Loveless Read online

  Pip handed me a crisp from the bowl for support. I gratefully accepted it and stuffed it in my mouth.

  ‘What’s the worst romantic or sexual experience you’ve had with a guy?’

  A couple of people chorused ‘Oooh’, one guy whistled, and one girl just laughed, one short burst of ‘ha’ that I found more embarrassing than anything else.

  Thankfully, I wouldn’t see most of the people at this party ever again in my life. Maybe on Instagram, but I muted most people’s Instagram stories and I already had a mental list of all the people I was going to unfollow after A-level results day. There were a few people at school that me, Pip and Jason got along with. People we’d sit with at lunch. A little gang of theatre kids we’d hang out with in school play season. But I knew already that we would all go to uni and forget about each other.

  Pip, Jason and I would not forget about each other, though, because we were all going to Durham University in October, as long as we got the grades for it. This actually hadn’t been planned – we were a trio of high-achieving nerds, but Jason had failed to get into Oxford, Pip had failed to get into King’s College London, and I was the only one for whom Durham was actually my first choice.

  I thanked the universe every day that it’d worked out like that. I needed Pip and Jason. They were my lifeline.

  ‘That’s too far,’ Jason immediately interjected. ‘Come on. That’s way too personal.’

  There were cries of outrage from the rest of our peers. People didn’t give a shit about it being personal.

  ‘You must have something,’ drawled Hattie in her super-posh accent. ‘Like everyone’s had a terrible kiss or something by now.’

  I was very uncomfortable about being the centre of attention, so I thought it’d be better to just get this over with.

  ‘I’ve never kissed anyone,’ I announced.

  When I said it, I didn’t think I was saying anything particularly odd. Like, this wasn’t a teen movie. Virgin-shaming wasn’t really a thing. Everyone knew that people did these things when they were ready, right?

  But then the reactions began.

  There were audible gasps. A pitying ‘aww’. Some of the guys started laughing and one of them coughed the word ‘virgin’.

  Hattie brought her hand to her mouth and said, horrified, ‘Oh my God, seriously?’

  My face started to burn. I wasn’t weird. There were lots of eighteen-year-olds who hadn’t kissed anyone yet.

  I glanced at Tommy, and even he was looking at me with sympathy, like I was a little kid – like I was a child who didn’t understand anything.

  ‘It’s not that unusual,’ I said.

  Hattie pressed her hand to her heart and stuck out her bottom lip. ‘You’re so pure.’

  A guy leant over and said, ‘You’re, like, eighteen, right?’

  I nodded at him, and he said, ‘Oh my God,’ like I was disgusting or something.

  Was I disgusting? Was I ugly and shy and disgusting and that was why I hadn’t kissed anyone yet?

  My eyes were starting to water.

  ‘All right,’ Pip snapped. ‘You can all stop being dickheads right the fuck now.’

  ‘It is weird, though,’ said a guy I knew from my English class. He was addressing Pip. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s weird to have got to eighteen without having kissed anyone.’

  ‘That’s rich coming from a guy who admitted to having a wank over the princesses in Shrek 3.’

  There were cackles of glee from the group, momentarily distracted from laughing at me. While Pip continued to berate our classmates, Jason very subtly took hold of my hand and pulled me up and out of the room.

  Once we were in the corridor, I was about to cry so I said I needed to pee and went upstairs to find the loo. When I reached the bathroom, I examined my reflection, rubbing under my eyes so my mascara didn’t smudge. I swallowed the tears down. I wasn’t going to cry. I did not cry in front of anybody.

  I hadn’t realised.

  I hadn’t realised how behind I was. I’d spent so much time thinking that my one true love would just show up one day. I had been wrong. I had been so, so wrong. Everyone else was growing up, kissing, having sex, falling in love, and I was just …

  I was just a child.

  And if I carried on like this … would I be alone forever?

  ‘Georgia!’

