Radio Silence

by Alice Oseman

  She laughed and nodded. “Oh my God, I actually cannot stand that girl. Wait—” she snapped her head towards me, “—you’re not close friends with her, are you?”

  “I don’t speak to her that much. All I know about her is the bacon legs incident.”

  “Oh my God – bacon legs. I heard about this. That’s totally what I’m going to call her from now on.” She shook her head a little, grinning. “Yeah, I just hate how she has to know, like, all the gossip all the time, she really doesn’t care about other people’s feelings. Classic Bacon Legs.”

  There was a pause. I suddenly realised that Raine was staring intently across the road. I followed her gaze to find that she was staring at a golden retriever on a walk with its owner.

  I looked back at her, and her eyes snapped to mine. “Oh, sorry, I just love dogs, seriously. If I had one wish it would be for a dog. Anyway …”

  I let out a laugh. She just said whatever she wanted whenever she wanted. Incredible.

  “Aled Last …”

  “Yeah.”

  “Daniel Jun told me about his YouTube thing.”

  I gaped at her. “Seriously?”

  “Yep.” Raine laughed. “He was proper smashed. And it’s always me who looks after people when they get, like, really drunk, you know, when you need someone to make sure they don’t choke on their own sick. We were at some party and he just started talking about it.”

  “Jesus … do you know if Aled knows?”

  Raine shrugged. “No idea, I don’t talk to him. I don’t even watch the videos, so … I don’t think it matters. I know he doesn’t want anyone to know, so it’s not like I’m gonna spread it around.”

  “Was this … recent?”

  “Oh, yeah, like a couple of months back.” Raine paused. “Daniel seemed kind of upset with Aled, or something. Gave me the impression Aled liked his YouTube channel a bit more than he liked Daniel, you know?”

  I thought back to what I’d seen on results night. Aled and Daniel together, then Aled crying so hard I thought he might melt completely.

  “That’s pretty sad, if that’s true,” I said. “They’re best friends.”

  Raine studied me. “Yeah, best friends.”

  There was a pause.

  I glanced at her. “Do you … know something?”

  She smiled broadly. “Do I know that Aled and Daniel are fucking on the down low? Yeah, mate.”

  The way she said it was so blasé that I let out a very nervous laugh. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that they’d be having sex. The idea kind of freaked me out, because I’d always just assumed that mine and Aled’s level of sexual experience was the same.

  “Oh. I didn’t know anyone else knew that.”

  “Just me, I think. Due to Drunk Daniel.”

  “Right …”

  We’d reached the high street. I had to go left to the train station; she had to continue on. I didn’t know where she was going.

  “Anyway, thanks,” I said. “You basically saved me there; I get really rambly under pressure.”

  “Aw, mate, that’s okay.” She smiled. “Anything to stop Bacon Legs being a shit-stirrer. And, like, you haven’t been too chatty lately. You seem a bit zoned out.”

  I was surprised she’d noticed anything about me. Raine and Maya and our friends barely paid any attention to me at all.

  “Oh,” I said. “Erm, you know. Just stuff going on.”

  “All the Universe City stuff?”

  “Yeah. It’s just … it’s just a lot. Online. And now people in real life know … it’s stressful.”

  “Aw.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry. People will stop talking about it eventually.”

  I chuckled. “Yeah, eventually.”

  She walked off with a vague “See you later,” and another weirdly cool peace sign before I had the chance to reply, and I felt two things. Firstly, surprised Raine knew so many things despite seeming like the shallowest person I knew. Secondly, kind of sad that I’d ever thought she’d be shallow in the first place.

  LIKE THIS

  On Thursday night I was at Aled’s later than usual because his mum had gone away for a few days to visit other family. It was only nine thirty and I know Aled was eighteen years old, but we both still felt like tiny babies, to be honest. Neither of us could quite work out how to use his washing machine.

  We were sitting at his kitchen table, waiting for some Morrisons pizzas to cook, and I was obviously talking about something completely ridiculous, and Aled was just listening quietly and contributing things here and there, and everything was normal.

  Well, it wasn’t.

  “Is everything good?” asked Aled, once we’d come to a natural pause in conversation. “At school and stuff?”

  This surprised me because Aled hardly ever asked generic questions like that.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” I laughed. “So tired though. I swear I don’t get any sleep any more.”

  The oven timer bleeped and Aled clapped his hands together and went to get them out the oven and I started singing the word “pizza” repeatedly.

  He was leaving for university in two days.

  Once we were eating, I said, “I needed to tell you something kind of important.”

  Aled stopped chewing for a second.

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you know Raine Sengupta?”

  “Only vaguely.”

  “She told me yesterday she knows about Universe City. That you’re the Creator.”

  Aled completely stopped eating and met my eyes. Oh. I’d probably said something I shouldn’t have. Again. Why did this keep happening? Why did I keep finding these things out?

  “Oh.” Aled ran a hand through his hair. “Jesus …”

  “She said she wasn’t going to tell anyone.”

  “Yeah, she says.”

  “She also said …”

  I stopped. I’d been about to say that she knew about Aled and Daniel, but then I remembered that he didn’t even know that I knew.

