duvet over us and huddled towards me to get comfy, then grabbed her laptop from her bedside table.
She opened up YouTube. I didn’t really watch any YouTubers – I only used YouTube for trailers, fan videos, and TikTok compilations. But Rooney seemed to be subscribed to dozens upon dozens of channels. It surprised me. She hadn’t seemed like the sort of person to be into YouTube.
‘There’s this really funny YouTuber I watch a lot,’ she said.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘D’you want some chips?’
‘God, yes.’
She found the channel and searched through the videos until she found one she wanted. And then we lay together in her bed and watched it, Rooney sharing my chips.
It was a pretty funny video, to be fair. It was just this YouTuber and his friends playing a weird singing game. I kept giggling aloud, which made Rooney laugh, and before I knew it, we’d been watching for twenty whole minutes. She immediately found another video she wanted to show me, and I was happy to let her. Halfway through, she rested her head on my shoulder, and … I don’t know. That was probably the calmest I’d ever seen her.
We watched silly videos for another hour or so until Rooney shut her laptop and put it aside, then snuggled back down into the bed. I wondered whether she’d fallen asleep, and if so, should I just go back to my own bed, because I definitely wasn’t going to be able to sleep here in such close proximity to another person, but then Rooney spoke.
‘I used to have a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘A long-term boyfriend. From when I was fourteen until I was seventeen.’
‘Wow. Really?’
‘Yeah. We broke up when I was in Year Twelve.’
I’d assumed that Rooney had always been like Rooney. That she’d always been this carefree, fun-loving, passionate person who wasn’t bothered about commitment.
A three-year-long relationship?
That wasn’t what I’d expected.
‘Things with him … were very bad,’ she said. ‘I … it was a very bad relationship in … a lot of ways, and … it really … put me off wanting them.’
I didn’t ask her to elaborate. I could imagine what she meant.
‘I haven’t liked anyone since then,’ she mumbled again. ‘I’ve been scared to. But I might … be starting to like someone new.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I really … don’t want to be doing that.’
‘Why?’
‘It just won’t end well.’ She shook her head. ‘And she hates me, anyway.’
I knew instantly that she meant Pip.
‘I don’t think she hates you,’ I said gently.
Rooney said nothing.
‘Anyway, you’re only eighteen, you’ve got so much time –’ I started to say, but didn’t know how to continue. What did I mean when I said that? That she’d definitely find the perfect relationship someday? Because I knew that wasn’t true. Not for me. Not for anyone.
It was something adults said all the time. You’ll change your mind when you’re older. You never know what might happen. You’ll feel differently one day. As if we teenagers knew so little about ourselves that we could wake up one day a completely different person. As if the person we are right now doesn’t matter at all.
The whole idea that people always grew up, fell in love and got married was a complete lie. How long would it take me to accept that?
‘I’m nineteen,’ she said.
I frowned. ‘Wait, are you? Did you have a gap year?’
‘No. It was my birthday last week.’
This confused me more. ‘What? When?’
‘Last Thursday.’
Last Thursday. I could barely remember anything about it – uni days were all blurring into one endless stream of lectures and meals and sleep.
‘You … didn’t say anything,’ I said.
‘No.’ She laughed, partly muffled by her pillow. ‘I started thinking what would happen if people knew it was my birthday. I’d just end up going on another night out with a bunch of people I really don’t know that well, and they’d all pretend to be my friend and sing happy birthday and take fake-happy selfies for Instagram before we’d all separate and hook up with different people, and I’d just end up in some stranger’s bed after having below-average sex, hating myself again.’
‘If you’d told me, we could have done … none of that.’
She smiled. ‘What would we have done?’
‘I dunno. Sat in here and eaten pizza. I could have forced you to watch Bridesmaids.’
She snorted. ‘That’s a shit movie.’
‘It’s not the best, but the romance is literal perfection. They sit on a car and eat carrot sticks together.’
‘The dream.’
We lay there in silence for a little while.
‘You … don’t like having casual sex any more,’ I said, realising what she’d been trying to say earlier. It wasn’t that casual sex had hurt her, or that it made her a bad person – it didn’t. ‘You want …’ It wasn’t even that she wanted a relationship. Not really. She wanted what a relationship would give her.
‘You want someone to know you,’ I said.
She stayed silent for a moment. I waited for her to tell me how wrong I was.
Instead, she said, ‘I’m just lonely. I’m just so lonely all the time.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, but I didn’t need to, because she fell asleep a few minutes later. I looked over her head and saw that Roderick had significantly wilted – Rooney was definitely forgetting to water him. I stared up at the ceiling and listened to her breathing next to me, but I didn’t want to leave the bed, because even though I couldn’t sleep, and I was paranoid about drooling on her or rolling on top of her by accident, Rooney needed me for some reason. Maybe because, despite all of her friends and acquaintances, nobody really knew her like I did.
Jason still showed up to our next Shakespeare Soc rehearsal the following week.
I didn’t think he would. I had messaged him to apologise again, to try and explain, even though I was shit at articulating any of my thoughts and feelings.
He’d read it but didn’t reply.
I spent most of my lectures that week zoned out, not taking enough notes, wondering how I was going to salvage our friendship out of the chaos I’d created. Jason liked me romantically. I’d taken advantage of that to figure out my sexual identity, despite knowing I didn’t like him like that in return. Selfish. I was so selfish.
He looked exhausted when he rolled up to our rehearsal in full rowing club kit, a heavy rucksack hanging off his shoulder. His teddy jacket was absent. I was so used to him wearing it that he seemed sort of vulnerable without it.
