‘So,’ she said, and looked at me with her big dark eyes. She was objectively very pretty. Maybe she’d be my endgame. Roommate romance like in a fanfiction. This was university, for God’s sake. Anything could happen. ‘D’you like going out?’
By ‘going out’， she meant clubbing, and honestly, I didn’t know. I’d never been to a club. There weren’t many nice ones in rural Kent, and neither Pip nor Jason were into that sort of thing.
Clubbing. College marriage. Sex. Romance.
I knew all this stuff was optional.
But I wanted to have a completely normal university experience, just like everyone else.
‘Oh my God!’ said Rooney, once I’d finished straightening my hair. ‘You look so nice!’
‘Ah, thanks!’ I said awkwardly. I’m terrible at taking compliments.
Mum and I had gone clothes shopping a couple of weeks ago so I would have things to wear for club nights, and I’d picked out a couple of dresses and a pair of chunky shoes. I put one of the dresses on with black tights and honestly didn’t think I looked too bad, but next to Rooney, I just felt like a child. She was wearing a velvet red jumpsuit – a deep V at the front and flared legs – with heeled boots and huge hooped earrings. She’d piled half her hair up in a messy bun on top of her head, the rest flowing down her back. She looked really fucking cool. I … didn’t.
Then I felt bad because Mum and I had chosen this dress together. I felt a million miles away from Mum and our local shopping centre.
‘Did you go out much back in Kent?’ Rooney asked from where she was sitting on her bed, applying some final touches to her make-up in front of her pedestal mirror.
I wanted to lie and say I was super experienced at clubbing, but there was really no use. Rooney was already becoming acutely aware that I was a shy person and much, much worse at socialising than she was.
‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I … I dunno. I didn’t really think it was my sort of thing.’
‘You don’t have to go out if you don’t want to!’ She patted highlighter over her cheekbones before shooting me a smile. ‘It’s not everyone’s scene.’
‘No, no,’ I said. ‘I mean … I want to at least try it.’
She smiled some more. ‘Good! Don’t worry. I’ll look after you.’
‘Have you been out clubbing lots, then?’
‘Oh, God, yeah.’ She laughed, going back to her make-up.
OK. She sounded confident. Was she a party girl, like so many people I knew back at home? Was she the sort of person who would go out to clubs all the time and hook up with random people?
‘Have you got Find My Friends on your phone?’ she asked.
‘Oh, um, I think so.’
I got my phone out and, sure enough, I did have the app downloaded. The only people I had on there were Pip and Jason.
Rooney held out her hand. ‘Let me add myself. Then if we lose each other, you can find me again.’
She did so, and soon there was a little dot with Rooney’s face on the map of Durham.
She suggested we took a selfie together in our bedroom mirror. She knew exactly how to pose, chin hidden behind a raised shoulder, eyes looking up enticingly beneath her lashes. I put one hand on my hip and hoped for the best.
If I was fully honest with myself, I just wanted to be Rooney Bach.
Sunil met us in the reception area, and it looked like most, if not all of the John’s freshers had shown up to get their first taste of university nightlife. Despite the fact that he’d told us we didn’t have to get dressed up, Sunil was wearing a tight-fit shirt in a bright paisley pattern with skinny trousers. I did notice, however, that he was wearing shoes that looked like they’d been trampled on and dragged through a muddy field, which probably should have prepared me for what I was about to face at the club.
We were shepherded to the club through the cold streets of Durham by Sunil and some other third years. Rooney had already attracted a small crowd of ‘friends’， if you could call them that yet, and I hovered towards the back of her group, apprehensive.
Everyone seemed so excited.
Nobody else seemed nervous.
Most people my age had been to clubs by now. Most people I’d known in Year 13 had frequented the club in our nearest town, which from what I’d heard was a sticky, terrifying hellhole of regrets. But I was the one regretting not having gone with them, now. This was just another example of something I had utterly failed to experience during my teenage life.