I pause at the steps and manoeuvre awkwardly around them. They don’t even look at me or stop their conversation as I brush past.
The front door is open. There’s a long hallway with a stained carpet that could be grey or brown or blue—it’s impossible to tell—and music. I follow the hallway, peering into empty rooms as I pass them (a messy bedroom with an unmade bed and three guitars propped against it, another bedroom with posters of people I don’t know on the walls and a stack of dirty dishes on the bedside table) until I find a big lounge room where a bunch of people are sitting on couches and beanbags. There are double doors thrown open to a courtyard, and I can see more people out there, smoking and vaping. I can’t see Owen. Everyone looks so much older, even though I know most of them are only a year or two ahead of me.
I hover in the doorway to the lounge room, feeling like an idiot. I spend ten agonising seconds trying to look relaxed and normal, scanning every face desperately for Owen or Alex, and then I turn around and walk into the bathroom and lock the door.
I sit on the toilet for a while, and play on my phone until the battery goes down to 40% (I somehow forgot to charge it this afternoon, an amateur mistake) and then I stop, because getting through the rest of this night without a phone is an unbearable thought. I should just text Owen. He might even be here and I just didn’t see him, but I can’t bring myself to go back out there. How do people do it? How do they walk into a room of strangers and join conversations? And even if I could pretend I was comfortable doing that, I’m not sure this is the kind of party where that can happen. I don’t have the first clue how to interact with these people, who all know each other and go to university together and are utterly comfortable in each other’s presence. I’m some weird high-school kid who’s spent her whole life reading about parties rather than going to them.
I’m nervous-sweating now. I put bunches of toilet paper under my armpits to stop myself from getting sweat marks on my clothes. I’m wearing a cheap patterned dress I bought from a chain store that’s designed to look like it might be a 90s vintage dress from an op-shop. I bought it because it looked soft and floaty on the mannequin, and because it has cute buttons on the front, but it’s not quite soft and floaty on me. It’s itchy and doesn’t sit straight over my left boob. But the buttons do look cute.
Someone knocks on the bathroom door and I say nothing. They turn the handle, find it locked and knock again. I call out, ‘I’m in here. Sorry’. I hear footsteps walking away.
I really, really want to call Mum to pick me up but, no matter how grim this night gets, I won’t do that.
I start looking through the bathroom cabinets because I have nothing else to do. Panadol. Fungal cream. Birth-control pills. Toothpaste, with the cap off and a thick gloop of it on the shelf. Multivitamins. Mouthwash. Condoms. Lots of condoms. Medication that looks like antidepressants. I close the cabinet door, feeling bad for snooping.
They have a big, grungy bathtub that looks like it hasn’t been cleaned in months. I put an already damp towel in the bottom and sit in the bathtub, because it seems less gross than sitting on the toilet. I can see several dark hairs clinging to the side of the bath. There’s nothing more disgusting than other people’s bathrooms. I sit there for what feels like a long time, but is probably two minutes, waiting for something to happen. I imagine standing up, slipping over, hitting my head on the edge of the tub, and no one finding me until the next day, when it’s too late to save me. That would be a very sad way to die, in the dirty bathtub of a stranger.
There’s a chorus of loud shouting and laughter as a new group of people arrive, clomping down the hallway, carrying bags of clinking bottles.
‘Heeeeeeyyyyyyy!’
‘Yo!’
‘You’re finally here!’
‘Bro!’
I recognise Owen’s voice and I feel so much relief my body actually sags against the side of the tub.
There’s more noise and then someone tries to open the bathroom door and rattles the handle.
‘I hate to be rude, but there’s a line of people needing to piss out here,’ a voice says from the other side of the door.
‘Some chick has been in there for, like, half an hour,’ says another voice.
‘We’re about to start peeing in sinks out here!’ a third voice chimes in.
Surely they would pee in the garden before they used the kitchen sink. People just don’t think sometimes.
I stand up, not knowing what to do. I pull the toilet paper out from my armpits and flush it down the toilet. I immediately regret doing that, because now they’ll think I’ve been on the toilet all this time.
I walk to the door and unlock it, opening it a crack. Six faces stare back at me. One of them is Owen, another is Alex, and the rest I don’t know.
‘Natalie!’ Owen says. He looks like he is very pleased with himself for remembering my name.
Alex leans forward. ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look concerned before.
‘Yes, I’m fine. I haven’t been in here for half an hour. It’s been ten minutes. I needed somewhere quiet to make a phone call. Sorry.’ I’m babbling, and I can feel that my face is red.
All six of them continue staring at me. I need to walk away now, but that means walking back into the party. I am frozen, unwilling to give up the safe oasis of the bathroom.
Owen steps forward, pushes the door open and walks into the bathroom.
‘Turn around,’ he says.
‘Why?’
‘I’m about to pee.’
He’s already standing over the toilet and unzipping his fly. I am a prudish only child who grew up with a bathroom to herself and no brothers, so there’s no way I can remain in the room with a guy peeing. Also, it’s not a thing a guy would do in front of a girl he wants to maybe kiss at some point, so my fantasy of hooking up with Owen Sinclair takes a further step away from the realm of possibility. Or maybe Owen is so self-assured, has lived a life of such untouchable male privilege, that he can pee in front of someone with full confidence that he could still kiss them later.
I leave the bathroom and walk about five steps before I’m at a loss where to go, again. This time there is a familiar face to bail me out. Alex is putting beers in the fridge in the kitchen. I hover nearby, forgetting all my wariness about him. No longer is he somebody I don’t trust. Now he’s my lifejacket, my safety net, my I-will-hang-on-to-you-like-grim-death fellow partygoer.
‘What were you doing in the bathroom,’ he asks when he sees me.
What kind of outrageous question is that?
‘I told you. Making a phone call.’
‘Not hiding?’
‘Definitely not hiding.’
‘Okay. Just seemed like you might have been hiding.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘Good.’ He finishes putting the beers in the fridge and waves to someone across the room.
Owen walks out of the bathroom, running his hand through his hair in a way that makes it obvious he knows how great his hair is. It’s weird to look at someone and know they are probably very vain and they just peed in front of you but still be attracted to them.
‘Hey, having fun?’ he asks me.
‘Yes,’ I reply.