Am I Normal Yet?

by Holly Bourne

  “Bye,” I waved.

  The next time I saw her, I was in hospital.

  Forty-one

  He kissed me the moment we were off college grounds.

  “Come here,” he said, all gruff, pulling me into him. His hands stroked my back as his mouth explored my mouth. If all my craziness was a sore throat, then Guy was a Strepsil, melting the crap away in my head. A nicely flavoured Strepsil at that, the sort you pretend you have a sore throat for so you can nick one out of your friend’s packet.

  When he pulled away, he cupped my face in his hands and stared right at me. I could only stare back – feeling love – or whatever the hell this was – jumping through my tummy.

  “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all day.”

  “You could’ve told me as much,” I said, without thinking.

  “What was that?”

  “Me too.”

  “Great.” He took my hand and pulled it to start walking. He swung it back and forth too hard, making me giggle.

  The low winter sun was bright, but it was still so cold that the morning’s frost hadn’t melted. We crunched our way through alleyways, melting icy leaves with our footprints. It was perfect. I couldn’t stop smiling. The air was clean, I was falling in love with a boy, we were holding hands and I was too happy to worry about whether he’d washed his hands…

  I’d done it. This was normal. Preferable even. Other girls may even walk past us and ENVY me – rather than the other way round.

  As we got nearer his house, the jumping beans in my stomach started some sort of sponsored jumpathon. Guy sensed my hesitation and stopped, right on his driveway.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

  The real answer

  I’m terrified.

  I’m not sure I’m doing this for the right reasons.

  Do you care for me?

  Will I regret this?

  Will it hurt?

  Am I even ready?

  What I said

  “You sure your parents are out?”

  He grinned and squeezed harder. “Yep. My mum and her boyfriend are at the theatre in London.”

  “Oh, great.” There was no chance of an interruption…which was good, I supposed.

  “Plus they’re pretty okay about me having girls around the house.”

  WHAT?!

  “Oh…”

  What girls? What girls? How many? Had he used a condom? Did he still love them? Did he even like them? Had he washed his sheets?

  My breath caught in my throat. Guy had dropped my hand to unlock his front door, which was just as well because it was shaking.

  He beckoned me inside, with a bow and a flourish. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

  “Cool,” I squeaked, and stepped over the threshold.

  He led me straight upstairs to his bedroom. No tour of the living room, no kissing on the couch, not even a polite question about whether I wanted a glass of water. Just up the stairs, my hand gripped in his, and through the doorway.

  I didn’t get to take in much of his room before he slammed me against the door and started kissing me. The walls were red, the bed unmade, it smelled a bit of stale…something. Guy’s kisses were different to usual – angrier, more urgent. He kept nipping my lip and his stubble scratched my chin. It was nice, but it wasn’t. I felt aroused, terrified and confused in equal measures – like a Victoria sponge recipe…for losing your virginity.

  I made myself focus on the present moment and all the different sensations erupting over my body to keep calm. There were Guy’s kisses, which made my lips tingle and my intestines go limp with how good they felt. There was the weight of his hand on my left boob, gently squeezing it through my top. There were the sounds he made, the moans and groans. There were the sounds I was making – the odd gasp, as he tried something new.

  And, gradually, I got lost in the “now” and let life happen to me.

  He steered me to his bed, bending me over it backwards until we fell, limbs entwined, into the sag of his mattress. He pinned my arms behind my head and showered me with kisses – on my face, my neck, up my arms.

  I let out a sigh.

  I found myself pulling his top over his head, letting the weight of his body crush me, trailing my fingernails down his back. He didn’t notice the state of my hands… Next he was tugging my top up and over my head, covering my cold skin with his warm mouth.

  “You have such great tits,” he said, before kissing them through my bra. And I winced, because that wasn’t the most romantic thing to say.

  Things Guy could’ve said instead

  You’re beautiful/gorgeous/stunning/perfect.

  I’m falling for you.

  Are you ready?