  Pip’s voice. I made sure my tears were gone by the time I exited the bathroom. And she didn’t suspect a thing.

  ‘They’re so fucking dumb,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed.

  She tried to smile warmly at me. ‘You know you’ll find someone eventually, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You know you’ll find someone eventually. Everyone does. You’ll see.’

  Jason was looking at me with a sad expression on his face. Pitying, maybe. Was he pitying me too?

  ‘Am I wasting being a teenager?’ I asked them. And they told me no, like best friends would, but it was too late. This was the wake-up call I’d needed.

  I needed to kiss someone before it was too late.

  And that someone had to be Tommy.

  I let Pip and Jason go back downstairs to get drinks, using the excuse that I wanted to get my jacket from one of the guest bedrooms because I was cold, and then I just stood in the dark corridor, trying to breathe and collect my thoughts.

  Everything was OK. It wasn’t too late.

  I wasn’t weird or disgusting.

  I had time to make my move.

  I located my jacket, and also found a bowl of cocktail sausages balanced on a radiator, so picked those up too. As I walked back down the corridor, I saw that another bedroom door was ajar, so I peered inside, only to get an absolute eyeful of someone very clearly getting fingered.

  It sent a sort of shockwave through my spine. Like, wow, OK. I forgot people actually did that in real life. It was fun to read about in fanfics and see in movies, but the reality was kind of just like, Oh. Yikes. I’m uncomfortable, get me out of here.

  That aside – surely you’d think to shut the door properly if someone was going to put a body part inside of you.

  It was hard to picture myself in a situation like that. Honestly, I loved the idea in theory – having a sexy little adventure in a dark room in someone else’s house with someone you’ve been on-and-off flirting with for a couple of months – but the reality? Having to actually touch genitals with someone? Ew.

  I guess it took time for people to be ready for stuff like that. And you’d have to find someone you felt comfortable with. I’d never even interacted with anyone I wanted to kiss, let alone someone I wanted to …

  I looked down at my bowl of cocktail sausages. Suddenly I was not very hungry any more.

  And then a voice broke the silence around me.

  ‘Hey,’ said the voice, and I looked up, and there was Tommy.

  This was the first time I had talked to Tommy in my life.

  I’d seen him a lot, obviously. At the few house parties I’d been to. Sometimes at the school gate. When he joined our school for sixth form, we didn’t take any of the same subjects, but we occasionally passed in the corridor.

  I’d always felt sort of nervous when he was nearby. I figured this was because of the crush.

  I didn’t really know how I was supposed to act around him.

  Tommy pointed at the bedroom. ‘Is anyone in there? I think my coat’s on the bed.’

  ‘I think someone’s getting fingered in there,’ I said, hopefully not loud enough for the people in question to hear.

  Tommy dropped his hand. ‘Oh. Right. OK, then. Um. I guess I’ll get it later.’

  There was a pause. We stood awkwardly outside the door. We couldn’t hear the two people inside the bedroom, but just knowing it was happening, and we were both aware of it, made me want to die.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I said, holding up the bowl of sausages. ‘I have sausages.’

  T
ommy nodded. ‘Good. Good for you.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You look really nice, by the way.’

  My prom dress was sparkly and lilac, and I felt fairly uncomfortable in it compared to my usual patterned knits and high-waisted jeans, but I thought I looked nice, so it was good to have confirmation. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Sorry about the truth or dare game.’ He chuckled. ‘People can be such twats. For the record, I didn’t have my first kiss until I was seventeen.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I know it’s kind of late, but … you know, it’s better to wait until it feels right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I agreed, but I was just thinking that if seventeen was ‘late’, then I must be basically geriatric.

  This all felt weird. Tommy had been my crush for seven years. He was talking to me. Why wasn’t I jumping for joy right now?

  Thankfully at that moment my phone buzzed. I retrieved it from my bra.

