Loveless

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2020

Published in this ebook edition in 2020

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,

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Text copyright © Alice Oseman 2020

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

Alice Oseman asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Source ISBN: 9780008244125

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008244132

Version: 2020-06-26

If it proves so, then loving goes by haps:

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Part One

Last Chance

Romance

Pip, Jason and Me

Truth or Dare

Tommy

Kissing

On Fire

Loveless

Part Two

Change

Rooney

A New Friendship

Romantic Thinking

Sex

College Marriage

Baby’s First Club

High Standards

Pride

Putting Yourself Out There

Shakespeare and House Plants

Chaotic Energy

Forever Alone

Immature

We Sure Do Love Drama

Dating Skills

Straight Out of a Romance Novel

The Spark

A Short but Compelling Presentation by Rooney Bach

Palm to Palm

Elephant in the Room

The Letter ‘X’

Mr Self-Confidence

Sunil

Could have Gone Harder with the Pride Flags

Pip

Mirage

Part Three

I Love None

Wank Fantasy

Countdown Timer Music

Brainwashed

Fantasy Future

Mirror World

But if She Cannot Love You

Two Roommates

The Bailey Ball

Capulet vs Montague

Defeated

Paper Flowers

Survivor

Part Four

Very Opposite People

Aromantic Asexual

True Love

Home

Ellis

Platonic Magic

Memories

Love Ruins Everything

You Deserve Joy

Jason

Sorry

Beth

Emergency Meeting

The Night Before

Your Song

The Opposite of Curious

Mess

We Kept the Beds Together

Horny and Confused

I Will Find Her

Grand Gesture

Part Five

It’s Been Fun

Good Night

The House

Further Resources on Asexuality and Aromanticism

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

Books by Alice Oseman

About the Publisher

There were literally three separate couples sitting around the fire making out, like some sort of organised kissing orgy, and half of me was like, ew, and the other half was like, Wow, I sure do wish that was me.

To be fair, it’s probably what I should have expected from our prom afterparty. I don’t go to parties very often. I hadn’t been aware this actually was the culture.

I retreated from the firepit and headed back towards Hattie Jorgensen’s giant country house, holding up my prom dress in one hand so I didn’t trip, and dropped Pip a message.

Georgia Warr

i could not approach the fire and retrieve the marshmallows because there were people kissing around it

Felipa Quintana

How could you betray and disappoint me like this Georgia

Georgia Warr

do you still love me or is this the end

When I entered the kitchen and located Pip, she was leaning against a corner cupboard with a plastic cup full of wine in one hand and her phone in the other. Her tie was half tucked into her shirt pocket, her burgundy velvet blazer was now unbuttoned and her short curls were fluffy and loose, no doubt due to all the dancing at prom.

‘You OK?’ I asked.

‘Might be a tad drunk,’ she said, her tortoiseshell glasses slipping down her nose. ‘And also I do fucking love you.’

‘More than marshmallows?’

‘How could you ask me to make such a choice?’

I slung my arm round her shoulders and we leant back together against the kitchen cupboards. It was almost midnight, music was thumping from Hattie’s living room, and the sound of our classmates chatting and laughing and shouting and screaming resonated from every corner of the building.

‘There were three separate couples making out around the fire,’ I said. ‘Like, in unison.’

‘Kinky,’ said Pip.

‘I sort of wished I was one of them.’

She gave me a look. ‘Ew.’

‘I just want to kiss someone,’ I said, which was odd, because I wasn’t even drunk. I was driving Pip and Jason home later.

‘We can make out if you want.’

‘That wasn’t what I had in mind.’

‘Well, Jason’s been single for a few months now. I’m sure he’d be up for it.’

‘Shut up. I’m serious.’

I was serious. I really, really wanted to kiss someone. I wanted to feel a little bit of prom-night magic.

‘Tommy, then,’ said Pip, raising an eyebrow and smiling evilly. ‘Maybe it’s time to confess.’

I’d only ever had a crush on one person. His name was Tommy. He was the ‘hot boy’ of our school year – the one who could actually have been a model if he’d wanted. He was tall and skinny and conventionally attractive in a Timothée Chalamet sort of way, though I didn’t really understand why everyone was in love with Timothée Chalamet. I had a theory that a lot of people’s ‘celebrity crushes’ were faked just to fit in.

