Loveless(15)

But I would never be like Rooney. Not naturally, anyway. I would never be able to kiss some guy just because it was fun, because it made me feel good, because I could do what I wanted. I would never be able to manufacture that spark that she seemed to have with almost everyone she met.

Unless she told me how.

Pip finally tore her eyes away from the window. ‘That’s got to be unhygienic,’ she said, making a disgusted face. ‘That’s where people make their tea, for God’s sake.’

I murmured my agreement before moving away from the door, our hot chocolate plans abandoned.

Pip had this look on her face like she’d seen this coming.

‘I’m so dumb,’ she muttered.

I knew almost everything about romance. I knew the theory. I knew when people were flirting, I knew when they wanted to kiss. I knew when people’s boyfriends were being shitty to them, even when they couldn’t tell it themselves. I’d read infinite stories of people meeting and flirting and awkwardly pining, hating before liking, lusting before loving, kissing and sex and love and marriage and partners for life, till death us do part.

I was a master of the theory. But Rooney was a master of the practice.

Maybe fate had brought her to me. Or maybe that was just romantic thinking.





In the middle of the night, between Tuesday and Wednesday, I woke up to hear someone having sex in the room above ours.

It was a sort of rhythmic thumping. Like a headboard hitting a wall. And a creaking, like the bend of an old bedframe.

I sat up, wondering if I was just imagining it. But I wasn’t. It was real. People were having sex in the room above us. What else would that sound be? There were only bedrooms up there, so unless someone had decided to do some 3 a.m. DIY, there was only one thing that sound could be.

Rooney was fast asleep, curled up on her side, her dark hair splayed around her on the pillow. Utterly oblivious.

I knew this sort of thing would happen at university. In fact, I knew this sort of thing happened at school – well, not physically at school, hopefully, but among my schoolfriends and classmates.

But hearing it happen, in the flesh, not just knowing and imagining, chilled me to the core. Even more than when I saw that person getting fingered at Hattie’s party.

It was a jarring sort of oh, God, this thing is actually real, it’s not just in fanfics and movies. And I’m supposed to be doing that too.





‘College families’ were a new concept to me. At Durham, students in their second and third years paired up to act as a mentor team, or ‘college parents’ for a small group of incoming freshers, who were their ‘college children’.

I kind of loved it. It made a romance out of something absolutely mundane, which was something that I was incredibly experienced at.

Rooney and I, plus four other students who I only knew from their Facebook profiles, had arranged to gather with our college parents at Starbucks. This had all been organised in a group chat on Facebook last week in which I’d been too scared to say anything other than ‘Sounds great! I’ll be there .

But when we got there, only one of our parents was there – Sunil Jha.

‘So,’ said Sunil, crossing one leg over the other in his chair. ‘I’m your college parent.’

Sunil Jha had a warm smile and kind eyes, and although he was only two years older than us he seemed infinitely more mature. He was also dressed incredibly well – slim trousers with Converse, a T-shirt tucked in and a bomber jacket with a subtle grey tartan pattern.

‘Please don’t refer to me as your college mother or father,’ he continued, ‘not just because I’m non-binary, but also because that feels like a scary amount of commitment.’

This earned some chuckles. On his jacket were several enamel pins – a rainbow flag, a tiny old radio, a pin featuring a boyband logo, one that read ‘He/They’, and another pride pin, this one with black, grey, white and purple stripes. I was sure I’d seen that one before, online somewhere, but I couldn’t remember what it meant.

‘In a strange turn of events, your college mother decided that university wasn’t for her and dropped out at the end of last term. So we’re going to be a single-parent family this year.’

There were some more chuckles, but then silence. I wondered when Rooney was going to bust out the questions, but it seemed even she was a little intimidated by Sunil’s third-year confidence.

‘Basically,’ said Sunil, ‘I’m here if you have literally any questions or worries about anything while you’re here. Alternatively, you can just do what you want and forget I ever existed.’

More laughs.

‘So. Does anyone have anything you want to chat about while we’re here?’

After a short moment, Rooney was the first to jump in. ‘I was wondering, like … how the college marriage thing worked? I heard something about college proposals but I don’t really know what that is.’

Oh, yeah. I was glad she’d asked that.

Sunil laughed. ‘Oh my God, yes. OK. So. College marriage.’ He linked his fingers together. ‘If you want to form a mentor team with another student, you get college married. One of you proposes to the other and usually it’s a big, dramatic proposal. There’ll be lots happening this term.’

Rooney was nodding, fascinated. ‘What d’you mean by “big and dramatic”?’