Loveless(29)

She shrugged. ‘Wasn’t that great, to be honest. Bit of a letdown. But, you know. Why not! Everyone’s up for it this week.’

I was curious as to what way the guy had been a letdown but felt it might be a bit intrusive to ask.

Rooney then let out a dramatic gasp, swung her body round and whispered, ‘I forgot to water Roderick,’ before quickly filling a mug with water, running over to her house plant, and pouring it into his pot.

‘D’you think …’ I began, but then stopped. Sleepiness was making me want to be honest.

I didn’t like being honest.

‘What?’ she said, having finished tending to Roderick. She walked over to her bed and wrenched her heels off.

‘D’you think I’m immature?’ I asked, bleary-eyed, my brain not fully awake.

‘Why would I think that?’ She started unzipping her jumpsuit.

‘Because I haven’t had sex or kissed anyone or … any of that. And I’m not … getting with guys and … you know.’ Being you. Doing what you do.

She looked at me. ‘Do you think you’re immature?’

‘No. I just think a lot of other people think I am.’

‘Have they told you that?’

I thought back to the prom afterparty.

‘Yeah,’ I said.

Rooney tugged off her jumpsuit and sat down on her bed in just her underwear. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘So … am I?’

Rooney paused. ‘I think it’s pretty amazing that you haven’t felt peer-pressured into doing anything by now. You haven’t made yourself do anything you didn’t want to do. You haven’t kissed anyone just because you’re scared of missing out. I think that’s one of the most mature things I’ve ever heard, actually.’

I closed my eyes and thought about telling her what had happened with Tommy. I’d almost gone through with that.

But when I opened my eyes again, I found her just sitting there on the bed, looking at the photo of her and Mermaid-hair Beth. Beth must have been a really good friend. It was the only photo Rooney had put on the wall.

Then her head whipped round to face me and she said, ‘So are you going to try dating Jason?’

It all came flooding back, and that was all it took.

A suggestion.

Rooney saying, ‘You’ll never know until you try.’

Rooney saying, ‘He’s really cute. Are you sure you don’t like him maybe, like, a little bit? You get along really well.’

Rooney saying, ‘You honestly act like you’re made for each other.’

That was all it took for me to think …

Yeah.

Maybe.

Maybe I could fall in love with Jason.





Durham Student Theatre’s introductory meeting took place four days later – the Tuesday of my second week at university – inside the Assembly Rooms Theatre. Rooney almost had to physically drag me there after I spent the whole weekend in our room, worn out from five days of intense socialising, but I kept reminding myself that I had to do this, I wanted to do this, to put myself out there and have experiences. And Jason and Pip would be there, so it couldn’t be all bad.

The seats were almost completely full already, since a lot of people were interested in being a part of the DST, but me and Rooney spotted Pip sitting alone near the back of the stalls, so we went to join her. I probably should have sat politically in between Rooney and Pip, but Rooney ended up walking into the row of seats ahead of me, leading to a very awkward greeting between them.

Moments later, Jason arrived. He was panting and looked a little bit sweaty.

I wondered whether I should find that attractive in a sort of post-workout way.

‘Is … this seat … taken?’

I shook my head. ‘Nope.’ I paused while he shook his T-shirt away from his chest, and then shrugged off his teddy-bear jacket. ‘Are you OK?’

He nodded. ‘I just ran … all the way from the library … and now I’m dying.’

‘Well, you made it in time.’

‘I know.’ He turned and looked at me properly then, flashing a warm smile. ‘Hello.’

I smiled back. ‘Hi.’

‘So you’re sure about doing this then?’

‘Yep. And even if I wasn’t, I think I’d have been press-ganged into it by these two.’ I pointed towards Rooney and Pip, who were steadfastly ignoring each other.

‘True.’ He crossed one leg over another, then didn’t give me the chance to say anything more before he started rummaging in his rucksack. After a moment, he drew out a family-size open packet of salted popcorn and held it out to me. ‘Popcorn?’

I dug in and scooped up a handful. ‘Salted. You’re a hero.’

‘We must all play our part in this bitch of a world.’

I was about to agree, but then the lights dimmed, as if we were about to watch a real play, and Durham Student Theatre’s first meeting of the year began.

The president’s name was Sadie and she had the brightest, most engaging voice I’d ever heard. She explained the system of DST, which was incredibly complicated, but the fundamental idea was that each society within DST got a certain amount of funding to put on a production of their own, created entirely by the students within that society. Rooney took a lot of notes while Sadie was explaining.