‘You act as if that’s a bad thing.’
‘Let’s just say that the whole boyfriend–girlfriend thing has never worked out for me before. Love isn’t for me. It’s like, when someone tells you not to think about an elephant, and then all you can do is think about an elephant. Tell me I can’t have sex with anyone else, and then sex with other people is all I can think about.’
‘But at least you’d still be having sex.’
‘I just find it frustrating. Limiting. It makes me worry.’
Kate sipped her drink, wondering what it must be like to be frazzled over the idea of being in a committed relationship. Just getting one guy to like her enough to want to go to bed with her was such a big issue, she was finding it hard to empathise with worrying about all the sex she might be missing out on.
Claude arrived, and he was perfect. Just like his photos. Dark and Mediterranean almost to the point of cliché, and already gazing adoringly at Renee.
They stood to kiss each other on the cheek, and then when Claude leant in to do the same with Kate, she felt herself freeze, and then for some reason ended up giggling to cover her awkwardness.
‘Sorry!’ She hated herself for getting so flustered, all because a man was close and being friendly.
‘You’ll have to excuse Kate,’ Renee laughed sympathetically, ‘she’s been having a bit of a day.’
Claude nodded, adjusting his Clark Kent-like glasses and taking a seat.
‘Yes, I heard you had some bad news earlier?’ he asked once he was settled, his accent thick and French. He was being sensitive, but Kate was on guard, wondering if he was being genuine or just trying to impress Renee.
‘Not that bad,’ Kate said, posture straight as she worked to portray herself more like an adult. ‘I won’t bore you with it. Just unexpected.’
‘I understand,’ he smiled back.
By the time the small talk started to dwindle, Kate’s drink was finished too. She hugged Renee in close as she said goodbye, hoping that she’d understand from the pressure of it just how much of a good friend she had been, and how foolish Kate felt. Claude seemed to think he deserved a hug too, and opened his arms for her, but Kate found herself freaking out once again at the proximity of a real-life gorgeous boy who wanted to hug her, and sprang her hand up between them and into an awkward fist-bump instead.
When she had reached the bar, Kate turned back to see how the date was going now that she wasn’t there to third-wheel it. Renee and Claude were close, their bodies angled into each other, their eyes fixed and curious. They were gorgeous together.
Still a bit of a romantic in there somewhere then, she thought, before wondering when the last of it would leave her and she’d become the withered old spinster she was sure she was destined to be.
Maybe it was the day’s fraught panic. Maybe it was that vague sense of longing she felt as she watched Claude’s fingers brush up Renee’s bare forearm. Or maybe it was the two gin and tonics she’d had on an empty stomach, but without allowing herself the time to second-guess herself, Kate marched over to the cork board, pulled out her phone and took a quick snapshot of the pink card that hung there. Something had to change before it was too late. It was time.
Chapter 5
Freddie recognised the building. He’d never had to come here for any academic reason, but it was right next to the Student Union, which he knew well. He rubbed at his neck, remembering the person he was back then, and how that compared to the person he was now.
Conscious that he might be starting to look strange, especially as there were actual students everywhere, Freddie stuffed his hands in his pockets, resisting the urge to find the nearest loos. University for Freddie had been a shock of opinions, of always feeling like you were wrong whatever opinion you happened to have, and the start of that creeping sensation of germ-infected self-hatred that would eventually become all-consuming in the years after graduation. Now, he found that some days were easier than others, and today he had purposely left the bottle of hand sanitiser at home, and the tiny travel toothpaste tube too, in the optimistic hope that he would be able to cope. He was an adult now, and he’d already been through the worst of it. He could manage his anxiety all on his own, just like any other ordinary person.
Work had finished at five thirty and he didn’t have anywhere else to go before the meeting started at seven, so he’d arrived uncomfortably early. But there was a canteen on the ground floor of the Union building, and as his lunch had been a suboptimal tortilla wrap, Freddie decided to settle in and grab some food. While he waited for his hotdog and chunky fries, Freddie let himself wonder about the kind of people who would be at this meeting. He couldn’t imagine that there’d be anyone like him; someone who could pass as being normal. He imagined train-spotter types wearing anoraks, or maybe a lonely old man who had saved himself for an unrequited sweetheart. God, this was going to be so horrible and embarrassing. Was it too late to back out? No one would know but him.
Freddie ate his food with a knife and fork. He noticed a couple of girls with messy hairdos and oversized glasses watching him curiously from a couple of tables away, but even eating chips with his hands meant getting them dirty and that meant having to wash them afterwards. And once he started washing, sometimes it wasn’t easy to stop, especially if he was already anxious. If looking a little bit weird now was the price to pay to avoid getting very weird later, then so be it. He wasn’t going to let the thousands of pounds his parents had paid in therapy bills go completely to waste.
He told himself that however uncomfortable he was feeling, however much he wanted to pretend that he’d never seen the noticeboard card, he was here now. He’d already emailed the organiser to confirm the details; they were expecting him.
The meeting room was on the third floor of the building, and it was slowly approaching seven, so Freddie decided that it was time to move.
As he waited for the lift, a girl came and stood by his side, but Freddie didn’t dare look at her just in case she was going to the meeting. Or worse, she was not going to the meeting, but somehow knew about it anyway and therefore knew what he was and why he was there. As they stepped into the lift, he couldn’t help but catch her eye. There was something familiar about her; she was too old to be a student, so possibly a lecturer or professor he’d crossed paths with at uni. She was clearly nervous like him though, and let out an awkward false laugh when their fingertips nearly met while both reaching for the button for the third floor.
The silence was unbearable. Did she know about the meeting? Did she know that was why Freddie was here? Was the word ‘virgin’ plastered in bright capital letters all over his now definitely perspiring forehead? He wished he had decided to bring the hand sanitiser out with him after all, but the truth was his nerves had put him far past the hand-sanitiser zone. He wanted to scour his hands with soap under a tap until they were red and sore. Only then would he know that he was really clean, and that nothing bad was going happen.
When the lift doors finally opened, the girl darted out ahead of him, leaving Freddie the time to gather himself as he checked the big wall sign to find the allocated room. It was at the end of a long corridor, one that reminded him less of his own time at this university and more of the various hospitals he’d visited in the years since he graduated. And then he was there, at the brink of the room, his one last chance to turn around without making an absolute fool of himself.