That wasn’t the first time I’d said those words. But every time I said them, they felt a little more at home in the air around me.
Ellis considered this. ‘Two things. Hm. Two in one. Buy one get one free. Love that.’
I snorted, which made her genuinely laugh, and all the nerves that had been constricting my chest eased.
‘Who told you about those, then?’ she asked.
‘Someone at uni,’ I said. But Sunil wasn’t just someone, was he? ‘One of my friends.’
‘Are they also …？’
‘They’re asexual too.’
‘Wow.’ Ellis grinned. ‘Well, that makes three of us.’
‘There are more,’ I said. ‘A lot more. Out there. In the world.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’
Ellis stared out of the window, smiling. ‘That would be nice. If there were lots out there.’
We sat in silence for a moment. I finished eating my chips.
There were more of us out there.
Neither of us were alone in this.
‘You’re … very lucky to know all of this,’ said Ellis suddenly. ‘I’m …’ She shook her head. ‘Ha. I guess I’m a bit jealous.’
‘Why?’ I asked, confused.
She looked at me. ‘I just wasted a lot of time. That’s all.’
She chucked her empty McFlurry pot into the back seat and turned on the ignition.
‘I don’t feel lucky,’ I said.
‘What do you feel?’
‘I don’t know. Lost.’ I thought of Sunil. ‘My friend said I don’t have to do anything. He said all I need to do is be.’
‘Your friend sounds like a wise old sage.’
‘That just about sums him up.’
Ellis started driving us out of the car park.
‘I don’t like doing nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s boring.’
‘So what do you think I should do?’
She gave this some thought for a moment.
Then she said. ‘Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.’ She glanced to one side at me. ‘There. Was that sage-like enough for you?’
I grinned. ‘Very sage-like.’
‘I can be profound. I am an artist.’
‘You should put this in a painting.’
‘You know what? Maybe I will.’ She raised a hand and twinkled her fingers. ‘I’ll call it Platonic Magic. And no one who isn’t like us – wait, what was it? Aro …？’
‘Aromantic asexual?’
‘Yes. No one who isn’t aromantic asexual will understand it.’
‘Can I have it?’
‘Do you have two thousand pounds?’
‘Your paintings are selling for two thousand pounds?’
‘They sure are. I’m pretty good at my job.’
‘Can I get student discount?’
‘Maybe. Just because you’re my cousin. Student cousin discount.’
And then we were laughing as we reached the motorway and I thought about the magic that I could find, maybe, if I looked a little harder.
Magic was not what I found when I returned to my college room on the afternoon of January eleventh. What I found instead was most of Rooney’s possessions scattered around the floor, her wardrobe wide open, her bedsheets several metres away from her bed, Roderick a worrying shade of brown, and the aqua rug inexplicably crammed into the sink.
I had just unzipped my suitcase when Rooney entered wearing pyjamas, looked at me, looked at the rug in the sink, and said, ‘I spilled tea on it.’
She sat on her bed while I tidied her possessions, squeezed the water out of the rug, and even snipped most of the dead bits off Roderick. The photo of Mermaid-hair Beth had fallen on the floor again, so I just stuck it back on the wall, without saying anything about it, while Rooney watched, expressionless.
I asked about her Christmas, but the only thing she said was that she hated spending time in her home town.
Then she went to bed at seven o’clock.
So, yeah. Rooney was clearly not in a great place.
To be fair, I understood why. The play wasn’t going to happen. Her unspoken thing with Pip was not going to happen. The only thing she really had was – well, me, I guess.
Not a great consolation prize, in my opinion.
‘We should go out,’ I said to her at the end of our first week back at uni.
It was the early evening. She glanced at me over the top of her laptop screen, then continued what she was doing – watching YouTube videos. ‘Why?’