closer to Sophie, but the magic of this place has dissipated, and the realities( her having a boyfriend; none of our friends knowing the things she says to me, the promises she makes; the impossible and achingly unrequited love hermitted in my chest; what people would think if they saw two girls doing that) they all come back.
And I am eighteen again. Eighteen and whispering reassurances to myself, to my parents, to my friends, that I cannot possibly be … The chances are too slim. I have dated boys. I have been in love with boys. I simply want to be them, to look like that, to have a stomach that flat … But I used to get just drunk enough at sleepovers to be able to whisper that girls are quite pretty too. And, later into eighteen, drunkenly, sloppily, embarrassingly kissing them in the crowded, sweaty nightclub not so different from the ones I live in now. Dealing with the questions from all my friends, because I have to try it. Just once though. I told myself I did not want to be with them. That I could never fall in love with them; maybe just look at them. Maybe just kiss them … It would be easier if I was still eighteen and lying to myself. If I had never let myself fall in love with George in such a real and messy way. I still lie. But I lie to her now:
‘ It’ s casual!’‘ It’ s funny!’‘ It’ s for the plot!’ I force out the lines and the laughter, because I know that some things are too fantastical for even a night like this to make real.
And so, like clockwork, we casually suggest that it’ s time for chips, pretending that we are just too tired to keep dancing. We dutifully ignore every insinuation or subcurrent between us that we could be something more, as we sit on jarringly yellow plastic chairs and argue with Sophie about whether we can get cheese as well as gravy when we‘ accidentally’ order the largest portion size. As we complain about the extortion, even though we are in the same overpriced kebab shop we never fail to end up in- all energy is spent, and alcohol blurs our judgement in more ways than one. As we walk in the cold, gravy spilling from the styrofoam tubs, and every shiver reinforcing the agony of her, I know that I will do it again.
For eleven-year-old me laughing at the primary school disco, almost freakishly happy before the world set in. For fourteen-year-old-me and her unyielding desire to live. For fifteen-year-old me, who felt the world end when her family fell apart. For sixteen-year-old me, sad and catastrophic in a way only teenagers are capable of,
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