Laura Steven - A Girl Called Shameless

Ajita and I chatter our usual nonsense for a quarter of a mile or so, but I can tell she’s feeling a little weird too. So I decide to vocalize my own apprehensions. [How thesaurusy is that sentence?]

“Hey. It’s kinda weird how we graduate from high school this year, right?” I say nonchalantly, staring at my feet. My thrift-store Doc Martens – dark red with black laces – are hella scuffed round the edges.

“Right,” she agrees. “And that this is the last time we’ll ever meet up after winter break to remark on the passage of time.”

School is weird. For so many years it feels infinite, like you’ll never be anything other than a high-schooler. It’s so intrinsic to your identity, and while you can imagine what you might do beyond it, it mostly feels like it’ll never happen. And then senior year hits, and suddenly everything you do is the last. The last first day back after summer. The last New Year’s Eve as a schoolkid. And, someday pretty soon, the last peppermint mocha on the walk to Edgewood. It’s exhilarating, but also terrifying. Because school is all we’ve ever known.

I decide Ajita will not appreciate my lyrical ruminations on the circle of life, so instead I just say, “So. What bitchy things are we going to do today?”

Since we started the Bitches Bite Back website a couple months ago, word has slowly started to spread about what we’re doing. Which is shouting, mainly. Shouting about all the things that make us angry, and inspiring other teenage girls to do the same. A whole bunch of shouting. As well as a roster of feminist sketches, we now have a handful of weekly contributors, who write articles and personal essays on an all manner of feminist topics, and our daily hits are now in the high hundreds rather than the low, well, zeroes. We’re actually heading to Martha’s Diner tonight to have an informal meeting about the tech side of things, which Meg is way savvier about than Ajita and me, who mainly project-manage the shouting. [Is that an official job title? Project Manager (Shouting Division)? It should be.]

10.26 a.m.

There’s one reason I am happy to be back in school: Carson Manning.

Even though we’ve been texting and video-calling a ton, we haven’t seen each other in person at all over the holidays. He’s been working like a madman, doing extra shifts at the pizza place to help his mom cover Christmas expenses. His mom’s douchebag of a partner left them in the lurch a few months back, and since Carson is the oldest the onus has fallen on him to pick up the slack and bring in some extra income.

From what I can gather his mom would love to go to work and provide for the kids, but since there are so many of them, the cost of childcare would far outweigh whatever she earned salary-wise. A common catch-22.

So yeah, Carson has been working double shifts most days, and spending whatever limited free time he has with his family, enjoying the holidays as best he can. Which I totally get. But selfishly I’m still super excited to see him this morning.

We haven’t even exchanged gifts yet. We set a ten-dollar limit on account of our severe brokeness, but I think I knocked it out of the park nonetheless.

I mean, I think I did. No matter how well you think you’ve nailed someone’s gift, the moments before you actually hand it over are hardcore nerve-wracking. And you suddenly think, oh my God, I took it too far, they’re going to think I’m a crazy stalker, this is too much, it’s too thoughtful, please can a giant seagull just swoop overhead, nosedive onto my face, and carry me away in its beak. Or something.

Since we don’t have first or second period together, we’ve arranged to meet by my locker for a smooch and a gift-giving ceremony. And I’m kind of . . . nervous? Well, it’s more like anticipation. Either way, the butterflies are real. Except butterflies makes it sound cute, whereas in reality it feels like my insides are being squashed through a colander and made into pasta sauce. Anyone for some fettucine al intestino ?

The hallways are even more hubbuby than normal, with tons of other reunions and gossip sessions taking place. I wave goodbye to Ajita, take a drink at the water fountain, rub a stubborn smear of dirt off my Doc Martens, and try to steady myself for seeing Carson again. Honestly, why am I so nervous? He’s my boyfriend. He’s into me. That won’t have changed in the last three weeks. Will it?

Jeez. I was never this insecure pre-scandal.

I’m rummaging around in my locker, looking for a peanut butter cup I know I left here before the holidays, when two arms snake round my waist from behind. “Hey, you.”

And just like that the butterflies melt away, joining my intestines in pasta sauce heaven. [Another strange sentence. I’m not even sure context helps us here.]

I twist round in his arms, and our faces end up startlingly close together. Not that I’m complaining. Because his face is my second favorite face. [Ajita would literally flay me alive if I in any way suggested hers did not occupy the number-one spot.]

He kisses me softly on the lips, smiling as he does, so it’s really more of a bumping together of grinning mouths. A tooth clash, if you will. He smells of acrylic paint and fresh air, like he always does, and his head isn’t as freshly shaven as usual, so there’s a short layer of black fuzz everywhere. I’m very into it.

“Hey,” I murmur in what I hope is a seductive voice, but in reality I probably just sound baked. “Long time no see.”

“It’s been what, a decade?” he asks, and he’s grinning so wide, and it makes me really happy that the sight of my face and the sound of my weird stoner voice is enough to make him do that.

“At least two, I’d say.” I take a deep breath and then add, “So I got you something!”

Except he says the exact same thing at the exact same time, like they do in movies, and it’s all so cringeworthy but I just do. Not. Care. Because all those cheesy romance tropes I used to take the piss out of? Turns out they’re pretty great.

“You first,” Carson says, ever the gentleman. [Or probably just because he wanted to receive his gift first, to judge whether or not the one he got me was better. I see your game, Carson Manning.]

“Okay, hang on a sec.” I reluctantly wriggle free of his half-hug and rummage around in my locker. My hands hit pay dirt. “Found it!” Triumphantly I emerge with the rogue peanut butter cup I’d been hunting down before he arrived.

He gasps extravagantly and claps his hands to his cheeks. “Your last peanut butter cup? I know you’re into me and all, man, but . . . you really like me that much?”

I scoff. “Absolutely not.” I quickly unwrap the cup in under 0.2 seconds, seasoned professional that I am, and shove the entire thing in my mouth before he can protest.

Then, mouth full of claggy peanut butter, I bring out the actual gift, and the butterflies return with a vengeance. The gift is wrapped in tinfoil, because a) do you even know how expensive wrapping paper is? and b) tinfoil saves you money on Sellotape, and c) your gift looks like a spaceship. So it’s a win all round.

He snorts, actually snorts with laughter, and pulls his gift out of his backpack. And wouldn’t you know, it’s also wrapped in tinfoil. Romance, Gen Z style. We’re broke, woke, and unusually innovative when it comes to gift-wrapping solutions.

Plus our presents are also almost exactly the same size and shape. Like. What.

As he unravels the tinfoil on his present my chest pounds. It’s the moment of truth. Is he going to think I’m the ultimate weirdo? Or is he going to be charmed by my lunacy?

The tinfoil drops to the floor, and he squints as he tries to read the handwritten Post-it note I’ve stuck on the front of his gift in explanation. To be fair, since I type basically everything, my handwriting is more akin to ancient hieroglyphics than the Latin alphabet, so it does take him some time to decipher.