“Sure,” I said, because being rammed into a muddy field with thousands of pissed-up happy people is about as far away from my comfort zone as you can get. “Or a barbecue?” A barbecue sounded safer to me. I could probably get on board with that.
“Totally!” Will said, with way too much enthusiasm. “Everyone loves meat!”
“Not vegetarians,” I reminded him.
He nodded, sadly. “Not vegetarians.” There was a time he would have laughed at that.
Dolly coughed to get my attention. “Thirty-five pounds, fifty,” she said.
I looked in horror, first at the numbers on the little screen and then at what I’d actually bought, which, in the absence of a carrier bag, was all laid out on the countertop: my Stallion Man Beefcake Wash With Active Red-Blooded Testosterone (or whatever the hell it was), a bath bomb (actually, I really like them, so fine), sanitary towels, two pots of baby food, a pregnancy test kit, some “Glam Crystals” glitter eyeliner, and two large boxes, each containing twenty-four own-brand condoms.
I felt Will’s eyes scanning the items too, as a shocked silence fell across us all.
Dolly’s eyes flicked from the condoms to me. I am sixteen, but I’m a young sixteen, you know? I don’t necessarily look like I should be having sex. I certainly don’t come across as confident enough to be having that much sex. Not forty-eight condoms’ worth. Even one condom would be pushing it, believability-wise. And with these goods, I was aware I was also giving the impression I had one baby at home, and another potentially on the way. Maybe she would think that’s why I needed all the condoms. Maybe she would think I had finally seen sense, and understood the importance of safe sex.
My cheeks were glowing. I could see Will out of the corner of my eye, and he was just sort of staring, open-mouthed. Also, there was no way I would have enough money in my account to cover this; I had about fifteen quid, tops.
But I optimistically let Dolly try my debit card anyway, because you never knew; sometimes banks accidentally deposited tens of thousands in people’s accounts due to some processing error.
That hadn’t happened in this instance.
“It’s not going through,” Dolly said, giving me a sympathetic look.
“Oh,” I muttered.
“On me, mate,” Will croaked as he pushed his basket on to the counter. “Just put it on mine,” he told Dolly.
“Oh, er, really?” I said, staring down at my trainers.
He was staring down at his trainers too. “What are mates for?” he said, finally.
“Huh, thanks,” I said. I looked up at the cashier. “And a bag, please?”
“Alex?” The softness in his voice caught me off guard. I swallowed and finally met his eyes. “We’ll have a nice summer. We’ll definitely plan stuff. Like, I know me and Annie are together now, and I guess there’s some stuff I’ll be doing with her, but you’re still my mate, so we’ll do stuff too.”
I got why he couldn’t tell me. He genuinely felt bad. He knew everything was changing, and he was clinging on. I didn’t blame him. I cried when I got home after the year eleven leavers prom. Everyone was moving off in different directions, growing up, chasing dreams, excited for whatever came next. But I didn’t want to let go of the known and comfortable. It was horrible. It felt like everyone was jumping into the river of our futures and being swept away by the rapids of life, and I wasn’t even in the water. I couldn’t be. I can’t swim.
Like, not metaphorically. I literally can’t swim.
“Yeah, yeah, totally,” I said. “It’ll be great.”
“It’s gonna be a sweeeeeeeeet summer, man!” Will said, although something in his voice made me think he didn’t quite believe that.
I sighed as Will put his PIN into the machine and it all effortlessly went through. At that point, I was pretty much resigned to it being The Vile Summer of Total Arse. All signs pointed in that direction. Turned out I was wrong. It was going to be sweeeeeeet. Just not in any way I was expecting.
I was also going to use all the condoms.
Just not in any way you might be expecting.
CHAPTER THREE
I sent Annie a text back:
Have a good time.
I was pretty confident she would pick up on the fact I didn’t say “great” time, didn’t use an exclamation mark, and didn’t put any kisses. I wanted her to know I was hurt. But I didn’t have chance to wallow in any further self-pity (something I do really well, by the way – I have numerous playlists for it and everything), because Kendra was coming up the stairs, calling my name.
Kendra and Dad met on Tinder, not that either of them knew I knew that. She had a peroxide-blonde bob and, like most people with too much money and no class, drove a white Mercedes with personalized plates: K3 NDRA – the three forming a backwards “E” that made it look like her name had been written by a toddler. The severe hair, combined with her penchant for wearing turtleneck sweaters, meant she looked a bit like an android in a movie. Like, she didn’t want to reveal her neck, because that was where the little compartment that accessed her circuit board was. Ultimately, androids always turn rogue and wipe out the humans with a cold, ruthless efficiency, so I was constantly on my guard with her.
“There you are,” she said, pushing my bedroom door open. One of these days, she’ll regret not knocking and end up seeing me doing something awful that she wouldn’t want to see … like smiling, or enjoying my life, for example. I did my best to not have resting “I’m totally indifferent towards you” face. That was one of my first faults that Kendra pointed out to me, by the way, when she moved in, six months ago. The truth is, she’s not my kind of person. She’s flashy and pushy, and she’s rude to waiters. But I was doing my best for Dad, toning my real feelings towards her down, because he seemed to like her and I guess I just want him to be happy. Indifference was the best I could manage. Anything more positive would have been too tall an order.
She wrinkled her nose. “Do you need to open a window?”
OK, here is a fact: my room does not smell. It doesn’t. I’m really clean and tidy – there’s no clothes dumped all over the place, no old food under my bed, and I Febreze the living daylights out of everything several times a week. But that was never good enough for Kendra. Kendra was always convinced she could smell something. It drives me mad when people say teenage boys smell, because we don’t. Well, not all of us anyway. And no more than anyone else smells. And she could talk. You should smell her when she comes back from hot yoga.
She also loves eating beef jerky, by the way, and that stuff reeks.
But I opened the window.
Kendra perched on the edge of the bed. I stayed by the window. She rubbed her fingers along a tiny bit of my duvet. “When did you last wash this?”
“Last week.” That was more or less true.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “In the washing machine?”
“Yeah?” What did she think I’d done? Carried it down to the river and rubbed it over some rocks?
Kendra took a breath and nodded. “So that’s why there was fabric softener in the pre-wash compartment.”
“Huh?”