Loveless(37)

The three of us agreed we’d ask people we knew, though I wasn’t sure exactly who I’d be able to ask, since all of my friends were sitting with me at the table.

‘You’ve really thought about all this,’ said Pip.

Rooney smiled. ‘Impressed?’

Pip folded her arms. ‘No, just – not really, no. You’ve done the bare minimum of what’s required as a director –’

‘Admit it. You’re impressed by me.’

Jason cleared his throat. ‘So … rehearsal this week?’

Rooney’s smile turned into a wide grin. She smacked her hands down on the table, drawing the attention of most of the people in the room. ‘Yes!’

We all agreed the date and time, then Pip and Jason had to leave – Pip to a lab, and Jason to a tutorial. As soon as they’d left the café, Rooney stood up and flung herself over the table to hug me. I just sat there, letting it happen.

That was our first ever hug.

I was just about to move my arms to hug her back when she pulled away, sitting down and smoothing her ponytail. Her face returned to her usual Rooney face: an effortless smile.

‘It’s going to be amazing,’ she said.

Our troupe consisted of two star performers who both wanted to be in charge, one girl who threw up every time she acted, and one boy who might possibly be the love of my life.

It was going to be an absolute disaster, but that wasn’t stopping any of us.





‘This is perfect,’ said Rooney, at the exact moment Jason tried to walk into the room and smacked his head on the top of the doorframe so hard that he let out a noise like a startled cat.

To her credit, Rooney had tried to book a decent room for our first ever Shakespeare Soc rehearsal. She’d attempted to book one of the giant rooms in the university buildings near the cathedral where lots of the music and drama societies practised. She’d also tried to book a classroom in the Elvet Riverside building where we had our lectures and tutorials and would take our exams at the end of the year.

But Sadie was failing to reply to Rooney’s emails, and without the DST’s clearance, Rooney was not allowed to book rooms for the Shakespeare Society.

I’d pointed out that we could probably just rehearse in our bedroom, but Rooney insisted we find a proper rehearsal space. ‘To get us in the zone,’ she’d said.

And that’s how we ended up in a rickety room in the centuries-old college chapel with such a low ceiling that Jason, who is six foot three, had to actually crouch a little to walk around in. The carpet was faded and worn and there were decaying Sunday School posters on the walls, but it was quiet and free to use, which was all we really needed.

Pip was on FaceTime to her parents as she entered the room, talking in Spanish too fast for my GCSE-level skills to keep up with, looking somewhat exasperated as her mum kept interrupting her.

‘She’s been talking to them for an hour,’ Jason explained as he sat down, rubbing his head. I sat down on the chair next to him. Pip’s parents had always been somewhat overprotective in a very endearing way. I hadn’t spoken to my parents since last week.

‘Who are you talking to?’ said Rooney, skipping over to Pip and sneaking a glance over her shoulder.

‘Who’s this, nena?’ I heard Pip’s dad say. ‘Have you finally got yourself a girlfriend?’

‘NO!’ Pip immediately squawked. ‘She’s – she’s definitely not!’

Rooney waved at Pip’s parents with a wide grin. ‘Hi! I’m Rooney!’

‘Look, I have to go,’ Pip snapped at her phone.

‘What do you study, Rooney?’

She leant in closer to the phone, and closer to Pip as a result. ‘I do English literature! And me and Pip are in the Shakespeare Society together.’

Pip started adjusting her hair, seemingly as a way to put her whole arm in between her body and Rooney’s. ‘I’m going now! I love you! ?Chau!’

‘Aw,’ said Rooney as Pip hung up the call. ‘Your parents are so cute. And they liked me!’

Pip sighed. ‘They’re going to ask about you every single time they call me, now.’

Rooney shrugged and walked away. ‘Clearly they can see I would make a good girlfriend. Just saying.’

‘And why’s that?’

‘My charm and intelligence, obviously. We’ve been through this.’

I expected Pip to snap back, but she didn’t. She went a little red and then laughed, like she’d found Rooney properly amusing. Rooney turned round, her ponytail flying through the air as she did so, to watch, with an unreadable expression on her face.

It took us twenty minutes to actually get the rehearsal underway, largely because Pip and Rooney would not stop bickering. First about who would play Romeo and Juliet, then about which part of Romeo and Juliet we would perform, and then about how we would perform it.

Even after they agreed to cast Jason and me as Romeo and Juliet, Pip and Rooney spent another fifteen minutes stomping around the room, plotting out the scene and vehemently disagreeing with each other about literally everything, until Jason decided that we should probably intervene.

‘This isn’t working,’ he said. ‘You are not co-directing.’

‘Er, yes, we are,’ said Pip.