Radio Silence

by Alice Oseman

  I didn’t know what to say, because I didn’t want to go to bed.

  “I don’t think there’s anything you can do. It’s not your fault.”

  “I know,” I said.

  So I went to bed.

  And I just cried.

  Which is pretty pathetic, to be honest. Which is what I am. I shouldn’t be surprised at myself.

  It would explain why I did what I did that night.

  I messaged Aled again.

  (00:13) Frances Janvier

  Are you awake?

  (00:17) Aled Last

  hello yes i am? are you ok??

  (00:18) Frances Janvier

  Ah sorry for just messaging you randomly again …

  Just had a bit of a rough evening lol

  (00:19) Aled Last

  it’s honestly fine!!!! what’s up??

  if you’re feeling crap it’s always better to talk about it

  (00:21) Frances Janvier

  Okay well I’ve got my C2 maths exam tomorrow

  And I realised today I missed an entire topic in my revision

  And it’s like one of the hardest topics – logarithms?

  And I was just wondering (if you’re not doing anything else right now!!) if you knew any decent websites or anything that explained it properly?? I just can’t get my head around it and I feel like shit

  (00:21) Aled Last

  oh god that’s so horrible

  (00:23) Frances Janvier

  Like … if I get a B in maths … I don’t even know if Cambridge will want to interview me

  Idk

  This sounds really dumb I know I really shouldn’t be so upset about this haha

  (00:23) Aled Last

  no i totally get it … there’s nothing more stressful than going into an exam knowing you’re underprepared

  let me see if i can find my notes, hang on

  (00:24) Frances Janvier

  Only if you’re not busy!! I feel really bad asking you but like … you’re the only person I can ask

  (00:25) Aled Last

  hey maybe this is a crazy idea but

  i could come round if you like?

  like, right now?

  to help?

  (00:25) Frances Janvier

  Seriously!??? That would be literally amazing

  (00:26) Aled Last

  yeah! i mean i’m only over the road and i don’t have to get up early tomorrow

  (00:27) Frances Janvier

  I feel awful, are you sure about this? It’s gone midnight

  (00:27) Aled Last

  i want to help! you helped me home from johnny’s last week and i feel awful about that so … this makes us even? Haha

  (00:27) Frances Janvier

  Okay!! Oh wow you are a lifesaver

  (00:28) Aled Last

  on my way

  When I opened the door at half past twelve the night before my C2 maths exam, I immediately gave Aled a hug.

  It wasn’t awkward, even though I initiated it and he sort of went, “Oh,” and stepped backwards a little because he wasn’t expecting it.

  “Hello,” I said after letting him go.

  “Hi,” he said, almost a whisper, and then cleared his throat. He was wearing a Ravenclaw hoodie with grey pyjama shorts, bed socks and his lime green plimsolls, and he was holding a purple ring-binder. “Er, sorry I’m wearing pyjamas.”

  I gestured to myself because I was wearing a dressing gown, a stripy T-shirt and Avengers leggings. “No judgement here. I actually live in pyjamas.”

  I stepped aside to let him in and then shut the door. He wandered a little way into the hallway before turning to face me.

  “Was your mum okay with this?” I asked.

  “I may possibly have climbed out of the window.”

  “That’s extremely clichéd.”

  He smiled. “Okay. So … logs?” He held up the folder. “I brought my notes from last year.”

  “I thought you would have burned them or something.”

  “I put way too much effort into these to burn them.”

  We sat in the lounge for over an hour and Mum made us hot chocolate and, with his tiny voice, Aled explained to me what exponentials and logarithms were and what sorts of questions could come up and how you solved them.

  For someone who was so quiet, he was shockingly good at explaining things. He explained everything step by step and made sure we did an example question for each subtopic. For someone like me, who could probably ramble nonstop until I died, it was quite an amazing thing to listen to.

  And when we’d finished, I felt like things were going to be okay.

  “You’ve literally saved my life,” I said, as I led him to the door again.

  Aled looked a little more tired now, a little watery-eyed, and he’d tucked his hair behind his ears.

  “Not literally,” he said with a chuckle. “But hopefully I helped.”

  I wanted to say he’d done more than that, but it sounded embarrassing.

  Because it hit me then what he’d done for me. He’d got up in the middle of the night, in his pyjamas, climbed out of the window of his bedroom to come and help me with one topic of a maths exam. We’d only had a long conversation in person one time before this. Why would anyone do something like that for someone else? For me?

  “I have something to tell you,” I said, “but I’ve been too scared to say it.”

  Aled’s expression dropped. “You have something to tell me?” he said, instantly nervous.

  I took a breath.

  “I’m Toulouse,” I said. “Touloser on Twitter and Tumblr. The fan artist you messaged.”

  And there was a long pause.

  And then he said:

  “Is this a lie? Is this … are you just having a joke? Was this Dan’s— Daniel’s idea or something?”

  “No, I— it’s … I know it sounds like a joke … but I just didn’t know how to say it. When you told me you were the Creator I, like … I freaked out internally, and, like, I was about to tell you, but I had no idea how you would react and I didn’t want you to hate me.”

