Alice Oseman - Loveless

‘Uh,’ Jason said, glancing at me. ‘Well … it doesn’t really matter what I think about it.’

‘I don’t know if I want to kiss Tommy,’ I said.

Jason looked satisfied and turned back to Pip. ‘There you go. Case closed. You have to be sure about these things.’

‘No! Come on!’ Pip squawked and turned to face me. ‘Georgia. I know you’re shy. But it’s totally normal to be nervous about crushes. This is literally the final chance you have to confess your feelings, and even if he rejects you, it doesn’t matter, because he’s going to uni on the other side of the country.’

I could have pointed out that this meant a relationship would be pretty difficult should he respond positively, but I didn’t.

‘Remember how nervous I was telling Alicia I liked her?’ Pip continued. ‘And then she was like sorry, I’m straight , and I cried for like two months, but look at me now! I’m thriving!’ She kicked one leg into the air to make her point. ‘This is a no-consequence scenario.’

Jason was looking at me through all of this, like he was trying to suss out how I felt.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘I just … don’t know. I guess I do like him.’

A flash of sadness crossed Jason’s features, but then it was gone.

‘Well,’ he said, looking down at his lap, ‘I guess you should just do what you want.’

‘I guess I do want to kiss him,’ I said.

I looked around the room and, sure enough, Tommy was there, standing in a small group of people near the doorway. He was just far enough away that I couldn’t quite focus on the details of his face – he was just the concept of a person, a blob, a generic attractive guy. My seven-year crush. Seeing him so far away and blurry took me right back to being in Year 7, pointing at a photo of a boy I thought was probably attractive.

And that made up my mind. I could do this.

I could kiss Tommy.

I’d had times when I’d wondered whether I’d end up with Jason. I’d had times when I’d wondered whether I’d end up with Pip too. If our lives were in a movie, at least two of us would have got together.

But I’d never felt any romantic feelings for either of them, as far as I could tell.

Pip and I had been friends for almost seven years. From day one of Year 7, when we’d been sat together in our form-room seating plan and forced to tell each other three interesting facts about ourselves. We learnt we both wanted to be actors and that was it. Friends.

Pip was always more sociable, funnier, and generally more interesting than me. I was the listener, the supportive one when she’d had her am-I-gay crisis at the age of fourteen, and then her I-don’t-know-whether-to-do-acting-or-science crisis last year, and then her I-really-want-to-cut-my-hair-short-but-I’m-scared crisis several months ago.

Jason and I had met each other later, but we bonded faster than I’d ever thought possible, given my poor track record for forming friendships. He was the first person I met who I could sit quietly with and it wouldn’t feel awkward. I didn’t feel like I had to try to be funny and entertaining with him; I could just be me, and he wouldn’t dislike me because of it.

We’d all had what felt like a thousand sleepovers with each other. I knew exactly where the broken springs were in Pip’s bed. I knew that Jason’s favourite glass in my cupboard was a faded Donald Duck one I got at Disneyland when I was twelve. Moulin Rouge was the movie we always watched when we hung out – we all knew it word for word.

There were never any romantic feelings between Pip, Jason and me. But what we did have – a friendship of many years – was just as strong as that, I think. Stronger, maybe, than a lot of couples I knew.

In order to get me physically closer to Tommy, Pip forced us to join a group game of truth or dare, which both Jason and I protested against, but Pip obviously won.

‘Truth,’ I said when it was my turn to suffer. Hattie, who was leading the game, grinned evilly and selected a card from the ‘truth’ pack. There must have been about twelve of us, all sitting on the living-room carpet. Pip and Jason were sitting on either side of me. Tommy was opposite. I didn’t really want to look at him.

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.’