  Felipa Quintana

  Sexcuse me buts where are you

  Haha sex

  I said sex accidentally

  And BUTS

  Haha butts

  Jason Farley-Shaw

  Please return before pip has another glass of wine

  Felipa Quintana

  Stop subtweeting me in our own group chat when I’m standing right next to you

  Jason Farley-Shaw

  For real though Georgia where are you

  I quickly switched my phone screen off before Tommy thought I was ignoring him.

  ‘Uh …’ I began, not quite knowing what I was going to say before I said it. I held up my oversized denim jacket. ‘If you’re cold, you can borrow my jacket.’

  Tommy looked at it. He seemed unfazed that it was technically a ‘girl’s’ jacket, which was good, because if he’d protested, that probably would have been it for my crush.

  ‘You sure?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah!’

  He took the jacket and put it on. It made me feel a bit uncomfortable, just knowing that some guy I really didn’t know very well was wearing my favourite jacket. Shouldn’t I have been pleased about this development?

  ‘I was just gonna go sit by the fire for a bit,’ said Tommy, and he slouched against the wall, leaning ever so slightly towards me with a smile. ‘D’you … wanna come with?’

  That was when I realised he was trying to flirt with me.

  Like, this was working.

  I was actually going to get to kiss Tommy.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Let me just message my friends.’

  Georgia Warr

  hanging out with tommy lol

  School romance was on my list of favourite fanfiction tropes. I also loved soulmate AU, coffee shop AU, hurt/comfort and temporary amnesia.

  I figured school romance was the most likely one that would happen to me, but now that the possibility of it happening was more than zero, I was freaking out.

  Like, heart racing, sweating, hands shaking freaking out.

  This was what crushes felt like, so this was normal, right?

  Everything was totally normal.

  When we got to the fire, we were the only people there. No kissing orgy in sight.

  I picked a seat near the blanket pile and Tommy sat next to me, balancing a beer bottle on his chair arm. What would happen now? Would we just start making out? God, I hoped not.

  Wait, wasn’t that what I wanted?

  A kiss had to happen, anyway. That much was clear to me. This was my last chance.

  ‘So,’ Tommy said.

  ‘So,’ I said.

  I thought about how I was going to initiate the kiss. In fanfics, they just say Can I kiss you, which is very romantic to read but sounded so embarrassing in my head when I imagined saying it out loud. In movies, it just seems to sort of happen without any discussion beforehand, but both parties go into it knowing exactly what’s happening.

  He nodded at me, and I glanced at him, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘You look really nice,’ he said.

  ‘You said that already,’ I said, smiling awkwardly, ‘but thanks.’

  ‘S’weird we didn’t really speak much at school,’ he continued. As he spoke, he put his hand on the top of my chair, so his hand was weirdly close to my face. I don’t know why that made me feel so uncomfortable. His skin was just there, I guess.

  ‘Well, we weren’t really friends with the same people,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, and you’re pretty quiet, aren’t you?’

  I couldn’t even deny that. ‘Yeah.’

  Now that he was so close, I was struggling to even see what exactly I’d been attracted to for seven years. I could tell that he was conventionally attractive, like you can tell pop stars or actors are attractive, but nothing about him really made me feel butterflies. Did I know what butterflies felt like? What exactly was I supposed to be feeling right now?

  He nodded as if he already knew everything about me. ‘That’s all right. Quiet girls are nice.’

  What was that even supposed to mean?

  Was he being creepy? I couldn’t tell. I was probably just nervous. Everyone gets nervous around their crushes.

  I glanced towards the house, feeling like I didn’t really want to look at him any more. And I spotted two figures hovering in the conservatory, watching us – Pip and Jason. Pip immediately waved at me, but Jason looked kind of embarrassed and pulled Pip away.

  They both wanted to see what would happen with Georgia and her seven-year crush.

  Tommy leant a little closer to me. ‘We should talk more, or something.’

  I could tell he didn’t mean that. He was just stalling. I knew what was supposed to happen next.