  He reached round my back and, like magic, my bra was undone, and fell on the bed between us.

  BAD THOUGHT

  How did he undo your bra so easily?

  BAD THOUGHT

  You can’t even undo it that quickly, and you undo your bra every day. You usually have to pull the straps down and swivel the damn thing to the front in order to unclasp it.

  BAD THOUGHT

  This means he’s done it loads of times before…and…

  BAD THOUGHT

  YOUR BOOBS ARE OUT IN THE OPEN! GUY FROM COLLEGE CAN SEE YOUR BOOBS!

  Sheer instinct made me cross my arms over myself, trying to cover as much of my chest as I could. If Guy noticed, he didn’t react. Though he did leave my WIDE OUT IN THE OPEN boobs alone a bit and concentrated on pulling down my jeans instead. They didn’t slide off like in the movies. I didn’t know not to wear skinnies, so they got stuck halfway down my calves and I had to kick them off, turning the bottom bits inside out in the process. One sock came with off with them, the other didn’t.

  At the sight of my purply-from-the-cold legs, Guy groaned and stroked them, making them warm with his mouth. I tried to lose myself again but I was too busy covering my breasts with my arms and crossing my legs though I knew I should be doing the opposite. Guy ran his hands up and down my skin. He kissed me deeply again then, using that as a distraction, he wedged his hand between the gap of my clasped legs, like a key in a stubborn lock. He began touching me through my knickers. Then he took my hands, guided them to his unzipped jeans, and coaxed me into touching him back.

  My eyes flew open.

  Thoughts became wildly obvious.

  Perfectly reasonable thought

  You’re not ready, Evelyn.

  And another

  You’re not doing this for the right reason.

  And one more

  If he really likes you, he’ll understand.

  And, for once, I trusted my thoughts.

  In a moment, my hand was off his groin and I’d backed away on the bed, pulling my knees up to cover my chest. Guy’s mouth hung open, looking lost without my mouth covering it.

  “What the fuck?” He half-opened his eyes. “Where’d ya go?”

  “Guy? Aren’t you going to court me?” I asked, before I really thought what I was going to say.

  His eyes narrowed…in confusion…annoyance? “Huh?”

  I scrabbled for my jumper and pulled it over my head. He watched me, his mouth slowly melting into a cartoon sad face.

  “Like shouldn’t we at least go for a date before we sleep together? In the olden days, men used to ‘court’ women. Or ‘woo’ them. You know? Like in the old movies? They’d sweep them off their feet and work really hard to get their hand in marriage?”

  “Marriage?” His face went even whiter than normal.

  “I mean, I don’t want us to get married, but don’t you think you should court me a little? Just to be polite. You know, like, work for a bit before you get in my knickers?”

  He looked like he was figuring out a very hard maths sum. He also looked pissed off. I was so scared. I liked him, I really really did. But I needed to know he liked me, and that meant asking.

  “Do you like me?”

  “You know I do.
”

  “But what do you like about me?”

  “I just told you, you’ve got great tits.”

  “What else?”

  He scratched his head, he actually scratched his head, then gave me this horrid look. “Well, until two minutes ago, I liked that you didn’t ask these sort of questions.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “You know…” He put on a high squeaky voice. “Do you like me? Why haven’t you messaged me? Can’t we go to Pizza Express before we go back to yours? Can I sing in your band? Are we going out now?”

  “What’s wrong with wanting to go to Pizza Express before you let someone sleep with you?” I asked.

  Guy threw up his arms. “See! I knew this would happen. I liked you, but I worried you’d do this. Why does it always have to get so serious so quickly?”

  “And having sex with someone isn’t serious?” I felt like my world was breaking.

  “Well yeah, it is…I suppose… But, why does it always have to be…I dunno…so full on emotionally?” He gave me another weird look. “I thought maybe you were different. You seemed all breezy, you didn’t nag when I didn’t message you. You’ve been seeing different guys, like I see different girls. You didn’t seem that bothered about that Ethan guy or that pussycat boy. I thought maybe it could work…you know, casually?”

