Loveless. Alice Oseman

threw her head back against the wall and laughed.

      ‘At least you’re honest about it,’ she said. ‘A lot of people hate it and still go anyway.’

      ‘I guess.’ I sipped my drink. ‘I just wanted to try it. I wanted to be a part of the uni experience. You know.’

      She nodded. ‘Gross clubs are an important staple of university life, yes.’

      I couldn’t tell whether she was being sarcastic.

      I was a little drunk, to be fair.

      ‘I just want … I want to meet people, and … do normal things,’ I said, throwing back the last of my drink. I didn’t even like it that much, but everyone was drinking, and I’d look weird if I wasn’t, wouldn’t I? ‘I don’t have a great track record of doing that very well.’

      ‘Don’t you?’

      ‘Nope. I have hardly any friends. I’ve always had hardly any friends.’

      Rooney’s smile dropped. ‘Oh.’

      ‘I’ve never even had a boyfriend. Or even kissed anyone.’

      The words just came on out before I could stop them.

      I immediately cringed at myself. Shit. That was the thing I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone any more. That was the thing people had made fun of me for.

      Rooney’s eyebrows raised. ‘Wow, really?’

      She wasn’t being sarcastic. That was pure, genuine shock. I don’t know why I was surprised – people’s reactions during truth or dare on prom night must have been how everyone felt. But it really got to me in that moment. The weird looks. The people who’d suddenly see me as a child, as immature. The movies where the main characters freaked out about being virgins at the age of sixteen.

      ‘Really,’ I said.

      ‘Do you feel bad about it?’

      I shrugged. ‘Yeah.’

      ‘And you want to change it? Now that you’re at uni?’

      ‘Ideally, yes.’

      ‘OK. Good.’ She turned so she was facing me, leaning against the wall with one shoulder. ‘I think I can help.’

      ‘O … K …’

      ‘I want you to go in there and find one person you think is hot. Or a few. More chance of this working.’

      I already absolutely hated this idea. ‘Oh.’

      ‘Try and get their name, or at least memorise what they look like. And then I’ll help you get with them.’

      I did not like this scheme. I did not like this at all. Survival Mode was kicking in throughout my body. I wanted to run.

      ‘Oh,’ I repeated.

      ‘Trust me,’ she grinned. ‘I know a lot about relationships.’

      What did that mean?

      ‘OK,’ I said. ‘So I just pick a person and … you’ll set us up?’

      ‘Yes. Sound good?’

      ‘… Yeah.’

      If the university experience was all about bad decisions, at least I was doing something right.

      I felt a bit like David Attenborough.

      I circled the club on my own, leaving Rooney at the bar, focusing on the guys first. There were a lot of hoodies. Sweat-patches on T-shirts. A lot of them had the same hairstyle – short sides, longer on top.

      I kept looking. Surely I’d find someone I fancied eventually. The club was packed – there had to be a good couple of hundred people crammed into this room alone.

      And yet, I found no one.

      There were guys who were objectively ‘attractive’, of course, by modern-day media standards. There were guys who clearly worked out a lot. There were guys who had fun hair or good fashion or a nice smile.

      But I wasn’t attracted to any of them.

      I didn’t feel any sort of desire.

      When I tried to picture standing close to them, kissing them, touching them …

      I grimaced. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

      I decided to change tactics and look at the girls instead. Girls are all pretty, to be honest. And they have much more variety in appearance.

      But on a basic, physical level, did I feel attraction?

      No.

      Lots of people had started hooking up already – kissing each other underneath the flashing lights and the love songs playing louder than the voices in our heads. It was a little gross, but it had an element of danger that made it beautiful. Kissing a stranger you’d never see again, kissing someone whose name you didn’t even know, just to feel a little high in that moment. Just to feel the warmth of someone’s skin on yours. Just, for a while, to feel purely alive.

      God. I wished I could do that.

      But the idea of trying to get with any of these people – no matter their gender – was, honestly, unnerving. It made me feel itchy. Shivery, maybe. It filled my stomach with a weird, horrible dread, and a warning siren went off in my brain. It felt like my antibodies were fighting it off.

      What was I going to say to Rooney?

       Out of hundreds of students, I couldn’t find anybody I thought was hot. Sorry.

      Maybe she could just choose someone for me. God, that would be so much easier.

      It would be so much easier if I had someone to just tell me what to do and who to be with and how to act and what love actually was.

      I abandoned my search. Tonight I would remain kiss-less. Romance-less. And that was fine. Right? That was fine.

      I didn’t know whether I’d wanted it or whether I hadn’t. Honestly, it might have been a little bit of both. Just like with Tommy.

      Wanting and not wanting at the same time.

      It wasn’t until an hour later that I spotted Rooney again through the blurry, flashing mass of bodies. She was in the middle of the dance floor, making out with a tall guy wearing ripped skinny jeans.

      His arms were round her waist. One of her hands was on his face.

      It was a picture of passion. Movie romance. Desire.

      How.

      How could a person reach that point in the space of an hour?

      How could she do in one single hour what I was unable to force myself to do in my whole teenage life?

      I hated her. I wanted to be her. I hated myself.

      It all hit me then, suddenly. The music was so loud I felt like my vision was blurring. I shoved through people to get to the edge of the room, only to find myself pressed up against the wall, which was wet with condensation. I looked wildly around for the door, then started barging my way towards it, and out, into the chilly, empty October air.

      I breathed.

      I wasn’t going to cry.

      Three of the John’s third years were having a conversation in the smoking area, leaning against the wall, including, to my surprise, Sunil.

      He was my college parent – I knew he’d help me. I could ask him to walk me back. But as I stepped forward, I felt embarrassed. I was an absolute failure. A child. Sunil turned, glanced at me curiously and I willed him to ask me if I wanted to go back to college and whether I wanted him to walk back with me. But he didn’t say anything. So I just left.

      After a couple of hours