But I still didn’t go to parties or join any groups. I didn’t magically become cool or popular or less self-conscious. Some days I still hid in the library when I didn’t have the energy to negotiate lunchtime with Lucy’s friends. She would come and find me in the library though, and our status as best friends soon became a known thing among other people in our year level. Natalie and Lucy. Lucy and Natalie. Having a best friend was like having a protective armour, something I’d never experienced before, and something I desperately needed. Lucy navigated social situations for me, and in return I made her laugh and helped her deal with her mother. In Lucy and Zach, I’d found my group, and it was small, but it was enough, more than enough, to keep my head above water. They saved me.
So yes, I probably do owe them some good gossip from my first solo party experience.
‘Maybe you should text Owen,’ Lucy says to me now.
‘Why would she do that?’ Zach says.
‘To say thanks for the party invite.’
‘That’s terrible advice. Don’t do that. Nobody does that,’ Zach says.
‘It’s good manners, Zach,’ Lucy says. Her family is big on good manners.
‘Look, the thing is, Owen is really just not that interesting. I don’t want to text him,’ I say, before they can get any further into the discussion.
Lucy and Zach solemnly nod as if I have said the greatest truth they’ve ever heard.
‘And also, he winked at me,’ I add.
‘Yuck. Okay, don’t text him,’ Lucy says.
‘You are way too good for him,’ Zach says. I hate it when Zach gives me compliments like this. If I was so amazing, Zach would have chosen me over Lucy. Which is a terrible, awful, self-pityingly, pathetic, desperate, bad-friend thing to think, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Zach and Lucy chose each other, so they have to say things like ‘You are too good for him’ to me to hide the fact that no one chose me. Also, ‘You are too good for him’ usually means ‘You are the less-attractive person in this equation’.
At that moment, Alex appears on the deck.
‘Hi,’ he says.
I gulp and sit up a bit straighter because there’s no point in wearing the Boob Top if you’re going to slouch.
‘Hi. Hello,’ I say. I try to sound very casual but somehow instead sound very formal.
‘How are you?’ he says. Does he sound casual or like someone who is trying to sound casual? I can’t tell.
‘Good. How are you?’
‘Good.’
Zach is looking back and forth between us. Alex and I don’t usually exchange pleasantries.
‘So, did you have fun at the party?’ Zach asks Alex.
‘Yeah, it was all right,’ Alex says.
Oh, god. There are so many bad ways I can interpret that answer, and no good ones.
‘Anything interesting happen?’ Lucy asks.
Why is she asking that? Would she normally ask Alex such a question? It sounds like I’ve set her up to ask that. I am sweating.
‘We played spin the bottle,’ Alex says, grinning as he sits down in one of the deck chairs and props his feet on another.
‘What?’ Lucy and Zach both pretty much yell in unison.
Fuck.
Alex’s eyes flick to me very quickly and then away again. I hope, in that nanosecond, I have communicated the millions of pieces of information I wish to convey to him, including: why the hell did you bring that up; don’t tell them we got each other; don’t tell them we sort-of kissed; don’t tell them we didn’t actually kiss; don’t say anything about me at all; is this all a huge joke to you; are you trying to ruin my life; I hate you; your hair looks good today.
‘You didn’t tell us you played spin the bottle!’ Lucy shouts at me, her voice high-pitched in outrage and excitement.
‘I didn’t play. Not really.’
Alex is watching me. His face is unreadable.
‘Do you and your friends usually play spin the bottle?’ Zach says to Alex.
‘No. It was Natalie’s idea,’ Alex says. He smiles at me. He’s enjoying this. I am not.
‘You made a party full of uni students you didn’t know play spin the bottle?’ Zach turns to me. His eyes are huge. He looks half impressed, half scared, like an alien might have taken over my body and will come bursting out of my skin at any moment.
‘Hang on. That is not how it happened,’ I say.
‘How did it happen?’ Lucy asks.
‘Well, everyone was playing a drinking game—’
‘You played a drinking game!’ Zach is being very dramatic today.
‘Calm down, Dad, and let her finish,’ Alex says.
‘Everyone else was playing the Never Have I Ever drinking game and I said I had never played spin the bottle and that’s how the game started,’ I say.
‘Why did you leave this out of your story?’ Zach says.
‘Who did you kiss?’ Lucy asks, almost breathless.
Now there is silence. Everyone looks at me.
‘No one,’ I say. My face feels very hot.
‘Who did you see kiss?’ Lucy asks.
‘It wasn’t like that. They went around the side of the house to kiss or whatever.’
‘Or whatever?’ Zach says, raising his eyebrows.
‘I don’t think anything actually happened.’
‘How do you know?’ Zach says.
‘Well, I don’t know. But they only had one minute.’
‘A lot of things can happen in a minute,’ Lucy says, in a serious tone, which makes Zach blush and Alex laugh.
‘Shut up and don’t say a word,’ Zach says to Alex.
Alex rolls his eyes, lifts his feet off the chair and wanders back inside.
‘Was he an arsehole to you last night?’ Zach asks me.
‘No.’
‘Did he look after you? I told him to look after you.’
‘You told him to look after me?’ My stomach drops.
‘Yes, of course I did,’ Zach says.
Suddenly everything makes sense. Everything that Alex said and did was out of obligation. Of course it was.
I feel a jolt of rage towards Lucy and Zach. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘We were worried about you there on your own,’ Lucy said.
‘I’m not that socially incapable.’ I am, but they shouldn’t think that.
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘Well, you don’t need to organise secret chaperones for me at parties.’
‘That’s not what we did,’ Zach says.
‘It seems like it.’
I get to my feet, and the two of them stare at me like I’m acting crazy. Which, yes, I am. But all my jittery energy finally has a focus. How dare they tell Alex to look after me? I feel stupid. Alex just sees me as his little brother’s clueless friend. None of what happened means anything anymore.
‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Natalie, don’t go. I’m sorry,’ says Lucy. Nothing stresses her out more than someone being angry at her, especially me (and her mother).
But I flounce out in a huff, riding high on the knowledge I am in the right, and they are wrong, and the world is unfair and awful and out to get me, and I can blame it all on two people. Well, four, actually, because my parents have a lot to answer for too.