Am I Normal Yet? (5 page)

“Don't be stupid,” I protested. She was gorgeous and she knew it. Men's eyes practically goggled out of their faces when they met her. Her long dark hair, her everything-in-the-right-place face.

She smirked in reply. “If I were in a girl band, I would be the one that nobody fancied…”

“Hey,” Amber butted in. “That would
so
be me instead. I'm the ginger one! Nobody ever fancies the ginger one in bands.”

“Fine then. I'm Mary out of the Bennet sisters.”

“Well if that's true,” I stood up. “I'm…I'm…Mr Collins,” I yelled, and the three of us dissolved into hysteria. We huddled together on the bench, chuckling and yelling “Mr Collins” until our tummies hurt and our teeth chattered from the cold.

“I really liked him,” I half-whispered, remembering far too soon why we were sitting in the middle of a field, gone midnight. I needed to message my mum actually; she would probably be freaking out.

Lottie cuddled me into her. We'd not sat like that since we were eleven.

“I know you did,” she replied. “Shitty, isn't it?”

Amber gatecrashed the hug, giggling as she made room for herself between our heads.

“Screw guys,” she said. “Let's meet for coffee tomorrow and spend the entire afternoon talking about everything other than boys.”

“Amen,” I replied.

And that's what we did.

By Monday I was ready and raring to see Ethan again.

I'd had so many dialogues with him in my head. They all ended with him on his knees, sobbing: “
But I'll never feel this way for anyone, the way I feel for you.
”

Lottie and Amber firmly believed I should ignore him.

“Why waste time on him?” Amber'd said, the day before, at our first coffee meeting as friends. She slurped up her cappuccino. “He is not worth your H2O.”

“Oxygen is O2,” Lottie corrected.

“Oh, shut it, Einstein.”

“I just want him to be a tiny bit sorry,” I said.

“He isn't…otherwise he wouldn't have done it in the first place…I bet…”

“HUSH,” Lottie yelled across the table, cupping her mug of weird herbal tea. “No talk of guys, remember? Let's discuss world domination instead.”

Thus all talk of Ethan, footballer-stander-upper guy, and all Lottie's conquests ceased, and we chatted about ourselves instead. I learned Amber wants to go to art college. How she hates her little stepbrother because he calls her “Ginger Pubes” and her dad won't do anything because he is whipped by her evil stepmum, so she put hair-removing cream on her stepbrother's eyebrows whilst he slept. Then Lottie filled me in on everything I'd missed since we were eleven, laughing about how she'd almost been chucked out of her posh school after getting arrested at a May Day protest. “But Mum and Dad were really proud,” she said. She updated me on her hippy parents… “Dad is refusing to wear anything on his bottom half when gardening and the neighbours keep calling the police.”

I listened and laughed and sipped my latte, downplaying any question they fired at me about my life.

I didn't really have any shareable anecdotes. That's the thing about anxiety – it limits your experiences so the only stories you have to tell are the “
I went mad
” ones. I drank all my coffee as they giggled and shared and I wondered what they'd do if I leaned over and said:

“The funniest thing happened when I was fourteen. I, like, completely stopped eating because I thought all food was contaminated and would make me sick. Hilarious, huh? I dropped, like, two stone initially. Great diet, I know! And then, there was this one time, when my mum tried to force-feed me. She held me down and globbed mashed potato around my face, crying, and screaming, ‘JUST BLOODY EAT, EVIE.' But I wouldn't. And then I collapsed and they took me to hospital and misdiagnosed me with anorexia. So funny, right? And then I was super thin and still wouldn't eat so they, like, SECTIONED ME. And it took them, like, WEEKS to finally diagnose me with OCD and Generalised Anxiety Disorder. So, anyway, have you guys ever been sectioned?”

I couldn't really tell them that, could I?

Especially as I liked them so very much already. And telling them was a certain way of wrecking the friendship.

Don't argue. I'm right about that. Trust me. I mean, look at Jane. She'd run the first chance she got.

They allowed me five minutes of Ethan analysis as we walked back to our respective houses.

“It's simple,” said Lottie. “Just look him straight in the eye and say, ‘You are nothing to me.'”

“Erm. Isn't that a tad dramatic?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. But imagine how much it would hurt if someone looked you in the eye and said that?”

BAD THOUGHT

Someone might look me straight in the eye and say, “You are nothing to me.”

“That, my friend, is a fair point.”

I had sociology and my Ethan-altercation first thing. I was supposed to be walking in with Jane, but she cancelled again. To go in with Joel. Again. She didn't even ask how my date went.

Both Amber and Lottie – however – messaged on my way in.

You go girl. Remember he is NOTHING to you. – Amber

Good luck today! Let's celebrate with an all-day breakfast afterwards. They do one in town for only three quid. You have second period free, right? – Lottie

Ethan was already sitting in the classroom. In his usual spot, watching for me to arrive. He looked sheepish. I smoothed down my T-shirt.

You are nothing to me.

His eyes followed me as I wobbled to my chair and concentrated on getting my book out of my bag. We were both early and the only two students there.

“Evie,” he said, all urgent and pleading.

You are nothing to me. You are nothing to me.

I gave him my best ever glare. “I am nothing to me.”

Darn it!

“Huh?”

“I mean, you are nothing to me,” I corrected myself.

“That's not what you just said.”

“Yes it is. Shut up.”

“Have you been practising that killer line all morning and now delivered it wrong?”

I felt my face burn. Ethan's eyes were almost dancing with the hilarity. Git.

“No. Why would I waste brain tissue thinking about you?”

His look softened and he leaned over and clasped my hand. I looked at it. “Evie. I'm so sorry about Saturday night.”

