Page 7 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

At school we ignore it and get on with eating Wispas and toasties, fattening up for a feast of some sort. Great if we’re to be the main event of the feast, like the glazed pig in the centre, but boy, as the measurements on our skirts go up – we are somehow STILL hungry. Starving for that sweet treat that just can’t be found in a secondary school tuck shop.

LOVE.

But no new boys will ever find us here behind the bolted gates, so we are entirely reliant upon chance, fate and luck until eventually our prayers are heard. A few weeks into the school year, Mia abruptly leaves our form to go to a mixed school closer to her new house. We take turns to warmly hug her goodbye whilst hiding the fresh livid bitterness of seething jealousy, reminding her of our closeness so she remembers to bring us forth into her new life of being at school, every day, with boys.

Given the circumstances, I suppose I can, just this once, forgive and forget the rumours she spread about me. ‘I’ll miss you so much,’ I bleat like the others.

Mia is awaiting a transformation. From kiwi-eating, fluffy-pen-carrying, Trolls are my best thing, rumour-spreading, shit-stirring Mia, to a New Girl.

And down she she’ll go like blood in the ocean to a classroom full of sharks … and jellyfish her newness everywhere and see what they make of her.

Mia has a chance to start again. An opportunity, just like Maximilien, to be hot.

I mean, spicy.

Chapter 4

Understandably, Mia wants to introduce us girls slowly, like Bisto gravy, bit by bit, so as to not overwhelm her mix by having unwanted clumps. Mia wants us to blend. Smooth. And I am, luckily, in the first batch. As it’s half term we have to be prepared for drop-of-a-hat-parties where parents are at work so you have to be ready to be drunk by 11 a.m. just as your Shreddies are digesting.

None of the popular girls are invited. BOO HOO. SOZ. Good, I think initially, thank God. Closely followed by: what if there isn’t enough incentive to make The Boys stick around? One or two hot friends within the pack is enough to trick the untrained eye into thinking we are an entire unit of Spicy Girls.

And then: you know what? FUCK THOSE GIRLS. They were never nice to Mia at school so why should they get in on the reward? As though The Boys are an inheritance left behind for us to fight over.

And I am glad because us lot are pretty and confident in our own way too, and The Boys will have the space to truffle out our hidden natural beauty without the distraction of the hot girls from school and the way they get away with train track braces and wear their hair in un-messy messy top buns, the way they somehow came out of a five-star womb with a manual on how to overshadow us.

So, rather than make myself hotter, I double down on my insecurities because THAT MAKES SENSE and opt for wearing my little sister Violet’s hoodie, which on me fits tight, flattening my boobs and coming up short on the forearms. I use the puffy bulging front pocket to bundle my stubby hands inside like a Victorian muff so that I can anxiously pick away at my fingers to my heart’s content without being disturbed or judged. I know it’s not a good look because when I see my younger sister, Violet, on the stairs before leaving, she just looks me up and down and says, ‘OK.’ I wear, always, the same pair of washed-out light-blue denim baggy jeans where the bottoms are matted and drenched up to the knees in dried puddle water and city scum. You’d think my friends and I were employed by the council, responsible for mopping the gutters of South London with our strides alone. In case we don’t sound boyfriend-trappable enough, the jeans are also an extra size too big, making me look like I come with a parachute attached, and I always insist on jamming a thousand things into my pockets like one key with 4,000 keyrings, Tamagotchis, squeezy gel pigs, little notebooks, lip balm and, of course, don’t forget, my collection of rape alarms, which for some reason I’m too afraid to test in case they don’t work and then I’ll have anxiety that my rape alarms don’t work all the time which defeats the object of having a rape alarm at all.

It is a chosen few: Aoife, Bianca – our greatest asset in breaking the ice – The Twins, Ronke, Shreya, Zeniyah, Holly, Georgie and me.

‘Well, get on with it then – press it,’ we bicker by the doorbell, batting each other’s hands away, giggling and snorting.

‘Jesus,’ Aoife mutters. She puts her finger out on the bell and presses …

Ding-Dong.

AHHHHHH!

Aoife quickly takes off her glasses and shoves them into her pocket.

‘Is that a good idea? Can you even see?’ I ask.

‘Blind as a bat,’ she whispers. ‘Link my arm, Elbow.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sa—’

Mia opens the door how one would when they have something of particular intrigue hidden inside their house, like a litter of new sleeping puppies. Shhh! She quietens our excitement but gives us a wink to keep the buzz alive. We are like the frothing neighbours in Edward Scissorhands with the bowls of purple coleslaw. Mia’s wearing eyeliner, her eyes – quite rudely – say, don’t mention the eyeliner – as if we would do her like that – I mean it. We respect almighty Mia, for right now, if there is a queen, it is her. We obey, speaking softly, kicking off our try-hard skater shoes that have not once touched the grip paper of a skateboard in their lives.

Already we can’t help but feel disappointed. We had hoped to see size 8 and 9 – maybe EVEN 10 – skate shoes here, boys’ shoes, the scent and heat beating off them, battered, stickered, skateboards mindlessly leaning up against the wall … proof The Boys are real. That they exist.

Where is Mia hiding them?

This better not be a sick joke, Mia.

We’ve come all the way to Wandsworth for this, Mia. Bunked a train for this, Mia. Risked a fine for this, Mia. It was NOT a normal walking distance, Mia; it better not be for nothing.

It’s the middle of the day. The house is cold, empty. Full of dark wood and rugs. Astrology and philosophy books and a smell like boiled vegetables. I notice a telescope. Grown-up marbles. It’s quite clear Mia hasn’t told her parents she was having people over as she’s shoving us outside in October.

Mia, with all the power, sashays us into her back garden. And there they are – The Boys. Shoes on their feet.

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