‘You can be mad at me, but don’t be mad at Georgia. She’s done nothing wrong.’
This was absolutely untrue – Pip had heavily implied that she liked Rooney, and then I’d kissed Rooney anyway. Not to mention everything I’d done to Jason. But I appreciated the support.
‘Oh, fuck off with that taking-the-blame shit,’ Pip spat. ‘Since when are you suddenly trying to be a good person?’ She swung round so she could speak right to Rooney’s face. ‘You’re selfish, you’re nasty, and you don’t give a shit about other people’s feelings. So don’t come up to me and try to pretend to be a good person.’
Pip’s friends had all started murmuring, wondering what was going on. Rooney stepped forward, teeth gritted and nostrils flaring like she was about to start shouting, but she didn’t.
She just turned round and walked away down the street.
I stayed still, wondering whether Pip was going to say anything to me. She looked at me for a long moment, and I felt like my brain rushed through the entirety of our past seven years of friendship, every single time we’d sat next to each other in lessons, every sleepover and PE lesson and cinema trip, every time she’d cracked a joke or sent me a stupid meme, every single time I’d almost cried in front of her – didn’t, couldn’t, but almost.
‘I just can’t believe,’ she said, through an exhale. ‘I thought – I thought you cared about my feelings.’
Then she turned away too, rejoining a conversation with her new friends, and all of those memories smashed around me into tiny pieces.
Rooney spent the whole walk back to college tapping away on her phone. I didn’t know who she was messaging, but when we got to our room, she quickly changed into a nicer outfit and I knew she was going out.
‘Don’t,’ I said, just as she reached the door, and she stopped, and turned round to face me.
‘You know what I’ve learnt?’ she said. ‘Love ruins everything.’
I didn’t agree, but I didn’t know how to argue with a statement like that. So she left and I just said nothing. And when I walked towards my bed, I found the photo of Mermaid-hair Beth on the floor again, partially crumpled like Rooney had ripped it off the wall.
I went to Pride Soc’s January social at the Student Union alone. It was our third week of term, and I tried to lure Rooney into coming with me, but she’d been spending most nights out in town clubbing, returning around 3 a.m. with dirty shoes and messed-up hair. It was up to me to find Pip and there was a chance she’d be at a Pride Soc event.
If I could just talk to her, I figured, she would understand. If I could just get her to listen to me for long enough to explain, then everything would be OK again.
The instant regret I felt upon showing up to the social was almost enough to send me running right back to college. We were in the biggest room in the Student Union. At the head of the room was a projector screen displaying all of Pride Soc’s upcoming events for the term. Music was playing, people were dressed casually, gathered in circles or sitting at tables to chat and catch up over some snacks.
It was a social. In which the point was to socialise. I was at a gathering with the specific purpose of socialising. On my own.
Why the absolute Jesus had I done this?
No. OK. I was brave. And there were cupcakes.
I went to get a cupcake. For emotional support.
Sunil, Jess and hopefully Pip were there, so there were people I knew. I searched around and quickly found Sunil and Jess in the centre of a group of people having a loud conversation, but didn’t want to disturb them when they probably had lots of things to do and lots of people to talk to, so left them to it and continued on my search for Pip.
I walked around the room three whole times before concluding that she was not there.
Great.
I got my phone out and checked her Instagram, only to discover that she was posting in her story about a movie night with her friends at Castle. She wasn’t even planning to attend this event.
Great.
‘Georgia!’
A voice made me jump – Sunil’s voice. I turned to find him striding towards me, wearing loose culottes made out of a jersey material that looked simultaneously very cool and very comfy.
‘Sorry, did I make you jump?’
‘N-no, no!’ I stammered. ‘It’s fine!’
‘I just wanted to see whether anything had happened with the Shakespeare Soc?’ he asked, with an expression so hopeful that it actually hurt my heart. ‘I know you lot had an argument, but … well, I was just hoping that, maybe … you’d sorted it out, or something.’ He smiled meekly. ‘I know it was just a bit of fun, but … I was really enjoying it.’