  Aled was staring at me and actually looked a little scared. “Oh, God, what?”

  “Erm, okay, she knows about … erm, you and Daniel.”

  There was a horrifying silence. Aled stayed very still.

  “What about us?” Aled said slowly.

  “You know …” But I couldn’t finish my sentence.

  “Oh,” said Aled.

  I shifted in my seat.

  Aled let out a breath and looked down at his plate. “Did you already know?”

  I had no idea why I hadn’t told him already. I think I just hate bringing up things that just cause people pain and embarrassment.

  “I saw you kiss on your birthday,” I said, then followed up with a hurried, “Nothing else! That was it. And then a bit later on I woke up and you were just … like … sobbing.”

  Aled ran a hand through his hair. “Oh, yeah. I thought you might have been too drunk to remember that.”

  I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t, so I said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He met my eyes again and I saw how sad they were. Then he chuckled. “Honestly, same reason I didn’t let you meet my mum. You’re like … in a separate place to all the … difficult things going on in my life …” He laughed. “Oh my God, what a douchey thing to say. Sorry.”

  I laughed too, because it had sounded like a very douchey thing to say, but I got what he was trying to say.

  It was not as simple as ‘Daniel and I are in a relationship.’

  Nothing was ever simple, was it?

  “Why were you crying?” I asked.

  Aled looked at me for a second more, and then looked back to his food, picking at a pizza crust with one hand.

  “I can’t remember. I was probably just really drunk.” He laughed, but I could tell it was fake. “I’m an emotional drunk.”

  “Oh.”

  I didn’t believe him, but he obviously didn’t want to tell me.

  “So is Daniel gay?” I said,
because there was no way I couldn’t just say it.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Hm.” I was still pretty shocked I hadn’t guessed. “You know … I’m bisexual.”

  Aled’s eyes widened. “What— Are you?”

  “Haha, yeah. I told you I kissed Carys, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did, but …” Aled shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it very hard.” He paused. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

  “I don’t know,” I began, but that was a lie. “I’ve never told anyone before.”

  Aled suddenly looked very sad. “Haven’t you?”

  “No …”

  We both took a bite of pizza.

  “When did you realise you were bi?” Aled said it almost so quietly I didn’t hear him over the sound of my chewing.

  I hadn’t been expecting that question at all. I almost didn’t want to answer him.

  But then I sort of realised why he was asking.

  “There wasn’t, like, one moment,” I said. “It was like … well, I found out what it was on the Internet and then it just made sense …” I’d never tried to explain this to anyone before. Not even myself, really. “Like … this sounds really stupid, but I’ve always been able to imagine being with a boy or a girl. I mean, obviously they’re slightly different, but, like, the general feelings are the same … does that make sense? None of this makes sense …”

  “No, it makes sense,” he said. “Why haven’t you told your school friends?”

  I looked at him. “There was never really anyone worth telling.”

  His eyes widened a little. Maybe he realised that he was basically my only friend. I sort of hoped he didn’t realise. It just made me feel sorry for myself.

  I continued, “Like, it’s one of the reasons that I got so into Universe City in the first place. Because Radio falls in love with all sorts of people, boys and girls and other genders and … like, aliens and stuff.” I laughed and he smiled too.

  “I think everyone’s a bit bored with boy-girl romances anyway,” he said. “I think the world’s had enough of those, to be honest.”

  I wanted so badly to ask him.

  But that’s the one thing you can’t just ask.

  You’ve just got to wait until they tell you.

  When the front door opened, both of us jumped so hard I nearly knocked the bottle of lemonade over.

  Aled’s mum entered the kitchen and blinked at me, a Tesco tote bag over one shoulder and her car keys in one hand.

  “Oh, hello, Frances, love,” she said, her eyebrows raised. “Didn’t expect you to be here so late.”

  I glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. It was nearly 10pm. I leapt up from my chair. “Oh, God, yeah, sorry, I’d better go home …”

  She barely seemed to be listening to me, but after dumping her bag on the kitchen counter, she interrupted, “Don’t be silly, you’re right in the middle of your dinner!”

  I didn’t really know what to say, so I just slowly sat back down.

  “I thought you were at Grandad’s, Mum,” said Aled, and his voice sounded weird. Kind of … kind of forced.

  “Well, I was, darling, but they’ve got a few bits and bobs to be getting on with this weekend …” She launched into an unnecessarily long explanation of Aled’s grandparents’ weekend plans. I kept trying to catch Aled’s eye, but he was just staring at Carol like a wild animal trying to stay still to remain undetected.

  She started doing some washing-up and for the first time since she entered the room, glanced towards her son.

  “Your hair’s getting a bit long, isn’t it, Allie? Shall I book you a haircut?”

  There was an unbearably long silence.

  “Erm … actually, I sort of like it like this,” said Aled.

  She frowned and turned the tap off. She started cleaning pans like she was trying to erode them. “What? Don’t you think it looks a bit unkempt, darling? You look a bit like one of those drug addicts you always see outside the job centre.”

  “I like it like this,” said Aled.

  Carol dried her hands with a tea towel. “I could cut it for you, if you like.” She looked at me. “I always used to cut his hair when he was little.”

