Читать книгу Virgin - Radhika Sanghani - Страница 12

THE MORNING AFTER, I woke up to find myself splayed out across my double bed. I yawned widely and stretched my arms across the mass of pillows under me. Then I sat up straight. I was in the middle of my bed, which I was meant to be sharing with Lara. Where the hell was she?

I grabbed my silver metal glasses from my bedside table, which I wore strictly only in the privacy of my bedroom, and I hobbled towards the window to pull open the thick curtains.

‘OWWWWW, GET OFF ME!’

I screamed in alarm at the unfamiliar male voice coming from my floor, and jumped over him to the window. I yanked open the curtains and blinked as light flooded the room. My eyes gradually adjusted and the fuzzy male lump on my floor turned into Lara curled up on the floor with Angus-from-last-night. His face was bright red where I had stood on it and he was rubbing his eyes angrily. Lara was lying next to him on her front, naked apart from a black bra. They had my throw draped over them, but it was only half covering Angus’ Male Zone.

I stared in silence at them as my brain took in the scene. Slowly, I asked, ‘Why are you both on my bedroom floor?’

Lara groaned and rolled over onto her back. She pulled the throw over her body, leaving Angus totally exposed, and I tried not to stare at his trimmed blond pubes creeping up his six-pack in a snail trail. She yawned loudly and said, ‘I can’t believe how uncomfortable your floor is. You could have given us your bed.’

It all came back to me. Last night at the bus stop, Lara had begged me to let Angus come back to mine, because he was in London visiting a friend so they couldn’t go back to his. I had been so depressed and drunk that I had agreed, on the condition that they couldn’t have my bed. Clearly they had accepted my offer.

I stared at them wordlessly, then looked down at myself to check that I wasn’t also half-naked. I was wearing an oversized T-shirt and last night’s black knickers. Wordlessly, I climbed over them, went into the bathroom and closed the door.

My head was throbbing and I had just found my best friend lying naked on my tiny bedroom floor with a guy I had fancied. I was hung over, jealous and irrationally angry.

I needed to shower away my feelings and last night’s sweat before I went back out as a normal, happy-for-my-best-friend human being. I pulled my T-shirt over my head, slid my knickers off and climbed into the bathtub.

As my second foot touched the bottom of the tub, I slipped backwards, falling onto my back with a thud. I screamed in pain and swore as loudly as I could.

Rubbing my sore back, I sat up and inspected my hand. It had some white stuff on it and I realised it was probably the hair removal cream from yesterday that I had spent hours washing off.

Then a horrendous thought came to my mind. There were other things that looked white and gloopy. Sexual things that had nothing to do with my hair removal cream. OH MY MOTHERFUCKING GOD. Had Lara and Angus come in here to have sex in my bathtub while I slept alone next door?

I looked closer at the white stuff but I’d never seen real semen before, not even in all its dried up glory, so I was clueless. I scanned the rest of the bathroom for other evidence. Lara’s lacy Calvin Kleins were scrunched up on the bath mat. My worst fears were confirmed.

I screamed as loudly as I could until my screams turned into hysterical sobs. I wiped my hands on the sides of the bath. I could hear Lara banging on the bathroom door and calling out to me, but I ignored her and turned the shower on.

I stood there for what seemed like forever, letting the hot water wash away my hangover and humiliation. Lara hadn’t really done anything wrong, bar the whole sex in my bath thing, but this entire experience just made me feel so … rejected. She and I had gone out together to have fun and meet cute guys, but I was the one who genuinely wanted to take a guy back home. Except, obviously, it was Lara with her perfect nose, long blond hair and Oxford education who was taking the men home—even though she was still technically seeing Jez. I knew I was being the bitchy girl who couldn’t handle having a prettier, more successful best friend, but that thought just made me cry more.

Forty-five minutes later, I walked out of the bathroom, now cocooned in my dressing gown. Lara was sitting, fully clothed, on my bed. She was alone. As I walked in, she looked guiltily up at me. She sat in silence, waiting for me to say something.

I gave in. ‘So, has Angus gone?’

‘Yeah. Ellie, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him back here—that was really weird of me.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not fine. We—Oh God, I have to admit something to you.’

‘Go on, then.’

She shuffled on the bed, fidgeting with her hair, which still looked shiny and glossy, and then took a deep breath. ‘We had sex together. In your bathroom.’

I waited a few minutes to let her suffer, and then calmly said, ‘I know. I found the evidence.’

Her face wrinkled in confusion and then crumpled in shock. Her hand flew in front of her mouth and she groaned. ‘Fuck, is that why you screamed? Shit, Ellie, I’m so sorry! This is so embarrassing. I feel so bad. It’s just, I was so drunk and we really wanted to have sex but we didn’t have anywhere to go….’

I sighed. ‘It’s fine, honestly. If I were you, I probably would have done the same—except I would have washed the bathtub afterwards.’

She lowered her face in shame again. ‘I know. I’m a bad person. I’m sorry. I owe you.’

I sat down on the bed next to her and knew I had already forgiven her. ‘Anyway, let’s just forget it. How was it with Angus?’

She brightened up and smiled happily. ‘He was really nice. We swapped numbers and made plans to go for coffee next week. He’s doing his Master’s so he’s a couple of years older than us, but he seems like a really decent guy.’

‘Better than Jez?’

She snorted, ‘Babe, even your emo from last night is better than Jez. What was with that, anyway?’

‘Uh, well … after you heartlessly abandoned me, I had to fend for myself, and I guess drunk Ellie couldn’t find anyone better to hang out with. So, that happened.’

‘I guess the mission failed, then?’

I nodded, scrunching up my face. ‘I think it was for the best. I can’t really lose my virginity like that. I don’t think I’d mind losing it to a total stranger, but last night was kind of seedy….’

