Loveless

by Alice Oseman

  ‘It was the only filling they had left so you’re gonna eat it and make do.’

  Thankfully, I love Marmite, and even if I didn’t, I probably would have eaten it anyway because I was suddenly ravenous. The nausea had passed, and my stomach felt painfully empty, so I munched on the toastie while we watched the movie that was currently playing on the screen.

  We were the only people in the room. Distantly we could hear the thumping of the DJ’s music in the dance hall, which was no doubt where most people were. There was also some chattering coming from the room opposite, which was serving free tea and toasties, and occasionally loud laughter and voices would drift past the door as students went about their night together, doing whatever to pass the time until the end of the ball at dawn. It didn’t feel like a ball any more – it felt like a giant sleepover where nobody wanted to be the first to go to sleep.

  The movie was the best adaptation of Romeo and Juliet – Baz Luhrmann’s nineties one with Leonardo DiCaprio. We hadn’t missed much – Romeo was walking moodily along the beach – so we settled down into the beanbag to watch, not speaking.

  We stayed that way, engrossed, for the next forty-five minutes.

  That was roughly how long it took me to sober up a little and for my brain to start working again.

  ‘Where’d you go?’ was the first thing I said.

  Rooney didn’t look away from the screen. ‘I’m right here?’

  ‘No … earlier. You left and then you were gone.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Just hanging out with some people. Sorry. I … yeah. Sorry about that.’ She glanced at me. ‘You were OK, though, right?’

  I could barely remember how I’d spent the time between dinner and the bouncy castle battle. Wandering through the dance hall, sitting in the tea room, exploring the marquee but not having a go on any of the stalls.

  ‘Yeah, I was fine,’ I said.

  ‘Good. Did you dance with Jason?’

  Oh. And there was that.

  ‘Nope,’ I said.

  ‘Oh. How come?’

  I wanted to tell her everything.

  I was going to tell her everything.

  Was it the alcohol? The buzz of the ball? The fact that Rooney was starting to know me better than anyone, all because she slept two metres from me every night?

  ‘Me and Jason isn’t going to happen,’ I said.

  She nodded. ‘Yeah, I … I guess I got that impression, but … I just assumed you were still dating.’

  ‘No. I ended it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because …’

  The words were on the tip of my tongue. Because I am aromantic and asexual. But it sounded clunky. They still felt like fake words in my brain, secret words, whispered words that didn’t belong in the real world.

  It wasn’t that I thought Rooney would react badly – she wouldn’t react with disgust or anger. She wasn’t like that.

  But I thought she would react with awkwardness. With confusion. An er, OK, what the fuck is that? She would nod politely once I explained it, but in her head she would be thinking Oh my God, Georgia’s really weird.

  Somehow, that felt almost as bad.

  ‘Because I don’t like guys,’ I said.

  As soon as I said it, I realised my mistake.

  ‘Oh,’ said Rooney. ‘Oh my God.’ She sat up, nodding, taking this information in. ‘That’s OK. Fuck. I mean, I’m glad you realised. Congrats, I guess?’ She laughed. ‘It seems way better to not be attracted to guys. Girls are much nicer all round.’ Then she made a pained expression. ‘Oh my God. I spent so much time and energy trying to set you up with Jason. Why didn’t you say anything?’

  Before I had time to respond, she interrupted herself.

  ‘No, sorry, that’s an idiotic thing to say. Obviously you were working shit out. That’s fine. I mean, that’s what university is for, isn’t it? Experimenting and figuring out who you actually like.’ She patted me firmly on the leg. ‘And you know what this means? Now we can focus on finding you a nice girl to date! Oh my God. I know so many cute girls who would like you. You have to come with me on a night out next week. I can introduce you to so many girls.’

  All the time she was monologuing, I felt myself getting hotter and hotter. If I didn’t speak up, I was going to lose my nerve and start going along with this new lie and then I’d have to go through the whole trying-to-date thing again.

