Oh God. Oh no. no. no. NO NO NO.
I feel properly awful today. Awful, terrible, nasty—but at the same time, a bit amazing. Yesterday all of us Sixth Formers went to London and it turned into one of the most brilliant days of my whole life ever. Even better than the day my family went on Fast-Track Family Feud on ITV2 and even better than the day Wesley first came round my house and asked me out and better than the day I got my GCSEs and realized I wasn’t thick. Better than all of that.
I ain’t eaten one single thing today and I never even went to school. I just lay under the duvet in my room thinking and thinking and praying and I ain’t even religious or nothing but the one thing Sonia Cathcart always says is that if you ask Jesus Christ Our Savior for his divine guidance then suddenly he’ll spring up like a genie out a bottle or something and help you out. Well I’ve been under here for eight hours asking him to sort this mess out for me and he ain’t helped me at all. All I know is I’m well confused and I feel like a right slapper.
Basically, me, Carrie, Sean, Uma, Saf, Joshua, Ms. Bracket, and loads of other folks went through on the train and the tube to London yesterday at about 3PM. It was snowy and quite dark when we came up from the tube station and there was a brass band playing on Charing Cross Road and zillions of Christmas shoppers everywhere and tourists and office workers and commuters and all the shop windows had Christmas displays and everywhere you looked there were tipsy people staggering out of Christmas office parties and bus drivers wearing flashing antlers and Santa Clauses on every corner collecting charity money and traffic jams and noise. We were all having such a giggle, me and Carrie and everyone. I just felt proper Christmassy and dizzy and alive.
I always want to come to London but Wesley never wants to come. Wesley can’t see the point. Wesley says it’s smelly and full of freaks. And I used to think that too for a long time, especially when Cava-Sue used to go on about it. But now I don’t because the thing is when you get to London and you stand on Waterloo Bridge over the Thames and look both ways along the river and there’s Big Ben and the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s Cathedral and loads of other amazing buildings and lasers and lights and the river is flowing beneath you, well, it is properly the most beautiful thing EVER.
And it really changes how you feel about life ’cos suddenly you’re part of this one amazing, big universe and you feel like exciting stuff can happen and you’re not just stuck in Goodmayes doing school stuff and you feel properly in awe of the world and what can go on here and it changes how you feel about everything FOREVER. Wesley can never see that about London. I wish I could bring Wesley to that bridge and show him, but he would never want to come.
Me and Carrie and Saf and Josh and Uma and Sean stood on Waterloo Bridge and stared at the view for a while and took photos of each other and Josh pointed out mental stuff no one noticed before like weird faces on buildings that he called gargoyles and statues up on roofs. Then Sean took a group picture of us all for our MySpace and Josh put his arm round me and touched my shoulder and it felt really good.
Then Sean said, “Hang on, that’s a nice picture, Shiz, just you and Josh together?” and we both wrapped our arms round each other’s waists and pretended to cuddle which was just a joke but it felt amazing and I KNOW I should have been thinking, “What would my Wesley say if he saw me pretend-cuddling?” But the fact is I wasn’t thinking about my Wesley. He wasn’t in my mind at all.
So we went to see King Lear performed by folks from the Royal Shakespeare Company and it was TOTALLY BRILLIANT, ’cos fair enough, it’s one thing reading it out in class, but when you see all these people really being Cordelia and Goneril and King Lear then it proper brings it to life and you get well caught up in it. And when King Lear was cast out into the storm I could feel myself starting to cry ’cos I started thinking about Nan and how awful it would be if we all turned on her and made her homeless and by the time the play was over—THREE HOURS LATER—I was properly buzzing. And by this point it was 10 o’clock and Ms. Bracket started to “seriously recommend” that we all got the tube home which was her trying to force us but she didn’t have no power to and the thing was Joshua had sorted out free guest list passes at this club called Forever Friends off Trafalgar Square. So Carrie says, “Oh come on, Shiz, we can get a night bus home! It’ll be good!” and I should have said no but I didn’t, I said yes ’cos I knew Josh wanted me to go ’cos he kept looking at me proper intense. Well anyway, Forever Friends was bloody amazing and it was packed out and the DJ was playing bits of hip-hop and bits of random silly party stuff and ’70s disco and I don’t know what quite happened in there but I think I lost a bit of my mind ’cos suddenly we were all dancing up on the stage, me and Saf and Sean and Josh and Uma and Carrie and we were so happy and we were laughing and hugging each other and talking total nonsense about life and how much we all loved each other and how we’d all be friends forever just like the club was called Forever Friends and at one point I was dancing with Josh and he was holding me round the waist and looking right in my eyes and suddenly I realized I just wanted to snog him, no, SNOG HIS FACE OFF, but I didn’t ’cos I knew that was well wrong.
But then the club lights went on and we all got turfed out and everyone in the club spilled out into the streets and everybody was on a proper Christmas high and everyone started flooding into Trafalgar Square and we all followed, then people started getting into the fountains and splashing about and me and Josh climbed up on one of the bases of the sculpted lions and we sat together and watched Carrie and Saf and Sean running about in the fountains. Then Josh got hold of my hand suddenly and kissed it and he said, “So can I have my Christmas snog?” and I was so carried away with the moment that I snogged him and it felt totally bloody amazing and squelchy and hot and just gagggggggggggh! (And that ain’t even a word!!!) And the second he stopped snogging me I suddenly remembered Wesley Barrington Bains II and I felt bad.
“What’s up?” Josh said.
“I’ve got a boyfriend,” I said. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Oh c’mon, Shiraz,” said Josh. “I’ve been after you for ages. You feel the same.”
“No. I don’t. It’s not like that,” I said, but I sounded proper confused. “I don’t know what to do!”
“Well, I know what you’ve gotta do,” he said. “You’ve got to bin that Wesley guy and be with me. I want you.” Then he kissed me again, for longer that time.
Then we rounded everyone up and we all got the night bus home together and I came straight in the house and got straight into this bed and started worrying and so far Jesus Christ Our Savior has come up with no guidance whatsoever.
Maybe it’s because I am GOING TO HELL.