Alice Oseman - Loveless

I’d only ever had a crush on one person. His name was Tommy. He was the ‘hot boy’ of our school year – the one who could actually have been a model if he’d wanted. He was tall and skinny and conventionally attractive in a Timothée Chalamet sort of way, though I didn’t really understand why everyone was in love with Timothée Chalamet. I had a theory that a lot of people’s ‘celebrity crushes’ were faked just to fit in.

Tommy had been my crush ever since I was in Year 7 and a girl had asked me, ‘Who d’you think is the hottest boy at Truham?’ She’d shown me a photo on her phone of a group of the most popular Year 7 boys at the boys’ grammar over the road, and there was Tommy right in the middle. I could tell he was the most attractive one – I mean, he had hair like a boy-band star and was dressed pretty fashionably – so I’d pointed and said him . And I guess that was that.

Almost seven years later, I’d never actually talked to Tommy. I’d never even really wanted to, probably because I was shy. He was more of an abstract concept – he was hot, and he was my crush, and nothing was going to happen between us, and I was perfectly fine with that.

I snorted at Pip. ‘Obviously not Tommy.’

‘Why not? You like him.’

The thought of actually following through on the crush made me feel extremely nervous.

I just shrugged at Pip, and she dropped the discussion.

Pip and I started to walk out of the kitchen, arms still slung round each other, and into the hallway of Hattie Jorgensen’s fancy country home. People were slumped on the floor in the corridor in their prom dresses and tuxes, cups and food scattered around. Two people were kissing on the stairs, and I looked at them for a moment, unsure whether it was disgusting or whether it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen in my life. Probably the former.

‘You know what I want?’ Pip said, as we stumbled into Hattie’s conservatory and collapsed on to a sofa.

‘What?’ I said.

‘I want someone to spontaneously perform a song to declare their love for me.’

‘What song?’

She gave this some thought.

‘“Your Song” from Moulin Rouge .’ She sighed. ‘God, I am sad, gay and alone.’

‘Solid song choice, but not as attainable as a kiss.’

Pip rolled her eyes. ‘If you want to kiss someone that much, just go talk to Tommy. You’ve liked him for seven years. This is your last chance before we go to uni.’

She might have had a point.

If it was going to be anyone, it was going to be Tommy. But the idea filled me with dread.

I folded my arms. ‘Maybe I could kiss a stranger instead.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘I’m serious .’

‘No you’re not. You’re not like that.’

‘You don’t know what I’m like.’

‘Yes I do,’ said Pip. ‘I know you more than anyone.’

She was right. About knowing me and about me not being like that and about tonight being my last chance to confess the crush I’d had for seven years, and the last chance to kiss someone while I was still a schoolkid, while I had a chance to feel the teenage-dream excitement and youthful magic that everyone else seemed to have had a little taste of.

It was my last chance to feel that.

So maybe I would have to bite the bullet and kiss Tommy after all.

I loved romance. Always had. I loved Disney (especially the under-appreciated masterpiece that is The Princess and the Frog ). I loved fanfiction (even fanfics for characters I knew nothing about, but Draco/Harry or Korra/Asami were my comfort reads). I loved thinking about what my own wedding would be like (a barn wedding, with autumn leaves and berries, fairy lights and candles, my dress – lacy and vintage-looking, my soon-to-be-spouse crying, my family crying, me crying because I’m so, so happy, just, so happy that I have found the one ).

I just. Loved. Love .

I knew it was soppy. But I wasn’t a cynic. I was a dreamer, maybe, who liked to yearn and believed in the magic of love. Like the main guy from Moulin Rouge , who runs away to Paris to write stories about truth, freedom, beauty and love, even though he should probably be thinking about getting a job so he can actually afford to buy food. Yeah. Definitely me.

I probably got this from my family. The Warrs believed in forever love – my parents were just as in love now as they were back in 1991 when my mum was a ballet teacher and my dad was in a band. I’m not even joking. They were literally the plot of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Sk8er Boi’ but with a happy ending.

Both sets of my grandparents were still together. My brother married his girlfriend when he was twenty-two. None of my close relatives had been divorced. Even most of my older cousins had at least partners, if not whole families of their own.

I hadn’t ever been in a relationship.

I hadn’t even kissed anyone.

Jason kissed Karishma from my history class on his Duke of Edinburgh expedition and dated a horrible girl called Aimee for a few months until he realised she was a knob. Pip kissed Millie from the Academy at a house party and also Nicola from our youth theatre group at the dress rehearsal for Dracula . Most people had a story like that – a silly kiss with someone they sort of had a crush on, or didn’t really, and it didn’t necessarily go anywhere, but that was a part of being a teenager.

Most people aged eighteen have kissed someone. Most people aged eighteen have had at least one crush, even if it’s on a celebrity. At least half of everyone I knew had actually had sex, although some of those people were probably lying, or they were just referring to a really terrible hand job or touching a boob.

But it didn’t bother me, because I knew my time would come. It did for everyone. You’ll find someone eventually – that was what everyone said, and they were right. Teen romances only worked out in movies anyway.

All I had to do was wait, and my big love story would come. I would find the one . We would fall in love. And I’d get my happily ever after.

‘Georgia has to kiss Tommy,’ Pip said to Jason as we slumped down next to him on a sofa in Hattie’s living room.

Jason, who was in the middle of a game of Scrabble on his phone, frowned at me. ‘Can I ask why?’

‘Because it’s been seven years and I think it’s time,’ said Pip. ‘Thoughts?’

Jason Farley-Shaw was our best friend. We were kind of a trio. Pip and I went to the same all-girls grammar school and met Jason through the annual school plays, where they’d always get a few of the boys from the boys’ grammar school to join in, then after a couple of years he joined our school, which was mixed in the sixth form, and joined our youth theatre group too.

No matter what production we put on, whether it was a musical or a play, Jason usually played essentially the same role: a stern older man. This was mostly because he was tall and broad, but also because, at first glance, he did give off a bit of a strict dad vibe. He’d been Javert in Les Mis , Prospero in The Tempest and the angry father, George Banks, in Mary Poppins .

Despite this, Pip and I had quickly learnt that underneath his stern exterior, Jason was a very gentle, chilled-out dude who seemed to enjoy our company more than anyone else’s. With Pip being a harbinger of chaos and my tendency to feel worried and awkward about pretty much everything, Jason’s calmness balanced us out perfectly.