Loveless(60)

She shook her head slowly. ‘No. Not really.’

‘It … was bad?’

‘I just did it to try and fill a hole.’

I considered this.

‘I may be a virgin,’ I said, ‘but I sort of thought that filling a hole was usually the point.’

Rooney let out a cackle. ‘Oh my God. You did not just make that joke.’

I glanced at her. She was grinning.

‘Are you referring to a different hole?’ I asked. ‘A non-vaginal one?’

‘Yes, Georgia. I’m not talking about my fucking vagina.’

‘OK. Just checking.’ I paused. ‘I thought you were all sex-positive and stuff. There’s nothing wrong with casual sex.’

‘I know that,’ she said, then shook her head. ‘I still believe in all that. I’m not saying that having casual sex makes me a bad person, because it doesn’t. And I really do enjoy it. But tonight … it was just …’ She sipped her tea, her eyes filling with tears again. ‘You know when you eat too much cake and it makes you feel sick? It was sort of like that. I thought it’d be fun, but it just made me feel … lonely.’

‘Oh.’ I didn’t want to pry, so I just remained silent.

Rooney drank the rest of her tea in a few big gulps.

‘D’you wanna watch some YouTube?’ she asked.

This threw me. ‘Er … sure.’

She put down her mug, stood up, threw open the duvet and slipped inside. She shuffled over to one side and patted the space next to her, indicating for me to get in.

‘I mean … you don’t have to,’ Rooney said, sensing my hesitation. ‘D’you have a lecture in the morning, or something?’

I didn’t. I had a fully free day of no contact time tomorrow.

‘Nah. I have to eat my fish and chips anyway.’ I retrieved my dinner, then lay down next to her. It felt right and wrong at the same time – a mirror world. The same as my own bed but everything was opposite.

She smiled and pulled her floral duvet over us and huddled towards me to get comfy, then grabbed her laptop from her bedside table.

She opened up YouTube. I didn’t really watch any YouTubers – I only used YouTube for trailers, fan videos, and TikTok compilations. But Rooney seemed to be subscribed to dozens upon dozens of channels. It surprised me. She hadn’t seemed like the sort of person to be into YouTube.

‘There’s this really funny YouTuber I watch a lot,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘D’you want some chips?’

‘God, yes.’

She found the channel and searched through the videos until she found one she wanted. And then we lay together in her bed and watched it, Rooney sharing my chips.

It was a pretty funny video, to be fair. It was just this YouTuber and his friends playing a weird singing game. I kept giggling aloud, which made Rooney laugh, and before I knew it, we’d been watching for twenty whole minutes. She immediately found another video she wanted to show me, and I was happy to let her. Halfway through, she rested her head on my shoulder, and … I don’t know. That was probably the calmest I’d ever seen her.

We watched silly videos for another hour or so until Rooney shut her laptop and put it aside, then snuggled back down into the bed. I wondered whether she’d fallen asleep, and if so, should I just go back to my own bed, because I definitely wasn’t going to be able to sleep here in such close proximity to another person, but then Rooney spoke.

‘I used to have a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘A long-term boyfriend. From when I was fourteen until I was seventeen.’

‘Wow. Really?’

‘Yeah. We broke up when I was in Year Twelve.’

I’d assumed that Rooney had always been like Rooney. That she’d always been this carefree, fun-loving, passionate person who wasn’t bothered about commitment.

A three-year-long relationship?

That wasn’t what I’d expected.

‘Things with him … were very bad,’ she said. ‘I … it was a very bad relationship in … a lot of ways, and … it really … put me off wanting them.’

I didn’t ask her to elaborate. I could imagine what she meant.

‘I haven’t liked anyone since then,’ she mumbled again. ‘I’ve been scared to. But I might … be starting to like someone new.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I really … don’t want to be doing that.’

‘Why?’

‘It just won’t end well.’ She shook her head. ‘And she hates me, anyway.’

I knew instantly that she meant Pip.

‘I don’t think she hates you,’ I said gently.

Rooney said nothing.

‘Anyway, you’re only eighteen, you’ve got so much time –’ I started to say, but didn’t know how to continue. What did I mean when I said that? That she’d definitely find the perfect relationship someday? Because I knew that wasn’t true. Not for me. Not for anyone.

It was something adults said all the time. You’ll change your mind when you’re older. You never know what might happen. You’ll feel differently one day. As if we teenagers knew so little about ourselves that we could wake up one day a completely different person. As if the person we are right now doesn’t matter at all.