10.51 pm

Pen’s mother says Alice can stay the night, but they have to go to bed now because it’s a school night and she is not going to be late tomorrow just because they’ve decided to go gallivanting. Even though the words are strict words, Pen thinks it’s like Claire is laughing, like Claire and Pen are thinking the same thing: this is happy. Pen says she will sleep on the floor, Alice can have her bed, and Claire smiles again, but says they will not, repeat will not, be messing around talking or whatever. Claire nods her head then, saying Alice will be on the sofa bed down here and she’ll make it up in a minute. Then Claire reminds Alice she has to call her parents to check it’s okay, because she is not an enabler who will break other parents’ rules. Pen hears Claire’s sensible parent voice when she says this, and she smiles on the inside.

Alice and Pen have had tea and two rounds of cheese on toast with Marmite (Pen only, Alice doesn’t like Marmite). Alice and Pen have talked, but also not talked. Which is okay, Pen doesn’t need Alice to say anything. Because Pen is still not sure what’s happening, but this kind of not-knowing somehow feels good. The opposite of the wardrobe day.

‘There was a guy, in a car,’ Alice says now, looking at the floor, and Pen feels her heart clench. ‘He had his, his dick out, like, it was,’ Alice shudders, ‘it was gross, Pen.’

Pen doesn’t know what to say, so she slowly raises her left hand and puts it gently on the back of Alice’s neck. Her hand rests on Alice’s hair and it feels right. Alice is motionless, a beat of time passes, and Pen puts her hand back on her own leg. They breathe again.

‘I couldn’t think what to do,’ Alice says in a small voice, ‘so I came here.’ She looks round at Pen, quickly, then away.

‘Where was it?’ Pen asks.

‘Just by Connolly, you know, near the pub.’

Pen knows, and nods. ‘If you got on at Connolly, that’s eleven stops from here.’ Which is totally the wrong thing to say.

‘Yeah,’ Alice says, and she seems to relax.

‘Right, you two,’ Claire shouts from the hallway. ‘None of us is getting any younger, time for bed.’

Pen is lending Alice pyjamas and giving her a spare toothbrush Claire bought on buy-one-get-one-half-price. Pen and Alice are brushing their teeth, quiet-but-the-okay-kind-of-quiet. Pen and Alice are leaning forward at the same time and almost hitting their heads. Pen and Alice are moving at the same time, their hips bumping together, their hands accidentally touching. It is amazing.

Alice gets changed in the bathroom and Pen gets changed in her room. Pen’s wondering if she should wait on the landing, when Alice knocks on her door.

‘Come in.’

Pen’s heart thuds really hard as Alice pushes open the door, and for the moment that they stand looking at each other she thinks Alice must be able to hear it, but that’s not possible, it only vibrates inside Pen. Alice is looking at Pen and it is the longest Pen has held eye contact ever. Alice looks down first, as if she is trying to see her feet better. Her toes are small and pale pink and the nails are short and perfect.

‘I feel really stupid. I should have gone to the concert, it was so nice of you to give me a surprise.’

‘It was okay.’

‘I’m glad you had a good time, that the band were, like, good. Maybe next time, we can go.’

Pen nods.

‘I guess I was just confused by the date part, I mean.’

‘We can be friends if that’s what you want.’

Say no. Say that is not what you want. Say you want me.

‘I like you so much, Pen, you can’t know how much, how important.’

‘You like Jo instead.’ Pen had not meant to say it. Alice’s face looks up and her eyes are wider than normal.

‘Jo? No, I mean, she’s nice. I just. They’re different, you know, and they don’t know me. So I can. I could be different around them.’

‘You can be different around me.’

‘I know. But not really,’ Alice says. ‘I don’t know what I mean, really.’

Pen shifts her weight from one foot to the other. And there is a silence now, a different kind of silence than before. Alice is looking around and, for once, Pen doesn’t feel like she’s the one who can’t find the words. Her therapist always reminds Pen that it’s not just her, everyone struggles, that some words are harder to say than others.

‘Do you want to write it down?’ Pen asks.

And Alice looks up at her and it looks like hope on her face. Hope and pleading. Pen goes to her desk and it is a relief for her to have something to do, to have a focus that is Alice and also not Alice.

‘I have paper?’

But Alice’s hands are already busy with her phone. Alice looks up. Alice presses the green arrow.

And then Pen’s phone beeps. Pen takes the two steps to the bed and picks it up, presses the button to take her to Alice’s message. And then Pen reads something she did not know:

I DON’T LIKE ANYONE. NOT IN THAT WAY.

Pen is silent. Pen looks at the screen. Pen reads it and rereads it. She knows what it means, and she also does not know. Like she is looking at the words, but she has forgotten how to read.

‘You don’t like me.’ Statement, not question.

Pen can’t look at Alice, can’t see what her face is doing, wouldn’t know what it meant anyway. Another beep from her phone.

I LIKE YOU. I LIKE YOU SO MUCH. BUT I DON’T FEEL ANYTHING.

Pen looks up. Alice’s eyes are shining, and her face is white. Now Alice speaks:

‘I like the idea of it. Or, I think I do. When girls would talk, you know, about boys and touching them or whatever, I thought “ugh”, because I always thought I liked girls. But then with girls too, it’s like the things that other people say or pictures or whatever online. They don’t mean anything. I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine …’

Alice stops.

Pen, who knows what it is like to get stuck, to be looking at the same thing as everyone else but to see something completely different, says, ‘I know.’ Even though she does not.

‘It’s like the bit that connects looking to feeling doesn’t, like, work in me.’ Alice looks at Pen.

Pen thinks about how Alice sent this message to her.

‘I’m sorry. I have no one else to tell.’

Pen hears Alice say this, and she does not move.

‘I tried to tell my parents that I feel different to everyone else, but they’re not, they’re not like Claire, they just make me keep a diary of my feelings, as if it doesn’t really matter.’

Pen is in her body and she says to her body, to her brain, do something.

‘But you touched me.’ Pen moves her head, towards the bed, and is there again, Alice’s arms around her, fingertips on her.

But Alice is shaking her head. ‘I thought, if I tried. If I tried, I could be like other people. I just …’ And Alice’s eyes are leaking, her shoulders up, arms around herself, ‘I’m so stupid.’

Pen breathes. In and out. Alice-does-not-want-her. But no, that was not the right answer. Because it’s not that Alice does not want her, it’s that Alice does not want anyone.

Alice says, ‘I think it’s called Ace.’

And Pen nods again.

‘Like, being asexual … But, like, I don’t even know, like saying that word, I don’t even know if that’s me. Like, maybe it’s something I’ll grow out of, maybe I’m just a late developer?’

And Pen knows this thought so well. That somehow this thing inside you, this thing that makes you different, will just go away.

Alice is not Alice. Or not the Alice Pen thought she was, not her Alice.

But Alice is definitely still Alice. Also true.

Pen wants to howl because she will never be with her now.

But Alice is in her room. Alice is with her.

Pen looks down at her phone, at her hands holding the phone.

Breathe.

Message. New.

Breathe.

Type.

Breathe.

And she hesitates for a second because even written down, words are hard.

Send.

Turn and face Alice, who you love.

Alice’s face.

Alice’s tears on her face.

She is reading Pen’s text.

It is everything Pen knows and thinks and feels and it is not an answer to Alice’s question, but it is all she can think to give.

Because this is what love looks like in real life.

YOU ARE ENOUGH.