Loveless(34)

Or, at least, we did until we figured out that Aimee had been making all sorts of comments to Jason about how he wasn’t allowed to hang out with certain people, and he needed to stop talking to other girls – including me and Pip. Jason put up with that for months until he realised that she was, in fact, a shithead.

Jason had sex for the first time with her, and it pissed me off that he’d had that experience with someone like that.

‘This won’t be shit,’ I said, then rephrased. ‘This … won’t be shit, will it?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Definitely not.’

‘We’ll go slow.’

‘Yeah. This is new territory.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And if it doesn’t work out …’ Jason began, then seemed to change his mind about what he was going to say.

I’ll be honest: I still wasn’t even sure that I was into Jason. He was super nice, funny, interesting and attractive, but I didn’t know whether I was feeling anything other than platonic friendship.

But I would never know unless I persisted. Unless I tried.

And if it didn’t work out, Jason would understand.

‘… we’ll still be friends,’ I concluded. ‘No matter what.’

‘Yes.’ Jason leant back in his chair and folded his arms, and God, I was glad that I was doing this with Jason and not some random person who didn’t know me, who didn’t understand, who would expect things from me and would think I was weird when I didn’t want to …

‘There’s one other thing we should probably talk about,’ said Jason.

‘What?’

‘What are we going to tell Pip?’

There was a silence. I honestly hadn’t even thought about how Pip would feel about this.

Something told me she wouldn’t be happy about her two best friends getting together and majorly distorting the dynamics of our friendship group.

‘We should tell her,’ I said. ‘When we find a good time.’

‘Yeah. Agreed.’ Jason looked relieved that I’d said it. That he didn’t have to be the one to suggest it.

‘Best to just be honest about it.’

‘Yeah.’

When we left the ice-cream café, we hugged goodbye, and it felt like a normal hug for us. A normal Jason and Georgia hug, the sort of hug we’d been having for years.

There wasn’t any sort of weird moment when we felt like we should kiss. We hadn’t reached that point yet, I guessed.

That would come later.

And I was fine with that.

That was what I wanted.

I thought.

Yeah.





When Rooney returned to our room that night, she wanted to hear every detail of my date with Jason. I would have been fine with this, were it not 4.38 a.m.

‘So it went well, then?’ she asked after I’d finished giving her the rundown from where I was wrapped up like a burrito in my duvet.

‘Yeah?’ I said.

‘Are you sure?’ she asked. She was sitting on her bed, cup of tea in one hand and make-up wipe in the other.

I frowned. ‘Why?’

‘You just …’ She shrugged. ‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I mean … I guess I just …’

‘What?’

‘I’m not sure if I really like him like that yet. I dunno.’

Rooney paused. ‘Well, if the spark’s not there, the spark’s not there.’

‘No, I mean, we get along really well. Like, I love him as a person.’

‘Yeah, but is the spark there?’

How was I supposed to know that? What the fuck was the spark? What did the spark even feel like?

I thought I’d understood what all these romantic things would feel like – butterflies and the spark and just knowing when you liked someone. I’d read about these feelings hundreds of times in books and fanfic. I’d watched way more romcoms than was probably normal for an eighteen-year-old.

But now I was starting to wonder whether these things were just made up.

‘… Maybe?’ I said.

‘Well, you might as well just wait and see how it goes, then. When you know, you know.’

That sort of made me want to scream. I didn’t know how to know.

Honestly, if I’d had any sort of feelings for girls, I would have wondered whether I wasn’t straight. Maybe boys in general were the problem.

‘What does it feel like when you get the spark?’ I asked. ‘Like … tonight. You – I assume you were with a guy?’

Her expression dropped instantly. ‘That’s different.’

‘Wait – how? Why?’

She stood up from her bed and turned round, grabbing her pyjamas. ‘That’s just different. That’s nothing like this situation.’

‘I’m just asking –’

‘Me having sex with some random guy is not similar to you dating your best friend. Completely different scenarios.’

I blinked. She was probably right about that.

‘So why do you have sex with random guys?’ I asked. As soon as I said it, I realised what a blunt and invasive question it was. But I did want to know. It wasn’t like I was judging her – honestly, I wished I had her confidence. But I didn’t understand how she did it, really. Why she wanted to do it. Why would someone go to a stranger’s house and take their clothes off when you could just stay home and have a safe, comfortable wank? Surely the end result was exactly the same.