This is the perfect moment for me to tell Demi my secret.
We’re in the common room alone together. I’m on my laptop with a million tabs open, displaying all the possible Biology-related careers I could possibly do on this side of the Atlantic. Now I know I’m either doing something linked to Biology or Psychology I’m keen to work out what it is I want to do with my degree once I get it. Demi is balanced on a chair behind me, leaning back with her feet on the desk and scrolling through her phone. Lena is in a meeting with Miss Starmann and Joel’s due to arrive soon.
I have to tell Demi. The guilt is getting heavy and she knows something is wrong. Telling her might make me feel more in control because it’s on my terms.
Demi huffs and moves to perch on the radiator next to me.
“Won’t you get piles sitting on that?”
“I like having a warm bum.” She wiggles her hips to labour the point.
“I don’t. In Dad’s car, the heated seats make you feel like you’ve just farted—”
“Ooohhhh!” Demi thrusts her phone into my face. “How about a doctor? Doctor Rose?”
“Hmmm. Maybe? I wouldn’t want too much responsibility – not life-and-death stuff.”
I turn my attention back to my screen. “Doctor Rose” does sound good, but my soul still hasn’t reacted in a favourable manner. Also, I’d have to do loads of training after my degree to become one, and if I wanted to do that I should have chosen a medicine undergrad degree.
“Food for thought.” Demi shifts back to sit on the radiator again and keeps scrolling. She’s frowning and biting her lip. “Total topic change here, but I wanted to talk to you about something—”
“’Ello, ’ello.”
She’s interrupted by Joel walking through the door and joining us. He wraps his arms round my shoulders and kisses my head. “All right, Demi?”
For a second, I think I catch her eyes roll, but then she slaps on a grin. I must be seeing things. “All good,” she says. “Just trying to find a career path for your lovely girlfriend. How d’ya fancy going out with a doctor?”
“Oooh, matron,” says Joel in a high-pitched voice.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” I say.
Joel slides his hand into mine and squeezes.
There’s a beat of silence as Demi keeps looking at her phone.
“Oh my God.” Demi slaps me on the shoulder. “You could be a gynaecologist.”
My stomach flips and Joel’s hand stiffens.
“What?” we say in unison.
I avoid looking at Joel, but I’m sure the hot flush of my cheeks is giving me away.
Demi turns back to her screen, none the wiser. “There are doctors for all sorts of things,” she says. “How about willies?”
Joel shakes his head. “I’m off. Lesson in five and I need a piss.” He heads to the door without his usual kiss on my nose.
Demi’s brow creases. “Is he all right?”
“Think he forgot his camera,” I lie. I’m not going to make it even more obvious we have a complex about sex. I breathe out, plaster on a smile and shrug. No harm done.
“So no to being a gynae then?”
“Definite no.” I half laugh. I can’t tell her now. The moment is gone. Another time.
“Oooh.” Demi flaps her hands at me. “Seventh of March. Put it in your calendar. That new Greta Gerwig film is out in cinemas and I need to go and see it with my girls. Dinner at mine after? I—”
‘I already have plans on the seventh of March.” It’s physio day. I bite my lip and wait for her to ask the inevitable.
‘Why? What are you doing?”
“Joel,” I babble, scared that if I think too much I’ll overcomplicate it or, God forbid, actually tell her the truth.
“You’re doing Joel? I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason to stand me up again.” Demi frowns at me.
Stand her up? It wasn’t my fault she texted the other day with absolutely no notice whatsoever about hanging out. Just because she was free doesn’t mean I needed to drop everything for her. But I’m not arguing about that now. ‘Sorry, not doing Joel. His mum said she wanted to take us out.”
“Why?”
“Because she will have just been paid?” What am I on about?
Demi sighs dramatically and then forces a smile. Clearly she can’t be arsed to discuss this any further either. “It’s fine. Right. I’ve got a favour to ask. I was wondering if you’d talk to Skye.”
I frown. “About?”
“I’ll let her explain it, but basically she wanted to talk to someone about sex.”
“Why doesn’t she go to Holly or Reggie? Or you? Isn’t she your Chemistry chum?” The feeling of panic returns.
“Apparently I’m not good enough for my Chemistry chum because I’ve not had sex yet, apart from with myself obviously.” A timid-looking year twelve looks up from the computer he’s at and Demi looks like she’s about to growl at him. “And she’s tried Holly and Reggie and they weren’t helpful. She’s heard through the grapevine, and by the grapevine I mean Holly, that you’re a fountain of knowledge on the subject.”
