Loveless. Alice Oseman

couple of people chorused ‘Oooh’, one guy whistled, and one girl just laughed, one short burst of ‘ha’ that I found more embarrassing than anything else.

      Thankfully, I wouldn’t see most of the people at this party ever again in my life. Maybe on Instagram, but I muted most people’s Instagram stories and I already had a mental list of all the people I was going to unfollow after A-level results day. There were a few people at school that me, Pip and Jason got along with. People we’d sit with at lunch. A little gang of theatre kids we’d hang out with in school play season. But I knew already that we would all go to uni and forget about each other.

      Pip, Jason and I would not forget about each other, though, because we were all going to Durham University in October, as long as we got the grades for it. This actually hadn’t been planned – we were a trio of high-achieving nerds, but Jason had failed to get into Oxford, Pip had failed to get into King’s College London, and I was the only one for whom Durham was actually my first choice.

      I thanked the universe every day that it’d worked out like that. I needed Pip and Jason. They were my lifeline.

      ‘That’s too far,’ Jason immediately interjected. ‘Come on. That’s way too personal.’

      There were cries of outrage from the rest of our peers. People didn’t give a shit about it being personal.

      ‘You must have something,’ drawled Hattie in her super-posh accent. ‘Like everyone’s had a terrible kiss or something by now.’

      I was very uncomfortable about being the centre of attention, so I thought it’d be better to just get this over with.

      ‘I’ve never kissed anyone,’ I announced.

      When I said it, I didn’t think I was saying anything particularly odd. Like, this wasn’t a teen movie. Virgin-shaming wasn’t really a thing. Everyone knew that people did these things when they were ready, right?

      But then the reactions began.

      There were audible gasps. A pitying ‘aww’. Some of the guys started laughing and one of them coughed the word ‘virgin’.

      Hattie brought her hand to her mouth and said, horrified, ‘Oh my God, seriously?’

      My face started to burn. I wasn’t weird. There were lots of eighteen-year-olds who hadn’t kissed anyone yet.

      I glanced at Tommy, and even he was looking at me with sympathy, like I was a little kid – like I was a child who didn’t understand anything.

      ‘It’s not that unusual,’ I said.

      Hattie pressed her hand to her heart and stuck out her bottom lip. ‘You’re so pure.’

      A guy leant over and said, ‘You’re, like, eighteen, right?’

      I nodded at him, and he said, ‘Oh my God,’ like I was disgusting or something.

      Was I disgusting? Was I ugly and shy and disgusting and that was why I hadn’t kissed anyone yet?

      My eyes were starting to water.

      ‘All right,’ Pip snapped. ‘You can all stop being dickheads right the fuck now.’

      ‘It is weird, though,’ said a guy I knew from my English class. He was addressing Pip. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s weird to have got to eighteen without having kissed anyone.’

      ‘That’s rich coming from a guy who admitted to having a wank over the princesses in Shrek 3.’

      There were cackles of glee from the group, momentarily distracted from laughing at me. While Pip continued to berate our classmates, Jason very subtly took hold of my hand and pulled me up and out of the room.

      Once we were in the corridor, I was about to cry so I said I needed to pee and went upstairs to find the loo. When I reached the bathroom, I examined my reflection, rubbing under my eyes so my mascara didn’t smudge. I swallowed the tears down. I wasn’t going to cry. I did not cry in front of anybody.

      I hadn’t realised.

      I hadn’t realised how behind I was. I’d spent so much time thinking that my one true love would just show up one day. I had been wrong. I had been so, so wrong. Everyone else was growing up, kissing, having sex, falling in love, and I was just …

      I was just a child.

      And if I carried on like this … would I be alone forever?

      ‘Georgia!’

      Pip’s voice. I made sure my tears were gone by the time I exited the bathroom. And she didn’t suspect a thing.

      ‘They’re so fucking dumb,’ she said.

      ‘Yeah,’ I agreed.

      She tried to smile warmly at me. ‘You know you’ll find someone eventually, right?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘You know you’ll find someone eventually. Everyone does. You’ll see.’

      Jason was looking at me with a sad expression on his face. Pitying, maybe. Was he pitying me too?

      ‘Am I wasting being a teenager?’ I asked them. And they told me no, like best friends would, but it was too late. This was the wake-up call I’d needed.

      I needed to kiss someone before it was too late.

      And that someone had to be Tommy.

      

      I let Pip and Jason go back downstairs to get drinks, using the excuse that I wanted to get my jacket from one of the guest bedrooms because I was cold, and then I just stood in the dark corridor, trying to breathe and collect my thoughts.

      Everything was OK. It wasn’t too late.

      I wasn’t weird or disgusting.

      I had time to make my move.

      I located my jacket, and also found a bowl of cocktail sausages balanced on a radiator, so picked those up too. As I walked back down the corridor, I saw that another bedroom door was ajar, so I peered inside, only to get an absolute eyeful of someone very clearly getting fingered.

      It sent a sort of shockwave through my spine. Like, wow, OK. I forgot people actually did that in real life. It was fun to read about in fanfics and see in movies, but the reality was kind of just like, Oh. Yikes. I’m uncomfortable, get me out of here.

      That aside – surely you’d think to shut the door properly if someone was going to put a body part inside of you.

      It was hard to picture myself in a situation like that. Honestly, I loved the idea in theory – having a sexy little adventure in a dark room in someone else’s house with someone you’ve been on-and-off flirting with for a couple of months – but the reality? Having to actually touch genitals with someone? Ew.

      I guess it took time for people to be ready for stuff like that. And you’d have to find someone you felt comfortable with. I’d never even interacted with anyone I wanted to kiss, let alone someone I wanted to …

      I looked down at my bowl of cocktail sausages. Suddenly I was not very hungry any more.

      And then a voice broke the silence around me.

      ‘Hey,’ said the voice, and I looked up, and there was Tommy.

      This was the first time I had talked to Tommy in my life.

      I’d seen him a lot, obviously. At the few house parties I’d been to. Sometimes at the school gate. When he joined our school for sixth form, we didn’t take any