Tommy had been my crush ever since I was in Year 7 and a girl had asked me, ‘Who d’you think is the hottest boy at Truham?’ She’d shown me a photo on her phone of a group of the most popular Year 7 boys at the boys’ grammar over the road, and there was Tommy right in the middle. I could tell he was the most attractive one – I mean, he had hair like a boy-band star and was dressed pretty fashionably – so I’d pointed and said him. And I guess that was that.

Almost seven years later, I’d never actually talked to Tommy. I’d never even really wanted to, probably because I was shy. He was more of an abstract concept – he was hot, and he was my crush, and nothing was going to happen between us, and I was perfectly fine with that.

I snorted at Pip. ‘Obviously not Tommy.’

‘Why not? You like him.’

The thought of actually following through on the crush made me feel extremely nervous.

I just shrugged at Pip, and she dropped the discussion.

Pip and I started to walk out of the kitchen, arms still slung round each other, and into the hallway of Hattie Jorgensen’s fancy country home. People were slumped on the floor in the corridor in their prom dresses and tuxes, cups and food scattered around. Two people were kissing on the stairs, and I looked at them for a moment, unsure whether it was disgusting or whether it was the most romantic thing I’d ever seen in my life. Probably the former.

‘You know what I want?’ Pip said, as we stumbled into Hattie’s conservatory and collapsed on to a sofa.

‘What?’ I said.

‘I want someone to spontaneously perform a song to declare their love for me.’

‘What song?’

She gave this some thought.

‘“Your Song” from Moulin Rouge.’ She sighed. ‘God, I am sad, gay and alone.’

‘Solid song choice, but not as attainable as a kiss.’

Pip rolled her eyes. ‘If you want to kiss someone that much, just go talk to Tommy. You’ve liked him for seven years. This is your last chance before we go to uni.’

She might have had a point.

If it was going to be anyone, it was going to be Tommy. But the idea filled me with dread.

I folded my arms. ‘Maybe I could kiss a stranger instead.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘I’m serious.’

‘No you’re not. You’re not like that.’

‘You don’t know what I’m like.’

‘Yes I do,’ said Pip. ‘I know you more than anyone.’

She was right. About knowing me and about me not being like that and about tonight being my last chance to confess the crush I’d had for seven years, and the last chance to kiss someone while I was still a schoolkid, while I had a chance to feel the teenage-dream excitement and youthful magic that everyone else seemed to have had a little taste of.

It was my last chance to feel that.

So maybe I would have to bite the bullet and kiss Tommy after all.

I loved romance. Always had. I loved Disney (especially the under-appreciated masterpiece that is The Princess and the Frog). I loved fanfiction (even fanfics for characters I knew nothing about, but Draco/Harry or Korra/Asami were my comfort reads). I loved thinking about what my own wedding would be like (a barn wedding, with autumn leaves and berries, fairy lights and candles, my dress – lacy and vintage-looking, my soon-to-be-spouse crying, my family crying, me crying because I’m so, so happy, just, so happy that I have found the one).

I just. Loved. Love.

I knew it was soppy. But I wasn’t a cynic. I was a dreamer, maybe, who liked to yearn and believed in the magic of love. Like the main guy from Moulin Rouge, who runs away to Paris to write stories about truth, freedom, beauty and love, even though he should probably be thinking about getting a job so he can actually afford to buy food. Yeah. Definitely me.

I probably got this from my family. The Warrs believed in forever love – my parents were just as in love now as they were back in 1991 when my mum was a ballet teacher and my dad was in a band. I’m not even joking. They were literally the plot of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Sk8er Boi’ but with a happy ending.

Both sets of my grandparents were still together. My brother married his girlfriend when he was twenty-two. None of my close relatives had been divorced. Even most of my older cousins had at least partners, if not whole families of their own.

I hadn’t ever been in a relationship.

I hadn’t even kissed anyone.

Jason kissed Karishma from my history class on his Duke of Edinburgh expedition and dated a horrible girl called Aimee for a few months until he realised she was a knob. Pip kissed Millie from the Academy at a house party and also Nicola from our youth theatre group at the dress rehearsal for Dracula. Most people had a story like that – a silly kiss with someone they sort of had a crush on, or didn’t really, and it didn’t necessarily go anywhere, but that was a part of being a teenager.

Most people aged eighteen have kissed someone. Most people aged eighteen have had at least one crush, even if it’s on a celebrity. At least half of everyone I knew had actually had sex, although some of those people were probably lying, or they were just referring to a really terrible hand job or touching a boob.