  “Because I’m the Creator,” he interrupted. “The creator of your favourite YouTube channel.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So … okay.” He looked down at his shoes.

  He almost looked sad.

  “So … have you just … were you just pretending to be nice all this time?” he said, his voice so quiet and soft. “Like … erm … you know, taking me home, and … I don’t know … were you lying about your clothes and stuff? And asking me for help with maths? Just so you could be friends with the creator of your favourite YouTube channel and like … get secret spoiler access or …?”

  “What? No! None of this has been a lie, I swear.”

  “So why have you been talking to me then?” he said.

  At the exact moment he said, “I’m so unimpressive,” I said, “Because you’re cool.”

  We looked at each other.

  Then he laughed softly and shook his head. “This is so weird.”

  “Yeah …”

  “I mean, like, this coincidence is insane. This shouldn’t be happening right now. We live opposite each other. We have the same taste in clothes.”

  I just nodded.

  “You’re head girl and you do fan art secretly?” he said.

  I nodded again and resisted the urge to apologise.

  “Am I the only person who knows?” he said.

  I nodded a third time and we both had a moment of understanding.

  “Okay,” he said, and then bent down to put his shoes on.

  I watched him tie his laces, and then he stood up.

  “You— I don’t have to do it, if you don’t want,” I said. “If it’s too awkward.”

  He pulled his sleeves over his hands. “What d’you mean?”

  “I mean, if it’s weird to let me do the Universe City art … I mean, I could just never see you again, you can ask someone else, someone you don’
t know. I don’t mind.”

  His eyes widened. “I don’t want to never see you again.” Then he shook his head slightly. “I want you to do the art.”

  And I believed him. I really did.

  He wanted to see me again and he wanted me to do the art.

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind if you don’t want me to …”

  “I do!”

  I tried and failed to contain a grin. “Okay.”

  He nodded, and we looked at each other for a moment, and though I think he might have wanted to say something else, he turned around and opened the door. He looked back one more time before he left. “I’ll message you tomorrow.”

  “Okay!”

  “Good luck with your exam.” He waved slightly and then left. I shut the door and turned around.

  Mum was standing behind me, looking at me.

  “Well done,” she said, with a small smile.

  “What?” I said, dazed, trying to replay everything that had just happened before I forgot it all.

  “You told him.”

  “Yes.”

  “He didn’t hate you.”

  “No.”

  I stood very still.

  “Are you okay?” said Mum.

  “I just … have no idea what he’s thinking. Like ninety-nine per cent of the time.”

  “Yeah, he’s that sort of person.”

  “What sort of person?”

  “The sort of person who doesn’t speak spontaneously.” She folded her arms. “Who won’t say anything if you don’t ask.”

  “Hm.”

  “D’you like him?” she said.

  I blinked, not quite understanding the question. “Erm, yes, obviously?”

  “No, I mean like him.”

  I blinked again. “Oh. Er, I haven’t thought about it.”

  And then I did think about it.

  And realised that I didn’t like him in that way at all.

  And it didn’t matter.

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said. “That’s a bit irrelevant, isn’t it?”

  Mum frowned a little. “Irrelevant to what?”

  “I don’t know, just irrelevant.” I stepped past her and started trudging upstairs, saying, “What a random question.”

  SOMETHING BEFORE WE CONTINUE

  We didn’t see each other in person for a while after that, but we carried on messaging each other on Facebook. Tentative ‘how are you’s became angry rants about TV shows and even though we had really only hung out with each other twice, it felt like we were friends. Friends who barely knew anything about each other except the other’s most private secret.

  I just sort of want to say something before we continue.

  You probably think that Aled Last and I are going to fall in love or something. Since he is a boy and I am a girl.

  I just wanted to say –

  We don’t.

  That’s all.

  WE ARE OUT THERE

  The only person I’ve had an actual crush on in my life is Carys Last. Well, unless you count people I didn’t know in real life, such as Sebastian Stan, Natalie Dormer, Alfie Enoch, Kristen Stewart, etc. Not that Carys was particularly more attainable than any of those.

  I think the main reason I had a crush on her was because she was pretty, and I think the secondary reason I had a crush on her was because she was the only queer girl I knew.

  Which is a bit silly, the more I think about it.

  “So I was chatting to this girl from the Academy, super pretty, and–– wait.” Carys paused and stared at me. This was probably two months after we started sitting together on the train. I felt very stressed about it every single morning and afternoon because she was very intimidating and I was scared about saying something stupid in front of her. “You know I’m gay, don’t you?”

  I did not know.

  She raised her eyebrows, probably at my expression of absolute shock. “Ah, I thought everyone knew that!” She rested her chin in her hand, her elbow on the table between us, and gazed at me. “That’s funny.”

  “I’ve never met any gay people before,” I said, “or bisexual people.”

  I almost added ‘apart from me’, but stopped myself at the last minute.

  “You probably have,” she said, “you just didn’t know that they were gay.”