  ‘I don’t really want to do that,’ I said, fiddling with the now-empty toastie napkin.

  ‘Oh. OK, yeah. Sure. That’s fine.’

  Rooney sipped on her own glass of water and spent a few moments watching the screen.

  Then she continued. ‘You don’t have to get into dating right now. You’ve got so much time.’

  So much time. I wanted to laugh.

  ‘I don’t think I will,’ I said.

  ‘Will what?’

  ‘Date. Ever. I don’t like girls either. I don’t like anyone.’

  The words echoed around the room. There was a long pause.

  And then Rooney laughed.

  ‘You are drunk,’ she said.

  I was, a little, but that wasn’t the point.

  And she’d laughed. That annoyed me.

  That was how I’d expected her to react. That was how I expected everyone to react.

  Pitying, awkward laughter.

  ‘I don’t like guys,’ I said. ‘And I don’t like girls. I don’t like anyone. So I’m never going to date anyone.’

  Rooney said nothing for a few moments.

  And then she said, ‘Listen, Georgia. You might feel that way right now, but … don’t give up hope. Maybe you’re going through a rough patch at the moment, like, I don’t know, the stress of starting uni or whatever, but … you will meet someone you like one day. Everyone does.’

  No, they don’t, was what I wanted to say.

  Not everyone.

  Not me.

  ‘It’s a real thing,’ I said. ‘It’s a … it’s a real sexuality. When you don’t like anyone.’

  I couldn’t say the actual words, though.

  It probably wouldn’t have helped if I had.

  ‘OK,’ said Rooney. ‘Well, how do you know that you are … that? How do you know that you won’t meet someone one day who you really like?’

  I stared at her.

  Of course she didn’t understand.

  Rooney wasn’t the romance expert I’d thought she was. I was pretty sure I knew more than her at this point.

  ‘I’ve never had a crush on anyone in my life,’ I said, but my voice was quiet and I didn’t even sound confident, let alone feel confident about who I was. ‘I … I like the idea of it, but … the reality …’ I trailed off, feeling a lump in my throat. If I tried to explain it, I knew I would just start crying. It was still so new. I’d never tried to explain it to anyone before.

  ‘Have you kissed a girl, then?’

  I looked at her. She was looking at me level-headedly. Almost like a challenge.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘So how do you know you don’t like that?’

  Deep down, I knew this was an unfair question. You didn’t have to try something to know for sure you don’t like it. I knew I didn’t like skydiving. I definitely didn’t need to try that out to prove it.

  But I was drunk. And so was she.

  ‘I dunno,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe you should give it a go before you … you know. Completely reject the idea that you could possibly find someone.’ Rooney laughed again. She wasn’t trying to do it in a mean way. But that was how it felt.

  I knew she just wanted to help.

  And that sort of made it worse.

  She was trying to be a good friend, but she was saying all the wrong things because she didn’t have the faintest idea what it was like to be me.

  ‘Maybe,’ I mumbled, leaning back into the beanbag.

  ‘Why don’t you try with me?’

  Wait.

&nb
sp; What?

  ‘What?’ I said, turning my head to face her.

  She rolled to one side so her whole body was facing mine, then held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I literally just want to help. I absolutely don’t like you that way – no offence – but you might be able to get a sense of whether it’s something you might like. I want to help.’

  ‘But … I don’t like you like that,’ I said. ‘Even if I was gay, I wouldn’t necessarily feel something just because you’re a girl.’

  ‘OK, maybe not,’ she said with a sigh. ‘I just don’t want to see you give up without trying.’

  She was annoying me, and I realised that it was because what I was doing wasn’t ‘giving up’.

  It was acceptance.

  And maybe, just maybe, that could be a good thing.

  ‘I don’t want you to feel like you’re going to be sad and lonely forever!’ she said, and that was the moment I broke a little.

  Was that all I would be? Sad and lonely? Forever?

  Had I doomed myself by daring to think about this part of me?