‘You’re right. And you know what? I’m proud of you for not giving in. I’m sure you could have easily gone home with the emo guy, but you didn’t, so well done for resisting,’ she said.

‘I guess,’ I replied uncomfortably, deciding I didn’t need to admit to her that Chris hadn’t actually offered me his services. Or a drink.

‘No, seriously, Ellie. I’m glad you didn’t lose your virginity to some stranger. I know you feel like it makes you different because everyone we know has had sex, but being different really isn’t a bad thing, you know.’ She paused, and then added, ‘Besides, it’s better to be a virgin than to have sex in your best friend’s bathtub, like I just did.’

I felt my skin prickle and I crossed my arms. It was all right for Lara to say being different was a good thing, but she had never had to make up lies during Never Have I Ever or sit in silence while our school friends giggled over awkward sex stories. She got to have awkward sex with Jez—and Angus, too, apparently.

‘How is being different a good thing?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know.’ She sighed. ‘I guess…. I wish I hadn’t thrown my virginity away on a total dick, and you haven’t, so that makes you different. You have morals. It’s a good thing.’

‘I didn’t have a choice, remember? The dick I tried to give my virginity to said no.’

She rolled her eyes, ‘Ellie, that was, like, four years ago. You need to get over the James Martell thing.’

I winced.

The James Martell ‘thing’?

‘Um, Lara, you know how horrible that was for me. The Bite Job was awful—you can’t deny that. And then he totally rejected me. I couldn’t just “get over it”.’

‘He was a decent guy, Ellie,’ she said, her tone irritable. ‘If you hadn’t been so terrified of seeing him again, you probably would have ended up going out, and eventually losing your virginity to him in a really nice way. Instead, you just totally flipped out about it all.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked in a slightly strangled voice, knowing I wouldn’t like the response.

She sighed. ‘Don’t hate me for saying this, but I think you’re scared.’

‘Scared?! How can you say that?’ Hurt welled up inside me. ‘Lara, it’s so easy for you. You never had to worry about any of this, and OK, so Jez is a bit of a dick to you, but you both clearly really like each other and you’ve been seeing him on and off for years. It’s different for me. You have no idea how hard it is to be alone when everyone around you is in a relationship or living single life to the max and sleeping with the whole university.’

‘But you’re not alone, are you?’ she snapped. ‘You have your friends, you’re doing well at uni—but you’re just obsessed with finding a guy and losing your virginity. If you forgot about that for one second, you might actually enjoy your final year instead of freaking out the whole time.’

I felt tears start to sting the back of my eyes. ‘Do you ever think for a second that I do try?’ I asked her. ‘That losing my virginity is important to me because it would help me finally fit in? You fit in without even trying. I don’t even understand why I’m a virgin. No one we know has ever had an issue losing their virginity—more often, they regret losing it to the wrong guy. You had an opportunity with Marc but the only one I’ve ever had was with James Martell. Maybe I fucked it up because, yes, post–Bite Job I was scared of seeing him, but I was seventeen. Since then, no other guy has been interested in me so I’ve never had an opportunity to try again. Lara, I try so hard to meet men and none of them ever do anything more than kiss me—exactly like last night. You just go out to a club and a hot guy comes over and flirts with you. I get stuck with the old men and emos, and then my best friend has sex in my bathroom with a stranger. Do you not understand why I feel alone?’

‘Oh my God, why do you keep going on about the bathroom thing?’ she asked, her voice becoming shrill and high. ‘I’m sorry that Angus preferred me to you. Maybe it’s because I’m not so desperate.’

I felt as though she had whacked me across the face. ‘Desperate? You actually, genuinely think I’m desperate? How can you say that?’

She looked guilty but the apology I expected didn’t come. ‘Well, I just think you’re a bit … I don’t know, obsessed with this whole thing. You wanted to lose your virginity to a guy in a club.’

‘So?! It’s my choice,’ I replied, trying not to cry. ‘Lara, you can’t judge me when you’ve never been in my position.’ I closed my eyes tightly and blurted out something I regretted immediately. ‘Why have you suddenly decided to care about it, anyway? You never have before.’

Her mouth dropped open. ‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but are you suggesting I don’t care? I’m here for you whenever you need me. I drop everything every time you have a crisis, which is pretty much every other day.’

My hurt morphed into anger. ‘So? We’re best friends—that’s what we do. OK, fine, I have a lot of crises, but they’re not serious. I don’t … I don’t mope about them or anything.’

She cried out in disbelief, ‘Please, Ellie. You are so self-pitying. And you know what? You can be really selfish, too.’

‘I can be selfish? Look who’s talking! We spend hours talking about Jez every couple of days, analysing his text messages, and going on and on about the latest news at Oxford when I don’t even go there, and I don’t care about the people there.’

‘Exactly,’ she spat. ‘You don’t care about the people in my life but you expect me to care about whatever guy recently smiled at you on the tube, or the people you hate in your English course. It’s almost like you’re jealous of me.’

We stared at each other, and our words seemed to echo around the room. This was our first fight. I didn’t know how much of it we meant. Was it true? Was I selfish? The silence was unbearable. I finally understood the phrase about cutting the tension in a room with a knife.

She stood up abruptly. ‘Whatever. I’m leaving.’ She grabbed her bag and coat, and walked out of my room, slamming the door behind her.

The minute she left, I burst into tears and all the anger dissolved into hurt and regret. She was right—I did self-pity and mope and I was selfish. But wasn’t everyone? And how could she say those things to me? Didn’t she care that she had just hurt me more than any boy ever had?

I curled into a ball on my bed and began to cry very quietly. My wet hair soaked through my dressing gown, but I barely noticed. Lara thought I was desperate.