Solitaire. Alice Oseman

What do you call this?”

      “I am the only exception. With everyone else, you’re about as sociable as a cardboard box.”

      “Maybe I am a cardboard box.”

      We both laugh.

      “It’s funny … because it’s true,” I say and I laugh again, on the outside at least. Ha ha ha.

       THREE

      THE FIRST THING I do when I get home from school is collapse on to my bed and turn on my laptop. This happens every single day. If I’m not at school, you can guarantee that my laptop will be somewhere within a two-metre radius of my heart. My laptop is my soulmate.

      Over the past few months, I’ve come to realise that I’m far more of a blog than an actual person. I don’t know when this blogging thing started, and I don’t know when or why I signed up to this website, but I can’t seem to remember what I did before and I don’t know what I’d do if I deleted it. I severely regret starting this blog, I really do. It’s pretty embarrassing. But it’s the only place where I ever find people who are sort of like me. People talk about themselves here in ways that people don’t in real life.

      If I delete it, I think I’ll probably be completely alone.

      I don’t blog to get more followers or whatever. I’m not Evelyn. It’s just that it’s not socially acceptable to say depressing stuff out loud in the real world because people think that you’re attention-seeking. I hate that. So what I’m saying is that it’s nice to be able to say whatever I want. Even if it is only on the Internet.

      After waiting a hundred billion years for my Internet to load, I spend a good while on my blog. There are a couple of cheesy, anonymous messages – a few of my followers get all worked up about some of the pathetic stuff I post. Then I check Facebook. Two notifications – Lucas and Michael have sent friend requests. I accept both. Then I check my email. No emails.

      And then I check the Solitaire blog again.

      It’s still got the photo of Kent looking hilariously passive, but apart from that the only addition to the blog is the title. It now reads:

       Solitaire: Patience Kills.

      I don’t know what these Solitaire people are trying to do, but ‘Patience Kills’ is the stupidest imitation of some James Bond film title that I have ever heard. It sounds like an online betting website.

      I take the SOLITAIRE.CO.UK Post-it out of my pocket and place it precisely in the centre of the only empty wall in my room.

      I think about what happened today with Lucas Ryan and, for a brief moment, I feel kind of hopeful again. I don’t know. Whatever. I don’t know why I bothered with this. I don’t even know why I followed those Post-its into that computer room. I don’t know why I do anything, for God’s sake.

      Eventually, I find the will to get up and plod downstairs to get a drink. Mum’s in the kitchen on the computer. She’s very much like me, if you think about it. She’s in love with Microsoft Excel the way I’m in love with Google Chrome. She asks me how my day was, but I just shrug and say that it was fine, because I’m fairly sure that she doesn’t care what my answer is.

      It’s because we’re so similar that we stopped talking to each other so much. When we do talk, we either struggle to find things to say or we just get angry, so apparently we’ve reached a mutual agreement that there’s really no point trying any more. I’m not too bothered. My dad’s quite chatty, even if everything he says is extraordinarily irrelevant to my life, and I’ve still got Charlie.

      The house phone rings.

      “Get that, would you?” says Mum.

      I hate the phone. It’s the worst invention in the history of the world because, if you don’t talk, nothing happens. You can’t get by with simply listening and nodding your head in all the right places. You have to talk. You have no option. It takes away my freedom of non-speech.

      I pick it up anyway, because I’m not a horrible daughter.

      “Hello?” I say.

      “Tori. It’s me.” It’s Becky. “Why the hell are you answering the phone?”

      “I decided to rethink my attitude towards life and become an entirely different person.”

      “Say again?”

      “Why are you calling me? You never call me.”

      “Dude, this is absolutely too important to text.”

      There’s a pause. I expect her to continue, but she seems to be waiting for me to speak.

      “Okay—”

      “It’s Jack.”

      Ah.

      Becky has called about her almost-boyfriend, Jack.

      She does this to me very often. Not call me, I mean. Ramble at me about her various almost-boyfriends.

      While Becky is talking, I put Mms and Yeahs and Oh my Gods where they need to be. Her voice fades a little as I drift away and picture myself as her. As a lovely, happy, hilarious girl who gets invited to at least two parties a week and can start up a conversation within two seconds. I picture myself entering a party. Throbbing music, everyone with a bottle in their hand – somehow, there’s a crowd around me. I’m laughing, I’m the centre of attention. Eyes light up in admiration as I tell another of my hysterically embarrassing stories, perhaps a drunk story, or an ex-boyfriend story, or simply a time that I did something remarkable, and everyone wonders how I manage to have such an eccentric, adventurous, carefree adolescence. Everyone hugs me. Everyone wants to know what I’ve been up to. When I dance, people dance; when I sit down, ready to tell secrets, people form a circle; when I leave, the party fades away and dies, like a forgotten dream.

      “—you can guess what I’m talking about,” she says.

      I really can’t.

      “A few weeks ago – God, I should have told you this – we had sex.”

      I sort of freeze up because this takes me by surprise. Then I realise that this has been coming for a long time. I’d always kind of respected Becky for being a virgin, which is kind of pretentious, if you think about it. I mean, we’re all at least sixteen now, and Becky’s nearly seventeen, and it’s fine if you want to have sex, I don’t care, it’s not a crime. But the fact that we were both virgins – I don’t know. I guess it made us equal, in a twisted way. And now here I am. Second place in something else.

      “Well—” There is literally nothing I can say about this. “—okay.”

      “You’re judging me. You think I’m a slut.”

      “I don’t!”

      “I can tell. You’re using your judgementy voice.”

      “I’m not!”

      There’s a pause. What do you say to something like that? Well done? Good job?

      She starts explaining how Jack has this friend who would supposedly be ‘perfect’ for me. I think that is unlikely unless he’s entirely mute, blind or deaf. Or all three.

      Once I get off the phone, I sort of stand there in the kitchen. Mum’s still clicking away at the computer and I start to feel, again, like this whole day has been pointless. An image of Michael Holden appears in my head and then an image of Lucas Ryan and then an image of the Solitaire blog. I decide that I need to talk to my brother. I pour myself some diet lemonade and leave the kitchen.

      My brother, Charles Spring, is fifteen years old and a Year 11 at Truham Grammar. In my opinion, he is the nicest person in the history of the universe and I know that ‘nice’ is kind of a meaningless