  I was supposed to lean in, nervous, but excited, and he’d brush my hair out of my face and I’d look up at him beneath my eyelashes, and then we’d kiss, gently, and we’d be one, Georgia and Tommy, and then we’d go home, giddy and happy, and maybe it’d never happen again. Or maybe he’d message me, and we’d decide to go on a date, just to see what would happen, and at the date we would decide to try going out, and on our third date we would decide to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and a couple of weeks after that we would have sex, and while I was at university he would text me good morning and come to visit every other weekend, and after university we would move in together in a little flat by the river and get a dog, and he’d grow a beard, and then we would get married, and that would be the end.

  That was what was supposed to happen.

  I could see every single moment of it in my head. The simple route. The easy way out.

  I could do that, couldn’t I?

  If I didn’t, what would Pip and Jason say?

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘I know you haven’t kissed anyone before.’

  The way he said it was like he was talking to a newborn puppy.

  ‘OK,’ I said.

  It irritated me. He was irritating me.

  This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? A cute little moment in the dark?

  ‘Hey, look,’ he said, a pitying smile on his face. ‘Everyone has a first kiss eventually. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s OK to be new at, like, romance and all that.’

  New at romance? I wanted to laugh. I’d been studying romance like an academic. Like an obsessive researcher. Romance would be my Mastermind topic.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Georgia …’ Tommy leant in close, and then it hit me.

  The disgust.

  A wave of absolute, unbridled disgust.

  He was so close I felt like I wanted to scream, I wanted to smash a glass and throw up at the same time. My fists tightened on the arms of my chair and I tried to keep looking at him, keep moving towards him, kiss him, but he was so close to me and it felt horrific, I felt disgusted. I wanted this to end.

  ‘It’s OK to be nervous,’ he said. ‘It’s kind of cute, actually.’

  ‘I’m not nervous,’ I said. I was disgusted by the thought of him near me. Wanting thing
s from me. That wasn’t normal, was it?

  He put his hand on my thigh.

  And that’s when I flinched, shoving his hand away and sending his drink toppling off the side of the chair, and he swung forwards to grab it and fell out of his seat.

  Right into the firepit.

  There’d been signs. I’d missed all of them because I was desperate to fall in love.

  Luke from Year 5 was the first. He did it via a note in my coat pocket during playtime. To Georgia. You’re so beautiful, will you be my girlfriend? Yes [ ] No [ ] From Luke.

  I ticked No and he cried all through numeracy.

  In Year 6, when all of the girls in my class decided they wanted boyfriends, I felt left out, so asked Luke if he was still up for it, but he was already going out with Ayesha, so he said no. All the new couples played together on the climbing frame during the leavers’ barbecue, and I felt sad and lonely.

  Noah from the school bus was the second, in Year 9, although I’m not sure he counts. He asked me out on Valentine’s Day because that was what people did on Valentine’s Day – everybody wanted to be in a couple on Valentine’s Day. Noah scared me because he was loud and enjoyed throwing sandwiches at people, so I just shook my head at him and went back to staring out of the window.

  The third was Jian from the boys’ school. Year 11. A lot of people thought he was extremely attractive. We had a long conversation at a house party about whether Love Island was a good show or not, and then he tried to kiss me when everyone was drunk, including both of us. It would have been so easy to go for it.

  It would have been so easy to lean in and do it.

  But I didn’t want to. I didn’t fancy him.

  But the fourth turned out to be Tommy, who I knew from school and who looked like Timothée Chalamet, and I didn’t really know him that well, but this was the time that broke me a little, because I’d thought I really liked him. But I couldn’t do it, because I didn’t fancy him.

  My seven-year crush on him was entirely fabricated.

  A random choice from when I was eleven, and a girl held up a photo and told me to choose a boy.

  I didn’t fancy Tommy.

  Apparently, I hadn’t ever fancied anyone.