I pulled my hand away. “Which bit? Getting completely bladdered, sexually assaulting me and blaming it on a rare neurological condition? Or, I don't know, GETTING OFF WITH SOMEONE ELSE ON OUR FIRST DATE?”

A girl walked into the classroom, midway through my yelling. She heard what I said and glared at Ethan. Solidarity. That's what girls need more of. Solidarity.

“All of it. I'm sorry for all of it. But mostly I'm sorry I've messed things up with you.”

“Or just sorry that you've been caught?”

“I really like you, Evie…”

I dared myself to look at him again. His hair fell into his eyes. His dimples lay dormant but you knew they were there…

“Yeah, well, your penis seemed to really like someone else on Saturday.”

“My penis likes you too.”

He was smiling. Like it was all a big hilarious joke.

I took a deep breath. “Please just leave me alone.”

More students trickled in, buzzing with their own conversations, emptying the contents of their bags onto desks. Class started in five minutes.

“Won't you at least hear what I've got to say?” he begged.

Although it wasn't protocol, I figured I may as well hear him out. Besides, I was curious… “Go on then…”

“I'm being serious now…Evie…” He took my hand again and I reluctantly let it stay there for a bit. “I'm actually worried about myself. I think I'm a…a…sex addict.”

I laughed so hard actual spittle flew onto our entwined hands.

“Seriously,” he protested, not noticing the spit. “Why are you laughing? It's not funny. It's a very serious condition.”

I tried to calm myself. “Well, technically, it's not been confirmed as an actual medical condition (
the things you learn from fellow patients
), but I'll go with you for a second…why do you think you're a sex addict?” I giggled on the last two words, but Ethan looked positively devastated.

“I'm telling you, I'm really scared of myself, Evie. I, like, literally can't stop thinking about sex. I think about it all the time…” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I like you…I really do…but I get the impression you're not…you know…easy…and then this girl, Anna, was all over me when you went off, and I thought…I need to get my fix…”

I very deliberately removed my hand and wiped the back of it on my jeans. “Ethan. You're not a sex addict. You're just a sixteen-year-old boy.”

“No, I have a problem! I watch porn all the time.”

“Which is disgusting and probably not very good for you, but, again, unfortunately for society as a whole, totally normal.”

“Will you forgive me? I'll get help. For you, I'll get help.”

I'd always been so mad at myself for missing out on dating, so keen to catch up. I'd always mourned the years lost where I was supposed to be getting touched up at parties, and getting songs dedicated to me by spotty boys at the ice-skating disco, and kissing other mouths and enjoying how they felt rather than mentally calculating how many billions of bacteria must be on their tongues… Anyway…I'd really felt I'd missed out on boys. Now…now I was beginning to wonder what the fuss was about.

“Ethan, you don't need professional help. You just need a wank, and what you really need is to leave me alone, for ever.”

“Evie, please?”

“Just leave me alone.”

Amber cut a piece of sausage and examined it glistening on her fork. “Coming out for breakfast is possibly the best idea you've ever had, Lottie,” she said. Then she ate it.

“I told you it was amazing,” Lottie replied, poking shiny scrambled egg onto a spoon. “May this become our new Monday ritual.”

“I still can't believe he told me he was a sex addict,” I said.

“Shh,” Lottie said. “Not in front of the eggs.”

They'd taken me into town in our joint free period, promising fried food was the answer. We were in a grotty cafe, one that Lottie promised actually did amazing food. She was right, but eating a delicious breakfast with a plastic knife and fork ruined it a bit. Bacon had helped, to some extent, but I still felt this burning desire to discuss and analyse every molecule of what had gone down with Ethan. Preferably on a loop. Over and over.

“I hate him,” I continued, showing no respect for the eggs. “I hate him and yet I still feel this burning desire to discuss and analyse every molecule of what's happened. Preferably on a loop. Over and over.”

“Welcome to the world of boys,” Amber said, puncturing another sausage.

Lottie put on a sugary voice. “I hate you, and yet I want you to like me, and I want to know everything about your brain.”

I smiled weakly, took a bite of toast and pushed my plate back. “I hate myself. One date and look what's happened to me.”

Lottie pushed the plate back towards me.

“Which is why you must have restorative meat and friends who won't let you talk it over on a loop.”

“He's an arsehole though, right?”

“We've already agreed that he is.”

“And, he's not really a sex addict, is he?”

“Evie!”

“Okay, okay.”

My appetite for discussing Ethan was still vastly undented, but Lottie had just used the word “friends” and it made my stomach goo more than Ethan's smile ever had.

“Let's change the subject. How's the smoking going?” I asked Amber.

She shook her head and swallowed. “It's not. I gave the rest of the cigarettes to my stepbrother.”

“AMBER,” we both yelled.

She didn't even try to look guilty. “What? He's the Antichrist. I'm doing the world a favour.”

“How old is he anyway?”

She blew a wisp of reddish hair out of her face. “I dunno. Ten, maybe younger?”

“AMBER!”

“He'll be fine.” She batted our protests away with her fingers. “I don't want to talk about him. So, you two… How did you become friends?”

Lottie and I looked at each other. “We went to the same primary school,” I said.

“Yeah.” Lottie smiled at the memory. “We had to do extra lessons after school together because we weren't challenged enough in the classroom.”

Amber pointed an accusing finger at me. “Wait, you didn't tell me you're a genius too, like Lottie here.”

“I…”

I had been. Clever, I suppose. Once. Now I had barely any qualifications to my name, and I'd ruled out almost all A level subjects based on their potential to trigger a relapse.