  Was I just accepting a life of solitude?

  As soon as those questions hit me, they opened the floodgate to all the doubts I thought I’d been fighting off.

  Maybe it was all just a phase.

  Maybe this was giving up.

  Maybe I should keep trying.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  ‘Fine, then,’ I said.

  ‘You wanna try?’

  I sighed, defeated, tired. I was so tired of all this. ‘Yeah. Go on, then.’

  It couldn’t really be any worse than the one with Jason, could it?

  And so she leant in.

  It was different. Rooney was used to deeper, longer kisses of an entirely different type.

  She led. I tried to imitate her.

  I hated it.

  I hated it just as I had hated the kiss with Jason. I hated how close her face was to me. I hated the feeling of her lips moving around against mine. I hated her breath on my skin. My eyes kept flickering open, trying to get a sense of when this was going to be over, while she put her hand on the back of my head, pulling me closer to her.

  I tried to imagine doing this with a person I liked, but it was a mirage. The harder I tried to think about that scenario, the quicker it disintegrated.

  I was never, ever going to enjoy this. With anybody.

  It wasn’t just a dislike of kissing. It wasn’t a fear or nervousness or ‘not meeting the right person yet’. This was a part of me. I did not feel the feelings of attraction, of romance, of desire, that other people felt.

  And I wasn’t ever going to.

  I really hadn’t needed to kiss anyone to work that out.

  Rooney, on the other hand, was going for it, which I assumed was what she did with everybody. The way she kissed made it feel like she really did like me, but I realised suddenly that I knew her better than that. It was never about the other person. She was using this to make her feel good about herself.

  I didn’t have the energy to start to understand what that meant.

  ‘Oh,’ said a voice from behind us.

  Rooney moved away from me instantly, and I, hazy and a little weirded out by this whole situation, turned to see who it was.

  I should have guessed, really.

  Because the universe seemed to have it in for me already.

  Pip had her jacket folded over one arm and a toastie in her other hand.

  ‘I …’ she said, then trailed off. She was looking at me, eyes wide, then at Rooney, then back at me again. ‘I brought you a toastie, but …’ She looked at the toastie. ‘It – er, fucking hell.’ She looked back at both of us. ‘Wow. Fuck you both.’

  Rooney leapt to her feet. ‘Hang on, you literally don’t understand what was just happening.’

  Pip’s stare hardened.

  ‘I think it’s pretty plainly obvious what was just happening,’ she said. ‘So don’t try and insult me by lying about it.’

  ‘I’m not, but –’

  ‘If this was a thing, you could have at least told me about it.’ She turned her stare to me, her face scarily blank of emotion. ‘You could have at least told me about it.’

  And then she walked out of the room.

  Rooney wasted no time in running after her, and I quickly followed. I needed to explain. Rooney needed to explain.

  Everyone just needed to stop lying and acting and pretending all the time.

  Rooney grabbed Pip’s shoulders just as she got to the end of the corridor and pulled her round to face her.

  ‘Pip, just listen –’

  ‘To WHAT?’ Pip shouted, then lowered her voice as a few passing students turned round curiously. ‘If you’re seeing each other fine, just go and fuck each other and enjoy yourselves, but you could have at least done me the courtesy of informing me so I could try and put a stop to my feelings and not be absolutely fucking crushed right now –’ Her voice broke and there were tears in her eyes.

  I wanted to explain, but I couldn’t speak.

  I had ruined my friendship with Jason and now I was destroying my friendship with Pip too.

  ‘I don’t – we don’t – we’re not together!’ Rooney gestured to me wildly. ‘I swear! It was my fucking idea because I’m an idiot! Georgia’s just been figuring shit out and I’ve just been making stuff worse, making her date Jason as an experiment when she never really wanted to do that, and now this –’

  It felt like the walls shattered around us. Pip clenched her fists. ‘Wait …’ She turned to me. ‘You – Jason was just an experiment?’