  Aled didn’t say anything, and then, to my absolute horror, Carol Last grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors from the counter and started walking with them towards Aled.

  “No, Mum, I’m fine …”

  “Look,” she said, “I could just chop the ends off for you, it wouldn’t take two ticks …”

  “It’s honestly fine, Mum.”

  “You’d look so much smarter, Allie.”

  I didn’t think it was going to happen. I could see it possibly about to happen, but I didn’t think there was any way it would really happen. This was real life, not some TV drama.

  “No, no, no, no, Mum, don’t—”

  She literally took a chunk of Aled’s hair and cut about ten centimetres off.

  Aled jerked backwards and stood up so fast it was made apparent that he hadn’t thought it was going to happen either. I suddenly realised I’d stood up too – when had I done that?

  She’d just cut his hair.

  What. The fuck.

  “Mum—” Aled went to say something, but Carol cut him off.

  “Oh, come on, darling, it’s much too long, isn’t it? You’ll be a social reject if you turn up to university like that!” She turned to me again. She was clutching the chunk of hair in one hand and the open scissors in the other. “Won’t he, Frances?”

  But I literally couldn’t say anything.

  Aled had his hand over the place where a chunk of his hair used to be. Very slowly, zombie-like, he said, “Frances … has to go home now …”

  Carol smiled. She smiled in a way that was either complete obliviousness or utter psychotic evil. “Ah, well, it must be nearly your bedtime!”

  “Yes …” I said though my voice sounded like I was being strangled. Aled pulled me quickly to the door by one arm before I could force my legs to move by themselves. He opened the door without looking at me and sort of pushed me outside.

  It was a clear night. You could see so many stars.

  I turned back to face him. “What exactly … just happened?”

  Aled moved his hand away from his hair and as if things couldn’t get bad enough, the dark blond was stained with red. I grabbed his hand and turned it over to find a thin cut running down the middle of his palm from where he’d attempted to bat the scissors away.

  He wrenched his hand back. “It’s fine. She’s always like this.”

  “Does she hurt you?” I said. “Tell me if she hurts you. Right now. I’m serious.”

  “No. I swear she doesn’t.” He waved his injured hand. “This was an accident.”

  “That’s not right. She can’t just— She just— What the fuck, I mean …”

  “It’s fine, just go home, I’ll text you later.”

  “Yeah, but why would she—”

  “This is what she does, she’s just playing a game. I’ll text you later.”

  “No, I want to talk about it now, Aled—”

  “Well I fucking don’t.”

  Aled Last never swore, except when he really needed to.

  He shut the door on me.

  And I couldn’t do anything about it.

  At all.

  UNIVERSE CITY: Ep. 132 – phone

  UniverseCity 98,763 views

  Cyborg attack (again)

  Scroll down for transcript >>>

  […]

  I hid for forty-seven minutes exactly – I had my moonometer with me – in the telephone box by the power station on Tomsby Street. Nobody thinks to look for anyone there. Everyone knows the box is haunted. I don’t want to talk about what I saw.

  While I was hiding and waiting, I was also thinking and deciding. Was I going to let the cyborg chase me forever? Was I going to have to turn my back every two minutes to check for those marble eyes and
spitting circuits? No. That’s no way to live. Not even in the vicious, cruel barricades of the City of the Universe.

  I can take a little beating now and then, old sport, believe me. I’ve been in this City for as long as I can remember, it seems. This hardly qualifies as a distress call any more – by gods, if anyone was listening, I would have heard from you by now.

  I can take a little beating now and then. I’m a tough one. I’m a star. I’m steel-chested and diamond-eyed. Cyborgs live and then they break, but I’ll never break. Even when my bone dust drifts over the City walls, I’ll be living and I’ll be flying, and I will wave and laugh.

  […]

  IN THE DARK

  I get an email every time someone sends me an ask on Tumblr, and I was surprised, to say the least, when I checked my email during break at school the next day and I had twenty-seven emails from Tumblr with the subject ‘Someone asked a question’.

  I loaded up the Tumblr app and had a look through.

  Anonymous said:

  are you February Friday????

  This made me frown, but I continued scrolling.

  Anonymous said:

  Thoughts on the rumours that you’re February Friday? Xx

  Anonymous said:

  NO BUT YOU HAVE TO TELL US WHETHER YOU’RE FEBRUARY IT’S YOUR DUTY AS FANDOM GOD

  Anonymous said:

  r u srsly february friday??

  Anonymous said:

  So ur surname is literally french for january, ur friends with the creator and ur school burned down on a february friday … COINCIDENCE? explain pls x

  There were more than twenty-seven messages. Tumblr had obviously stopped bothering to send me emails at some point this morning. They were all messages about February Friday.

  It took five minutes of digging to find the source of the rumours.

  univers3c1ties

  Potential February Friday?

  Okay guys, this is all speculation but what if Frances Janvier (touloser) is February Friday? I’ve been doing a bit of digging (lol I’m not a stalker I swear) and I think there’s a fair bit of argument for it

  Frances used to go to a school that burned down on Friday February 4th 2011 (source)