  I listened in horror to his description of a girl called Evelyn who wasn’t anything like me at all. “Oh God,” I said, almost to myself. “You think I’m a Girl-Next-Door Slut.”

  Guy squinted. “A girl next what?”

  An urgent need to put on my jeans. I began scrabbling into them, desperate to cover my skin, to get some of my power back. I’d tried too hard to be normal for Guy. I’d tried too hard to be carefree and breezy, like I thought other girls were. But they’re not…

  It couldn’t just be casual for him, could it? It didn’t make sense. He’d, like, proper stared at me before kissing me, and he’d told me, to my actual face, that he cared… None of it made any sense.

  “I think I’m falling in love with you,” I told him, desperately, trying to coax some feeling out of him.

  The whites in his eyes doubled. If we were in a cartoon, they would have rocketed out of his skull on stilts. “What? Evie? Seriously? What’s going on?”

  Emotion raced up my throat, catching in the back of it. “I thought you really liked me…”

  “I do like you. But…love…what? Are you crazy?”

  “You were so nice at the party.”

  “What party? What? When you were off your face? Well someone had to look after you. I didn’t know that meant you’d go all psycho…”

  Everything I said bothered him more, like my words were stink bombs I was lobbing in his direction. “Fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, running his hands through his hair. “This is mental. You’re mental…”

  That word. That ruddy word. Tears leaked from my eyes. I’d fought so hard to dodge it… He saw my tears. “Oh God, you’re not fucking crying now? I can’t handle this.” He stood up and put his T-shirt on. I cried harder.

  Were these my options? Easy lay or mental? A lie, or alone? Were these the only options boys gave you? Was it mental to want someone to love you? Was it mental to want to be courted before you let a guy put an actual piece of his body inside your body? Was it mental to want a message after you’d kissed someone? Was it mental to want the most normal thing in the world – a relationship? One that didn’t make your heart feel like it was full of bogeys?

  Was it mental to not want your heart stamped on until it shattered?

  Or was it my fault? Had I just fallen for an alpha-

  jerk, casting a lovely boy like Oli aside, because I was a screwed-up benevolent sexist and Amber was right all along?

  Guy watched me cry with growing impatience.

  “Evie, stop. My mum will be back soon.”

  I let out a gulp. “You said they were at the theatre.”

  “Well, they’re not. They’re out for dinner. They’ll be back by eight.”

  I calculated it through my sobs and threw my hands down when I figured it out. “So, what was your plan? For after we’d had sex? To send me home once you’d got what you wanted?”

  “No,” he said, but his face said yes.

  My tears turned into angry ones. “You’re pathetic,” I said, knowing it was true but my ribcage still exploding. “I know you have more feelings than you’re letting on! You’re messed up!”

  Guy just shrugged – his attitude towards everything. Shruggy-shrug shrug in a well-if-you-don’t-like-it-don’t-fancy-me way.

  “And your band is really pants,” I added.

  “Pants? What are you, twelve?”

  “I’m going now.”

  “Fair enough.”

  No “please don’t”, no “I’ve made a horrible mistake”. No “but I’ve loved you ever since we played that game of conkers”.

  Just a “fair enough”.

  It wasn’t fair though. Feelings never are.

  I gathered up my stuff and dashed in humiliation from his red smelly room.

  Forty-two

  I was filthy.

  I couldn’t believe how contaminated I’d allowed myself to get. I ran home in the early winter darkness, skidding on ice, sobbing whenever I stumbled.

  Filthy filthy filthy filthy filthy.

  His duvet – duvet! It probably hadn’t been washed in months. Months! And that room, the smell! What had caused that smell?

  I fled past street lights, ignoring them. I’d touched them all before and it’d done nothing. I wasn’t normal. Guy didn’t see something special in me. He just thought he was going to get laid.

  He’d called me mental…

  My foot slipped on a patch of black ice and my ankle twisted violently in on itself. I screamed and fell face down, my hands breaking the fall, grazing the pavement, scooping up gravel and dumping it inside my palms.