“She has?”
“Here she is now.” Demi nods at the door. Skye wanders in, offering me a shy smile. Demi raises her eyebrows at me and pats me on the bum. “Off you go, sex goddess. Impart your wisdom.”
Great.
I shuffle towards Skye and return her smile, not quite meeting her eye.
“Demi said you wanted a chat? Where do you want to—”
“Have you eaten? We could go to McDonald’s. I’ve got my car.” Skye’s already turning round and walking down the corridor.
“Sure, sounds good.” I’m always jealous of the students who have cars – or friends who have them. They nip off to McDonald’s, Subway and Starbucks and come back flaunting their wares, making us bus-dwellers sniff the tantalizing scent of their steaming nuggets and pumpkin-spiced lattes. Once George Thurrock came back with an entire cooked chicken from Sainsbury’s.
I slide into the passenger seat of Skye’s car – a Fiat 500, thankfully without the eyelashes – and busy myself with my seat belt. Skye and I never hang out without other people around so it feels weird and awkward.
She turns on the engine and pulls out of the school car park before I find my voice. Like Holly, Skye’s come to me for help. I might not have all the answers, but at the very least I can offer her some reassurance and a listening ear. “So … what do you want to talk about?”
Skye bites her lip and stares straightforward – I’d like to think it’s because she’s a careful driver, but, given the number of times we’ve gone airborne over the speed bumps near school, it’s more likely because she’s too uncomfortable to make eye contact with me.
“How did you know you were ready to shag Joel?”
The dense feeling in my stomach lightens. This is a question I can answer. Yeah, OK, I’ve not actually shagged him, but I did know that I was ready to.
My mind flashes back to the moment I decided. Demi, Lena and I were in the common room when Holly appeared out of nowhere.
“Leila told me she and Otis had dry sex,” she had stated.
“I thought that was for dogs?” said Lena.
Demi, Lena and I had all agreed the concept was bollocks, to which Holly just shrugged.
“Any developments in that department for you guys?”
Lena had grinned. “Nope. Still focusing on myself this year.”
Then Holly had turned to me. “Rose? You’ve been with Joel for ages now. I’m surprised you haven’t yet.”
I knew she didn’t mean anything by it, but it didn’t exactly feel good to hear that. Joel was hardly starved for attention in that department. Anyway, I was waiting for him. I didn’t know why we hadn’t done it yet – sex was the next logical step in our relationship.
Very predictably, I was super anxious before doing anything below the waist when we’d first started seeing each other – the idea of being touched by someone else made me feel so … vulnerable and sort of gave me the ick too. But then one night when Sonya was out it just happened, and it felt nice and weird and scary and right all at the same time. I figured that sex would happen in the same way. But time had passed and it hadn’t. I’d been waiting for Joel to mention it. But he hadn’t. Why not? Did he not want it? Was he scared too? Was it just not as much of a big deal to him?
By the time I’d got into bed that evening, Holly’s words still ringing in my ears, I’d got myself so worked up I’d texted Joel just that: Why don’t you want to have sex with me?
He called me. “You’re a numpty,” he’d said. No hello or anything.
“Why?” I’d said sheepishly.
“To think I wouldn’t want to have sex with you.”
“Well, it hasn’t happened yet and I thought it might have by now—”
“I didn’t know you wanted to. I’m not a mind-reader.” He’d laughed and I’d relaxed a bit.
“I was waiting for you to make the first move.”
“I was waiting for you to. I didn’t want to push you or make you feel like it was moving too fast, ya know.”
“What an absolute gent.”
“I do try. So do you want to then?”
“I think so.”
“You think?”
All that feels like yesterday and an entire lifetime ago at the same time. I look at Skye as she signals into the McDonald’s car park. “It just felt right.” I shrug. “Like I knew he was the one I wanted to do it with for the first time. I trusted him and I felt comfortable with him to know that I could communicate how I was feeling. I felt … safe.”
“So it was a feeling?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Maybe even a deep knowing. In the same way you know your name or that you’re hungry.”
We pull into the drive-through and order two lots of chicken nuggets and chips. We roll forward to wait in the queue to pay.
“OK. It’s just that on paper I should be ready to have sex with Tegan. But I’m still not sure I want to.” Skye taps her card through the open window and I drop my half of the money into her coin tray. She thanks the cashier and on to the food hatch we roll. She hands me the drinks and the brown bag, its warm grease seeping into my lap as we park up.
“What makes you think you should then?”
“Well, we’ve been seeing each other for over six months, and they’re absolutely my person.”