But it didn’t bother me, because I knew my time would come. It did for everyone. You’ll find someone eventually – that was what everyone said, and they were right. Teen romances only worked out in movies anyway.

All I had to do was wait, and my big love story would come. I would find the one. We would fall in love. And I’d get my happily ever after.

‘Georgia has to kiss Tommy,’ Pip said to Jason as we slumped down next to him on a sofa in Hattie’s living room.

Jason, who was in the middle of a game of Scrabble on his phone, frowned at me. ‘Can I ask why?’

‘Because it’s been seven years and I think it’s time,’ said Pip. ‘Thoughts?’

Jason Farley-Shaw was our best friend. We were kind of a trio. Pip and I went to the same all-girls grammar school and met Jason through the annual school plays, where they’d always get a few of the boys from the boys’ grammar school to join in, then after a couple of years he joined our school, which was mixed in the sixth form, and joined our youth theatre group too.

No matter what production we put on, whether it was a musical or a play, Jason usually played essentially the same role: a stern older man. This was mostly because he was tall and broad, but also because, at first glance, he did give off a bit of a strict dad vibe. He’d been Javert in Les Mis, Prospero in The Tempest and the angry father, George Banks, in Mary Poppins.

Despite this, Pip and I had quickly learnt that underneath his stern exterior, Jason was a very gentle, chilled-out dude who seemed to enjoy our company more than anyone else’s. With Pip being a harbinger of chaos and my tendency to feel worried and awkward about pretty much everything, Jason’s calmness balanced us out perfectly.

‘Uh,’ Jason said, glancing at me. ‘Well … it doesn’t really matter what I think about it.’

‘I don’t know if I want to kiss Tommy,’ I said.

Jason looked satisfied and turned back to Pip. ‘There you go. Case closed. You have to be sure about these things.’

‘No! Come on!’ Pip squawked and turned to face me. ‘Georgia. I know you’re shy. But it’s totally normal to be nervous about crushes. This is literally the final chance you have to confess your feelings, and even if he rejects you, it doesn’t matter, because he’s going to uni on the other side of the country.’

I could have pointed out that this meant a relationship would be pretty difficult should he respond positively, but I didn’t.

‘Remember how nervous I was telling Alicia I liked her?’ Pip continued. ‘And then she was like sorry, I’m straight, and I cried for like two months, but look at me now! I’m thriving!’ She kicked one leg into the air to make her point. ‘This is a no-consequence scenario.’

Jason was looking at me through all of this, like he was trying to suss out how I felt.

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘I just … don’t know. I guess I do like him.’

A flash of sadness crossed Jason’s features, but then it was gone.

‘Well,’ he said, looking down at his lap, ‘I guess you should just do what you want.’

‘I guess I do want to kiss him,’ I said.

I looked around the room and, sure enough, Tommy was there, standing in a small group of people near the doorway. He was just far enough away that I couldn’t quite focus on the details of his face – he was just the concept of a person, a blob, a generic attractive guy. My seven-year crush. Seeing him so far away and blurry took me right back to being in Year 7, pointing at a photo of a boy I thought was probably attractive.

And that made up my mind. I could do this.

I could kiss Tommy.

I’d had times when I’d wondered whether I’d end up with Jason. I’d had times when I’d wondered whether I’d end up with Pip too. If our lives were in a movie, at least two of us would have got together.

But I’d never felt any romantic feelings for either of them, as far as I could tell.

Pip and I had been friends for almost seven years. From day one of Year 7, when we’d been sat together in our form-room seating plan and forced to tell each other three interesting facts about ourselves. We learnt we both wanted to be actors and that was it. Friends.

Pip was always more sociable, funnier, and generally more interesting than me. I was the listener, the supportive one when she’d had her am-I-gay crisis at the age of fourteen, and then her I-don’t-know-whether-to-do-acting-or-science crisis last year, and then her I-really-want-to-cut-my-hair-short-but-I’m-scared crisis several months ago.

Jason and I had met each other later, but we bonded faster than I’d ever thought possible, given my poor track record for forming friendships. He was the first person I met who I could sit quietly with and it wouldn’t feel awkward. I didn’t feel like I had to try to be funny and entertaining with him; I could just be me, and he wouldn’t dislike me because of it.

