Jenny Downham: Before I Die aka Now is Good

But that’s not what happens. I forgot three things. I forgot that books aren’t real. I also forgot that I don’t have time for flirting. Zoey remembers. She’s the third thing I forgot. And she’s moving in.

‘This is my friend,’ she shouts to Stoner Boy above the music. ‘Her name’s Tessa. I’m sure she’d like a drag on that joint of yours.’

He smiles, passes it over, takes us both in, his gaze lingering on the length of Zoey’s hair.

‘It’s pure grass,’ Zoey whispers. Whatever it is, it’s thick and pungent at the back of my throat. It makes me cough, makes me dizzy. I pass it to Zoey, who inhales deeply, then passes it back to him.

The three of us are joined now, moving together as the bass pounds up through our feet and into our blood. Kaleidoscopic images flicker from the video screens on the walls. The joint goes round again.

I don’t know how much time goes by. Hours maybe. Minutes. I know I mustn’t stop and that’s all I know. If I keep dancing, the dark corners of the room won’t creep any nearer, and the silence between tracks won’t get any louder. If I keep dancing, I’ll see ships on the sea again, taste cockles and whelks and hear the creak snow makes when you’re the first one to stand on it.

At some point Zoey passes over a fresh joint. ‘Glad you came?’ she mouths.

I pause to inhale, stupidly stand still a second too long, forgetting to move. And now the spell is broken. I try to claw back some enthusiasm, but I feel as if a vulture is perched on my chest. Zoey, Stoner and all the other dancers are far away and unreal, like a TV programme. I don’t expect to be included any more.

‘Back in a minute,’ I tell Zoey.

In the quiet of the toilet, I sit on the bowl and contemplate my knees. If I gather up this little red dress just a bit further, I can see my stomach. I still have red patches on my stomach. And on my thighs. My skin is as dry as a lizard’s, however much cream I smooth in. On the inside of my arms are the ghosts of needle marks.

I finish peeing, wipe myself and pull the dress back down. When I leave the cubicle, Zoey’s waiting by the hand dryer. I didn’t hear her come in. Her eyes are darker than before. I wash my hands very slowly. I know she’s watching me.

‘He’s got a friend,’ she says. ‘His friend’s cuter, but you can have him, since it’s your special night. They’re called Scott and Jake and we’re going back to their place.’

I hold onto the edge of the sink and look at my face in the mirror. My eyes seem unfamiliar.

‘One of the Tweenies is called Jake,’ I say.

‘Look,’ Zoey says, pissed off now, ‘do you want to have sex or not?’

A girl at the sink next to mine shoots me a glance. I want to tell her that I’m not what she thinks. I’m very nice really, she’d probably like me. But there’s not time.

Zoey drags me out of the toilet and back towards the bar. ‘There they are. That one’s yours.’

The boy she points to has his hands flat against his groin, his thumbs looped through his belt. He looks like a cowboy with faraway eyes. He doesn’t see us coming, so I dig my heels in.

‘I can’t do it!’

‘You can! Live fast, die young, have a good-looking corpse!’

‘No, Zoey!’

My face feels hot. I wonder if there’s a way of getting air in here. Where’s the door we came in from?

She scowls at me. ‘You asked me to make you do this! What am I supposed to do now?’

‘Nothing. You don’t have to do anything.’

‘You’re pathetic!’ She shakes her head at me, stalks off across the dance floor and out to the foyer. I scurry after her and watch her hand in the ticket for my coat.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting your coat. I’ll find you a cab, so you can piss off home.’

‘You can’t go back to their house on your own, Zoey!’

‘Watch me.’

She pushes open the door and surveys the street. It’s quiet out here now the queue has gone, and there aren’t any cabs. Along the pavement some pigeons peck at a takeaway chicken box.

‘Please, Zoey, I’m tired. Can’t you drive me home?’

She shrugs. ‘You’re always tired.’

‘Stop being so horrible!’

‘Stop being so boring!’

‘I don’t want to go back to some strange boys’ house. Anything could happen.’

‘Good. I hope it does, because precisely zero is going to happen otherwise.’

I stand awkwardly, suddenly afraid. ‘I want it to be perfect, Zoey. If I have sex with a boy I don’t even know, what does that make me? A slag?’

She turns on me, her eyes glittering. ‘No, it makes you alive. If you get in a cab and go home to Daddy, what does that make you?’

I imagine climbing into bed, breathing the dead air of my room all night, waking up to the morning and nothing being any different.

Her smile is back. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘You can tick the first thing off that bloody list of yours. I know you want to.’ Her smile’s contagious. ‘Say yes, Tessa. Come on, say yes!’

‘Yes.’

‘Hurrah!’ She grabs my hand, steers me back to the door of the club. ‘Now text your dad and say you’re staying at mine, and let’s get a move on.’

‘Don’t you like beer?’ Jake says.

He’s leaning against the sink in his kitchen and I’m standing too close to him. I’m doing it on purpose.

‘I just fancied some tea.’

He shrugs, chinks his beer bottle against my cup, and tips his head back to swig. I watch his throat as he swallows, notice a small pale scar under his chin, a thin ribbon from some long ago accident. He wipes his mouth with his sleeve, sees me staring.

‘You OK?’ he asks.

‘Yeah. You?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Good.’

He smiles at me. He has a nice smile. I’m glad. It would be so much harder if he was ugly.

Half an hour ago Jake and his mate Stoner Boy grinned at each other as they led me and Zoey into their house. Those grins said they’d scored. Zoey told them not to make any assumptions, but still we walked into their lounge and she let Stoner take her coat. She laughed at his jokes, accepted the joints he made for her and got steadily wrecked.

I can see her through the door. They’ve put music on, some mellow jazz number. They’ve turned off the lights to dance, moving together in slow, stoned circles on the carpet. Zoey has one hand in the air holding a joint, the other tucked into Stoner’s belt at the back of his trousers. He has both arms wrapped around her so that they appear to be holding each other up.

I feel suddenly sensible, drinking tea in the kitchen, and realize I need to get on with my plan. This is about me, after all.

I gulp my tea down, put the cup on the draining board and move even closer to Jake. The tips of our shoes touch.

‘Kiss me,’ I say, which sounds ridiculous as soon as I say it, but Jake doesn’t seem to mind. He puts down his beer and leans towards me.

We kiss quite gently, our lips just brushing, only a hint of breath from him to me. I’ve always known I’d be good at kissing. I’ve read all the magazines, the ones that tell you about nose bumping and excess saliva and where to put your hands. I didn’t know it would feel like this though, the soft scour of his chin on mine, his hands gently searching my back, his tongue running along my lips and into my mouth.

We kiss for minutes, pressing our bodies closer, leaning in to each other. It’s such a relief to be with someone who doesn’t know me at all. My hands are brave, dipping into the curve where his spine ends and stroking him there. How healthy he feels, how solid.

I open my eyes to see if he’s enjoying it, but I’m drawn instead to the window behind him, to the trees surrounded by night out there. Little black twigs tap at the glass like fingers. I snap my eyes shut and grind myself closer to him. I can feel just how hard he wants me through my little red dress. He makes a small moaning noise at the back of his throat.