  ‘I …’ I wanted to say no, he wasn’t, I thought I liked him, I genuinely wanted to fall for him, but … was that a lie?

  Pip’s face crumpled. She took a step towards me, and now she was shouting. ‘How could you do that? How could you do that to him?’

  I stepped back, feeling tears forming. Don’t cry. Do not cry.

  ‘Stop blaming her!’ Rooney shouted back. ‘She was figuring out her sexuality!’

  ‘Well, she shouldn’t have done that with our best friend who’d only just got out of a relationship that made him feel like an actual piece of SHIT!’

  She was right. I’d fucked up. I’d fucked up so bad.

  Rooney physically put an arm in between me and Pip. ‘Stop trying to make this about something else when we know what this is about!’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Pip’s voice lowered. There were tear stains down her cheeks. ‘What’s this about, then?’

  ‘About the fact that you hate me. You think I’m taking Georgia away from you and because she’s one of your only two friends, you despise me because you think I’m replacing you in her life.’

  There was a silence. Pip’s eyes widened.

  ‘You don’t know anything,’ she said hoarsely, and turned round. ‘I’m leaving.’

  ‘Wait!’ I said. The first fucking thing I’d said.

  Pip turned back, struggling to say anything through her tears. ‘What? Got anything to say?’

  I didn’t. I couldn’t form the words.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘You never have anything to say.’

  And then she was gone.

  Rooney went right after her, but I stayed where I was in the corridor. The walls around me were made of paper flowers. Above me were twinkling fairy lights. Students passed, laughing, holding hands, wearing stylish suits and sparkly dresses. The song playing overhead was ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ by Candi Staton.

  I hated all of it.

  I wandered through dimly lit corridors and raucous crowds. I stood at the edge of the dance hall as the band were finishing their set, playing a slow song so all the couples could hold each other and sway. It made me feel sick.

  Rooney and Pip were nowhere, so I went back to my room. It was the only thing I could think to do. I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time, wondering if this was the moment when I would just collapse, I could just let it out and
start sobbing because I had fucked it all up. I had fucked everything up in my quest to understand who I was. Despite the fact that Pip and Jason had so much to deal with on their own, I had only truly been thinking about myself.

  But I didn’t cry. I was silent. I didn’t want to be awake any more.

  I went to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up I could hear the thumping of people having sex in the room above me.

  This was, perhaps, the final straw.

  Was everyone just having sex and falling in love all the time? Why? How was it fair that everyone got to feel that except me?

  I wished everyone would stop. I wished sex and love didn’t exist.

  I stormed out of the room, not even taking my phone with me, ran up the stairs to the corridor above two at a time, not quite knowing what I was going to do when I got there, but I could at least see whose room it was and maybe at a later date I could track them down and tell them to stop being so loud …

  When I reached the point in the corridor that was above my room, I stopped, and stood very still.

  It was a utility room. Inside: six washing machines and six dryers.

  One of the washing machines was on. It was making a rhythmic thumping sound against the wall.

  Back in my room, I realised that it was only ten minutes until 6 a.m. – the time of the fabled ‘Survivors Photo’.

  I’d just go and have a look. See how many people had made it.

  The answer was not very many. Of the hundreds of students that had been bustling around college earlier, there could only have been about eighty left, and they’d all congregated in the dance hall. A tired-looking photographer was waiting for the drunk, sleep-deprived students to organise themselves into rows. I didn’t know whether to join them or not. I felt like a bit of a fraud, since I’d basically napped through the last five hours.

  ‘Georgia!’

  I turned, scared that I’d face Jason or Rooney or Pip, but it was none of them.

  Sunil approached me from the dance hall’s doorway. His tie was undone, his baby blue jacket was slung over one arm, and he looked unnaturally awake for 6 a.m.

  He clapped his hands on to my upper arms and shook me a little. ‘You made it! You made it to six a.m.! I’m very impressed. I gave up at midnight when I was a fresher.’