PROLOGUE
Are you my person?
Are you him? Are you the person I will finally, somehow, be fullymewith?
Imagine if you were that person! Imagine if you were someone I could justlet gowith. Someone I could stop worrying about holding it all together in front of. Imagine if I could be all of themeI hate so much; if you were the one person in the world who wouldn’t judge me for it. Imagine if I didn’t have to say sorry when I let those parts I don’t like leak out of me. If you just held me close when I was anxious for no reason. If you stroked my head through hangovers without judgement, if you brought me tea with three sugars in the morning without being asked, if you left the towels in the specific way I like them. Imagine if you were someone I could show my saggy stomach and boobs to, and you only fancied memore. Imagine if you pretended you weren’t awake when I farted in my sleep, or bought more chocolate without saying anything when I ate all oursupplies for breakfast a week before my period. Imagine if you were him.
Are you the person I’ll be able to talk to about all the things I feel sad about? Will I be able to cry in front of you about everything that’s happened, without feeling embarrassed and ashamed of myself? Can I get too drunk with you and talk nonsense too loudly, and obsess about that girl I hated at school who has her own cake business on Facebook that seems to be doing annoyingly well now – andnotwake up at 2am, heart thudding with horror that I have alienated and disgusted you with the real me? Are you him?
I look into those beautiful big eyes, examining the long, dark eyelashes – so much nicer than mine – and wonder silently: are you The One?
You take my hand, kissing the throbby, veiny bit on the inside of my wrist and finally – after seconds that feel like a lifetime – move closer to kiss me on the mouth.
Fuck. I think you might be.
CHAPTER ONE
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
‘So then we took his dog for a walk, and it turned out he’d forgotten to bring any of those tiny poop bags.’ I grimace, remembering the horror. ‘So we had to pick up dog shit with’ – I pause dramatically to check they’re listening – ‘a condom.’
‘Jesus.’ Bibi shifts above me as she covers her face with a hand.
‘Wait.’ From her position on my lap, Louise turns to see me better. ‘What does that mean?’ Her lovely face is screwed up in confusion. ‘Like, ausedcondom?’
‘No, no,’ I say and stroke her arm reassuringly. ‘New. But yeah, in front of a bunch of old ladies and a postman – all angrily watching from across the road to make sure we picked up the dog’s mess – he tore open a brand new condom he happened to have in his back pocket and scooped the whole thing up.’
‘Why did he have a condom with him?’ Bibi is still hiding behind her hand. ‘Did he think you were going to have sex with him on adog walk? Like, is this a thing now? Is this what dating has come to?’ She shudders.
The three of us are lying like a human centipede on my bed. Bibi is at the top, our house alpha propped up against the pillows, while I’m sprawled across her with my head on her lap. Louise lies on me, squashing my thighs and stretching her toes over the end of my bed. It is oddly comfortable and oddly comforting to be so entwined with these people I love – particularly when pulsing, as I am, with a truly awful hangover.
‘Why are condom packets always so purple and metallic?’ Bibi muses, idly picking up the remote control and turning the sound up on the TV.BBC Breakfastgets vaguely louder, but still beige and easily ignored. ‘Do you think a bunch of condom manufacturers were sitting around in a condom marketing meeting one day, and some junior condom exec – looking for his big condom break – leaned forward with intensity and said, “Has anyone considered just howsexyshiny purple foil is?”?’
‘I’m sure that’s exactly what happened,’ I nod earnestly. ‘Oh, hey, maybe you should get a job in condom marketing, Beeb?’ Bibi currently works as a barmaid, but she used to do marketing for a big firm before getting made redundant last year. She’s tried for ages to get another job in the same field, but it turns out her many years of training and that MA in psychology were all an expensive and useless waste of time.All it’s apparently good for is a job in a pub. Poor old Bibi and her pointless £25k of degree debt.
Actually, I nearly made the same mistake at eighteen – starting a degree in history before quitting only a term into it. Oh, except I failed to let the finance department know, and managed to spend an entire year’s student loan before they stopped depositing funds into my account. It’s fine, though, because a term of history studies I’m still paying for issuperhandy for my job as an events planner, I can tell you. Louise – an actress who never works and lives on baked beans with the occasional, decadent slice of bread – is carefully straight-faced whenever we moan about the student loan letters sent only to mock us. We are suckers; the by-product of our parents’ generation who got it all for free and pushed us to do what they did but without all their fun consequence-free drugs. Or the £35k houses waiting on the other side.
But sure, scold us some more for not having any direction.
‘Nah.’ I feel Bibi’s body shrug again beneath me. ‘I think condoms are probably over. Nobody uses them anymore – even STDs are more fun than using condoms. I might as well get a job promoting CDs or floppy discs.’
‘Is floppy discs a euphemism?’ I murmur, as Louise sits up straight, taking her body heat with her. My legs feel suddenly cold and lonely.
‘Do you think condoms are really bad for the environment?’ Louise looks anxious. ‘They’re very plasticky and I can’t imagine they rot away very easily.’
Louise is, like, properly pure. She’s always trying to be abetter person, always worrying about the world and society; wanting to learn and teach – although that mostly means reciting things she’s memorized from Florence Given’s Instagram page.
‘If they are, Esther is personally responsible for a lot of climate change,’ Bibi sniggers. ‘They should bring up her sex life at the next G7 Summit.’ I sit up so I can give her a full-faced scowl.
‘It’s not my fault dating people is so terrible,’ I say. ‘I only have sex with them because it’s the best way to speed up boring dates.’ Bibi nods, accepting the truth of it, even though she never really goes on dates. She’s been single for a few years now, but she doesn’t mind. The fucking bitch actually genuinelylikesbeing single.
I used to be like that. I didn’t used to mind.
‘I got through a hell of a lot of condoms before I met Sven.’ Louise still looks concerned. ‘Maybe I should go vegan to compensate for my carbon vaginaprint? I need to be more Greta Thunberg.’
‘Oh fuck, pleasedon’t.’ Bibi collapses forward on the bed, burying her face in my duvet. ‘I know she’s doing super important stuff, Lou’ – Bibi’s voice is muffled in the foul sheets – ‘but GOD, imagine how tedious it would be hanging around her. No one wants to befriendswith Greta Thunberg.’
I nod emphatically. ‘Yeah, Lou, by all means try veganism. But do it because Beyoncé was vegan for half a minute, not to be a good person – boring.’