“So what aren’t you sure about?” I say through a mouthful of nugget and BBQ sauce. “And it’s absolutely OK that you’re not sure.”
Skye slurps her Fanta, face thoughtful. “I’m not sure I want things to change. I’m happy with all the kissing and cuddling and fooling around. I worry that all the nice stuff like that will stop. Did it change when you and Joel did it? Get more complicated?”
I want to laugh. Did things change and get complicated when Joel and I “did” it? Does a bear shit in the woods? I miss the cuddling we used to do all the time without the thought that I need to do something sexual for Joel hanging over my head, and I continue to earn my self-given title of Queen of the Guilty Handjob most times I see him, whether or not I’m in the mood myself. I resent the fact that the dynamic between us has changed because I can’t give him what he wants and feel like a failure. I know it’s different to what she’s asking, but the decision to have sex did change everything – just not in the way I could ever expect.
“The honest answer is yes. But I guess change isn’t always bad?” I feel like offering her at least some hope. My experience is clearly not the norm and I guess our problems stem from the lack of sex, rather than an abundance of it.
“True.”
“Have you spoken to Tegan about it? Do you know how they feel?”
Skye nods and sighs. “They’re ready. So I feel guilty.”
Now guilt is something I know very well.
“I get that.”
“You do?”
“Mmm.” I stuff the final wad of chips into my mouth and crumple up the bag. I keep catching sight of the time on the dashboard and it’s getting worryingly close to afternoon form time. We need to wrap this up, even though I don’t want to. I could sit here and talk to Skye all afternoon. “Look, it sounds to me like you know deep down whether you’re ready or not. And if you’re not, there’s nothing wrong with that. You shouldn’t feel pressured to do it and Tegan will get it – it’s so obvious they love you. They’ll wait.”
Pot. Kettle. Black. But I know I’m not the only person not to take my own advice.
“And if they don’t? Wait, I mean.”
“Then they’re not the one for you. But I doubt that very much – Demi’s told me about the way you look at each other in Chemistry.”
“Thanks, that’s actually really helpful.”
“It is?”
Skye nods and then switches the engine on. She reverses out of the parking space without looking, grinning at me. “You’re a really good listener; has anyone ever told you that?”
Actually they have – more times in the last few weeks than in the rest of my entire life.
“You should be a counsellor,” Skye continues.
I look at her and start to laugh – me, the screw-up, a counsellor – but she’s smiling at me and totally serious. Something in my tummy flutters.
Gut instinct, is that you?
Could I be … a counsellor? Is that my dream job? I suddenly remember that weird ping in my stomach that time during yoga when that lady said that she was one. I thought it was because I wanted her to reassure me, but, oh my God, do I actually want to be her?
I don’t know. And yet the cogs in my head are turning and there’s a flicker of something in my soul that hasn’t been there in a long time.
I can’t stop thinking about Skye’s comment when I get home, and the gut-instinct flutter refuses to settle, so I pull out my laptop and dive on to Google to do some more research into counselling. I should be doing my coursework or my physio, and I’ve also got three messages from Joel and one from Demi sitting unread in my inbox, but this takes priority.
About an hour later, I call Lena.
“Long time no speak,” she jokes as her face pops up on my phone screen. She’s lying on her stomach on her bed, her navy bedroom ceiling with hand-painted constellations visible over her shoulder.
“I have news.” I too get comfortable on my stomach, despite the angle doing my weak chin zero favours. I shuffle my phone on to the pillow to look slightly less like a looming thumb.
“Spit it out then.”
“I think I’ve found The One.”
“What about Joel?”
“I mean my career.”
“Oh my God! I’ll do you a drum roll.” Lena slaps her hands on the duvet with muffled fwump. “And the winner is…”
“Screw Biology, I want to do Psychology!” I say, like I’m a contestant on a game show. “It gives me plenty of options – I could be a counsellor, maybe one who specializes in sex. I could even be a sexologist in the future.” As I say it, the flutters in my stomach are so wild I feel ready to take off. “I could help people like me – people who are scared or confused by sexual issues and want someone other than a doctor to talk to.”
“Amazing! Listen to that feeling. It’s your higher self talking.”
I grin. “And the best part is that I applied to both Biology and Psychology at Sunderland. So I can be with Joel anyway.”
Lena flaps her hands together and looks like she might combust. “Oh my God, this is so exciting. Definitely a massive step towards your authentic self. Eeeeeeeee. The future is bright.”
I laugh. “Don’t get too carried away. The future is certainly brighter.”
And for the first time in ages it feels like it might be.