First post!! I've done my two reviews as due, promise x
Katy lost her virginity yesterday, the room is buzzing with it, yesterday, just after school. No she didn’t, someone says, Katy’s Catholic, she’s always talking about God and stuff and she wouldn’t do a thing like that, not Katy. And then another voice says yes, she did, with Lucas Green, behind the P.E hall yesterday evening, she got seen by Anna May in the year below. Someone laughs and comments on how small Lucas’ hands are, thumb to pinkie, and how he can’t have been much fun.
And I laugh and giggle along with it but I can’t help but think, there’s another one gone. Could it be me next? Should it be me next? Everyone’s doing it, it seems, everyone except me and a few others, well, a few others and some of my friends, and if everyone’s doing it does that mean I should too?
It seems to me there’s this point, right, this line, and when you’re behind this line all you hear is STD’s, teenage pregnancy, pain, abortion, you don’t want to have an abortion do you, no, you don’t, so don’t do it, not until you’re ready. But then once you’ve crossed the line, and I’ve crossed the line I think, suddenly the topic cartwheels over and all you see is the other side and it’s strange and exciting, like if you could see the other side of the moon. The moon we see has that surprised face on it, like he’s thinking, no, really, night already? But the other side is probably pouting, I think. And I still don’t know if I’m ready or what ready is or when and how you know you’re ready. I wish there was this traffic light in your head, right, and while you aren’t ready it stays red. Then when you are suddenly it goes amber and you know to hop off to the chemist's sharpish, and then it goes green and off you go, brave new world, new frontier.
But then which boy and how do I know if it’ll last and how do I know I won’t regret it after and how do you broach that sort of topic without seeming like that slag in 10Y with the orange face and white lips? Should it be spontaneous or should it be planned and should you be in love or it is better for it to be a fling? Just in, out and off you go again, the same as before, only you know now what the hell that nurse is on about when she says it feels special, feels good. I mean, come on, right, eating chocolate feels good but I don’t think I’d get all dressed up to go to the corner shop, it’s got to be better than that, right?
My friend leans over and whispers something about how Katy has already lost her virginity three times and someone should explain to her it’s not renewable, and I say ha, that’s funny, and how thick must she be. And my friend says, I know, right? Lucas Green is totally gross and the only guy getting near me with a condom has got to be Edward Cullen or someone of the sort. I say you do realise that Edward Cullen is a fictional character and that he’s a vampire anyway so you’d probably die and she just grins and says, yeah, but it’d be worth it, right, and I say no because I’d rather have Heathcliffe. He’s more passionate. My friend laughs and I can tell she doesn’t even have a clue who Heathcliffe is.
And then in French Lucas Green is sat two people across from me and he’s sniggering to his friend about what a slut Katy is and how she’d been all over him and how she wasn’t even that good but hey, it adds to the scoreboard, right? And his friend says, yeah, and has she found out about that girl from that other school you know the ginger one with the huge tits and Lucas laughs and says no, he’s not an idiot. And a flicker of disgust crosses my face and I quietly decide that whoever it turns out to be he’s not going to be Lucas Green and it’s not going to be Lucas Green’s friend.
And I suddenly remember that time when I’d left my P.E kit at home and I’d gone round the whole year asking for one to borrow and the only person who offered to lend me theirs was Katy. And I remembered Katy when she started school and had those long straggly pigtails and a huge backpack and a lord of the rings book stuck together with two rolls of selotape under her nose, and suddenly I feel sick. I put my hand up and say, please miss can I go to the toilet, and she’s a biology teacher so she says yes and out I go.
Someone is crying in the otherwise empty toilets and it’s Katy and she’s sitting on the window seat and looking out through the frosted glass, her breath clouding it up and her nose smudging the condensation. Her hair is a mess and she hasn’t got any makeup on. I say hey Katy are you alright and she obviously isn’t and she shakes her head. What’s up? I ask, and she just cries even harder. I don’t know her well but I know you’re supposed to comfort people so I go over to her and give her a hug. She grabs my arms and cries into my shoulder and I feel even sicker.
Everyone’s talking about it, she says, and people are whispering about me and it’s so immature and it didn’t mean anything and I hadn’t even wanted to, Lucas made me and it was horrid and I want to curl up and die. And I say, no you don’t, Katy. And she says she was drunk and she would said no and what if she’s pregnant and what will she do and I say well you can get a pill, right? And she sniffs and says she’s scared, and I said, don’t be, it was really unlucky but it happens all the time and what you need to do is you need to slap Lucas Green across the face and then you need to tell everyone what he did so that he doesn’t get near anyone else again. And she cries a bit more then she wipes her eyes with her hands and swings her legs round and smiles sadly at me, with red splodges over her naked face. And then she tells me that she’d done it before with this boy she met in Majorca and how she’d loved him and how it had been perfect. And then she said Lucas had a tiny dick and she’d have had more fun sitting on her finger. And I laugh and she laughs and we walk back to class.
And so I was thinking, back in French, I was thinking about what Katy said and how she'd loved that guy in Majorca and how it had been perfect, and I thought that's what I want, I want it to be like that. I don't want Lucas Green behind the P.E hall and I don't want some nameless stranger with beer breath and I don't want to just do it because everyone is, because maybe everyone else has fallen in love before me. Or maybe everyone else has made a huge mistake they regret.
I smiled a bit when I saw Katy smack Lucas Green around the head after school.
It's all around me, people doing it and people talking about it and people comparing it, and I still feel the pressures and I still listen to conversations which I can't join in with and I still feel a bit like I'm leaving it too late and I'm missing out. But I think the red light is still on in my head. At least for now anyway.