We’d all had what felt like a thousand sleepovers with each other. I knew exactly where the broken springs were in Pip’s bed. I knew that Jason’s favourite glass in my cupboard was a faded Donald Duck one I got at Disneyland when I was twelve. Moulin Rouge was the movie we always watched when we hung out – we all knew it word for word.

There were never any romantic feelings between Pip, Jason and me. But what we did have – a friendship of many years – was just as strong as that, I think. Stronger, maybe, than a lot of couples I knew.

In order to get me physically closer to Tommy, Pip forced us to join a group game of truth or dare, which both Jason and I protested against, but Pip obviously won.

‘Truth,’ I said when it was my turn to suffer. Hattie, who was leading the game, grinned evilly and selected a card from the ‘truth’ pack. There must have been about twelve of us, all sitting on the living-room carpet. Pip and Jason were sitting on either side of me. Tommy was opposite. I didn’t really want to look at him.

Pip handed me a crisp from the bowl for support. I gratefully accepted it and stuffed it in my mouth.

‘What’s the worst romantic or sexual experience you’ve had with a guy?’

A couple of people chorused ‘Oooh’, one guy whistled, and one girl just laughed, one short burst of ‘ha’ that I found more embarrassing than anything else.

Thankfully, I wouldn’t see most of the people at this party ever again in my life. Maybe on Instagram, but I muted most people’s Instagram stories and I already had a mental list of all the people I was going to unfollow after A-level results day. There were a few people at school that me, Pip and Jason got along with. People we’d sit with at lunch. A little gang of theatre kids we’d hang out with in school play season. But I knew already that we would all go to uni and forget about each other.

Pip, Jason and I would not forget about each other, though, because we were all going to Durham University in October, as long as we got the grades for it. This actually hadn’t been planned – we were a trio of high-achieving nerds, but Jason had failed to get into Oxford, Pip had failed to get into King’s College London, and I was the only one for whom Durham was actually my first choice.

I thanked the universe every day that it’d worked out like that. I needed Pip and Jason. They were my lifeline.

‘That’s too far,’ Jason immediately interjected. ‘Come on. That’s way too personal.’

There were cries of outrage from the rest of our peers. People didn’t give a shit about it being personal.

‘You must have something,’ drawled Hattie in her super-posh accent. ‘Like everyone’s had a terrible kiss or something by now.’

I was very uncomfortable about being the centre of attention, so I thought it’d be better to just get this over with.

‘I’ve never kissed anyone,’ I announced.

When I said it, I didn’t think I was saying anything particularly odd. Like, this wasn’t a teen movie. Virgin-shaming wasn’t really a thing. Everyone knew that people did these things when they were ready, right?

But then the reactions began.

There were audible gasps. A pitying ‘aww’. Some of the guys started laughing and one of them coughed the word ‘virgin’.

Hattie brought her hand to her mouth and said, horrified, ‘Oh my God, seriously?’

My face started to burn. I wasn’t weird. There were lots of eighteen-year-olds who hadn’t kissed anyone yet.

I glanced at Tommy, and even he was looking at me with sympathy, like I was a little kid – like I was a child who didn’t understand anything.

‘It’s not that unusual,’ I said.

Hattie pressed her hand to her heart and stuck out her bottom lip. ‘You’re so pure.’

A guy leant over and said, ‘You’re, like, eighteen, right?’

I nodded at him, and he said, ‘Oh my God,’ like I was disgusting or something.

Was I disgusting? Was I ugly and shy and disgusting and that was why I hadn’t kissed anyone yet?

My eyes were starting to water.

‘All right,’ Pip snapped. ‘You can all stop being dickheads right the fuck now.’

‘It is weird, though,’ said a guy I knew from my English class. He was addressing Pip. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s weird to have got to eighteen without having kissed anyone.’

‘That’s rich coming from a guy who admitted to having a wank over the princesses in Shrek 3.’

There were cackles of glee from the group, momentarily distracted from laughing at me. While Pip continued to berate our classmates, Jason very subtly took hold of my hand and pulled me up and out of the room.

Once we were in the corridor, I was about to cry so I said I needed to pee and went upstairs to find the loo. When I reached the bathroom, I examined my reflection, rubbing under my eyes so my mascara didn’t smudge. I swallowed the tears down. I wasn’t going to cry. I did not cry in front of anybody.

I hadn’t realised.

I hadn’t realised how behind I was. I’d spent so much time thinking that my one true love would just show up one day. I had been wrong. I had been so, so wrong. Everyone else was growing up, kissing, having sex, falling in love, and I was just …