  The way she said it was like she’d met every person in the entire world.

  She fluffed up her fringe with one hand and said in a spooky voice, “We are out there.”

  I laughed, not knowing what to say.

  She continued her story about the girl from the Academy and how she thought people were generally more homophobic at the Academy because it was a mixed school rather than an all-girls’ school like ours, but I found it difficult to concentrate because I was trying to process what she had told me. It took me a moment to realise that my primary feeling about it was actually jealousy. She was living the teenage experience and I was doing homework every evening until midnight.

  I hated her for having everything sorted and I admired her for being perfect.

  I had a crush on her and I couldn’t help it, but I didn’t have to kiss her.

  I didn’t have to and I shouldn’t have.

  But that didn’t stop me kissing Carys Last, one day in the summer two years ago, and ruining everything.

  DANIEL JUN

  On the morning of my first history exam, something pretty surprising happened.

  Daniel Jun came to talk to me.

  I was in the biggest room in the sixth form area, pretentiously named the ‘Independent Learning Centre’, or ILC, instead of what it actually was – a common room. I was reading some mind maps I’d made the week before, trying to memorise all the effects of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan (not an easy task at 8.20am), when he strode over to me, winding his body through the tables of last-minute-panic revisers.

  Daniel really did think he was the ruler of the school even though we were head boy and girl, and he frequently went on long rants about capitalism on Facebook.

  I found it bizarre that someone as mellow and kind as Aled Last could be best friends with someone as horrendous as Daniel Jun.

  “Frances,” he said, as he reached my table, and I looked up from my mind maps.

  “Daniel,” I said, with obvious suspicion.

  He leaned on my table with one hand, but not before moving my mind maps swiftly away to make room.

  “Have you spoken to Aled recently?” he said, running a hand through his hair.

  That was completely not the question that I was expecting.

  “Have I spoken to Aled recently?” I repeated.

  Daniel raised his eyebrows.

  “Well, we talk to each other on Facebook sometimes,” I said, “and he helped me with some revision last week.”

  This was true, even though ‘sometimes’ meant every day, and ‘helped me with some revision’ meant literally came to my house for two hours in the middle of the night in his pyjamas even though we’d only spoken properly in person once before.

  “Right,” said Daniel. He nodded and looked down, but didn’t move. I stared at him. His gaze moved towards my mind maps. “What’s that?”

  “This is a mind map, Daniel,” I said, trying not to get too annoyed. I didn’t want to be in a bad mood in my history exam. Writing about the division of Germany for two hours was sad enough.

  “Oh,” he said, looking at it as if it were a pile of vomit. “Okay.”

  I sighed. “Daniel, I really need to revise. It would be really great if you could go away.”

  He stood up straight again. “Fine, fine.” But he didn’t move. He just kept staring at me.

  “What?” I said.

  “Did …”

  He paused. I stared. A new expression appeared on his face, and it took a moment for me to realise that it was worry.

  “I just haven’t seen much of him for a while,” he said, and as he said it, his voice sounded different, softer, not like himself
.

  “Okay?”

  “Has he said anything about me to you?”

  Daniel stood, without moving, for a second more.

  “Nope,” I said. “Did you have an argument or something?”

  “No,” he said, but I wasn’t sure whether he was telling the truth. He turned to walk away.

  But then he stopped and turned back.

  “What grades do you need to get? For Cambridge?”

  “A*AA,” I said. “How about you?”

  “A*A*A.”

  “Oh, is it more for science?”

  “I don’t know.”

  We stared at each other for a moment, and then he shrugged and said, “Okay, bye,” and walked off.

  Maybe if I’d known what I know now, I would have said something to Aled. Would have asked him more about Daniel, about their relationship. Or maybe I wouldn’t. I don’t know. It’s done now.

  BORING

  “Frances? Hello?”

  I glanced up. Maya was looking at me from across our lunch table.

  Our exams had come to an end and I was back at school. This meant we were starting our new A2 classes and I didn’t want to let my concentration slip and miss out on any important information so I didn’t think I’d get much time to see Aled before the summer holidays, but we’d agreed to meet up at the weekend anyway, and to be honest, I was pretty excited about it.

  “Did you hear any of that?” continued Maya.

  I had been doing some maths questions from the textbook. Homework that most people didn’t do, but I always did.

  “Er, no,” I said, embarrassed.

  My friends laughed.

  “We were just thinking about going to the cinema on Saturday,” said someone else. “You in?”

  I glanced around for Raine, but she wasn’t there.

  “I think …” I paused. “Er, I’ve got too much work to do. I’ll have to let you know.”

  My friends laughed again.

  “Classic Frances,” said one, just in a teasing way, but it still hurt a bit. “Don’t worry.”

  The irony was that I actually didn’t have any work to do at the weekend. We’d just finished our AS exams and we’d only just started our A2 courses.

  But I was seeing Aled on Saturday and, to be honest, even though I’d only been speaking to him for a month, mostly on Facebook, I’d rather have hung out with him.