  “No…”

  I stayed there, splayed across the pavement and whimpered.

  He’d touched me.

  I’d let Guy’s filthy hands touch me. I could feel the imprints of his poking fingers all over my body – they throbbed with germs, with filth, with wrong. He’d known how to undo my bra. That meant he’d undone other bras. That meant his poking fingers had poked other girls. Did they have diseases? How would I know? Guy hadn’t asked me any questions about my sexual health before undoing my bra. That could only mean he hadn’t asked the other girls either.

  BAD THOUGHT

  You could have HIV now…

  I whimpered once more and tried to get to my feet, wobbling like Bambi on the ice.

  Reasonable thought

  You won’t, Evie, you can’t catch it like that. You know that…

  BAD THOUGHT

  All right, herpes then? That’s contagious as hell and transmitted through touch.

  BAD THOUGHT

  And HPV. You’ll definitely have HPV now.

  BAD THOUGHT

  And you missed out on the jab for that because you didn’t trust them to sterilize the needles properly.

  The dirty bits of my body throbbed again. I could feel the bacteria multiplying, the infections digging into my skin. What had I done? How had I allowed this to happen to me? I had to get home. I had to get clean. Now. Maybe if I was really quick I could stop all the germs in their tracks?

  So I ran. With a busted ankle and two bleeding hands splattered with gravel, I ran.

  Rose was in the hallway, her face blotchy as I exploded through the door.

  “Evie! Where have you been? Mum and Dad have gone nuts. They’re out in the car looking for you.”

  I ran past her, up to my room. She followed.

  “What’s happened to you? Have you been attacked? Let me call them. They phoned your friend Amber. She said you were with a guy?”

  My sterile little room was unwelcoming and unhelpful. I tipped the duvet off, chucking it to the floor. There must be some cle
aning stuff here. Something my parents hadn’t found.

  Rose was on the phone behind me. “She’s here. She’s in a state, I don’t know what happened. Okay, I’ll try…”

  I didn’t have much time.

  “Evie?” Rose called softly, watching me turn my bedroom upside-down but talking like I wasn’t doing anything extraordinary at all. “Mum and Dad will be back in ten minutes. Let’s have a chat? Tell me what happened…”

  I opened my bottom desk drawer…the germs…I could feel them growing…my tiny hidden bottle of antibacterial hand gel wasn’t there. They’d taken it.

  BAD THOUGHT

  You’re going to get ill and die… Get clean. Find a way! NownownownowNOW!

  “Rose.” I grabbed her with my eyes wide. She jumped.

  “What?”

  “You have to help me. Something dreadful has happened. Where do Mum and Dad hide the cleaning stuff?”

  Her mouth fell open, her eyelashes shaking. “Evelyn, no. There’s nothing here for you. It’s all gone. They don’t keep anything here.”

  BAD THOUGHT

  She’s lying. Your own sister is lying to you. She hates you and resents you and wants you to get ill and die so she doesn’t have to put up with your craziness any more because you’re ruining everyone’s lives.

  “You’re lying,” I screamed. “There must be something. They must have cleaning products somewhere.”

  “No,” she repeated, but I watched her scared eyes flicker in the direction of our parents’ bedroom.

  The en suite. I pushed past her and ran down the corridor. “Evie, no. Please. Stop.”

  I ran past their bed and into the little alcove that was their extra bathroom. Like a frenzied girl – well, I was one – I dived into the cupboard under the sink. And there, there it was. What I needed. Spray bottles and rubber gloves and disinfectant spray and all the wonderful lovely cleaning products that wipe away dirt and germs and all that’s wrong with the world.

  I pulled out a bottle of bleach…

  Evie’s logic that wasn’t logic really

  If I could use something strong enough, I would stop all of Guy’s germs before they had time to breed. Simple soap wouldn’t cut it – he was too dirty and the viruses had had too much time to spread.