Page 97 of When We Were Young

The sun is long gone and there’s a chill in the air. Our friends are not where we left them at the falafel stall and neither of us have phone signal, so we head back to camp.

‘I wish I’d paid more attention to what our tents looked like now,’ says Nathan.

‘The people next to us had a big Italian flag.’

It takes half an hour to find the flag using the torches on our phones. Two strange tents have been squeezed into thespace we left in the middle of our circle, but there’s nobody around.

‘Do you want to wait in our tent?’ asks Nathan. ‘Charlie’s got beer.’

‘Okay.’ I’d prefer water, but beer would have to do.

We take off our boots and crawl into his tent. A lamp dangling from the top of the dome lights up the mess as he switches it on.

‘Sorry, Charlie’s a slob.’ Nathan sweeps aside a pile of clothes, straightens his sleeping bag, and gestures for me to sit. He pulls two cans of beer from a rucksack and hands me one.

‘That was epic,’ I say, cracking the pull and guzzling down warm beer. It does nothing to quench my thirst – if anything, it makes me thirstier. He puts his can into a nearby trainer to keep it upright, so I do the same.

There’s an awkward silence. I go to say something, but suddenly his mouth is on mine. I was hoping he’d kiss me, but I wasn’t expecting it right at that moment, so it takes a minute to recover. He’s not pushing me exactly, but definitely encouraging me to get horizontal. I lie back and he’s on top of me, his hands working their way under my top and over my bra. Rowdy voices belt out the chorus of the last Moon Illusion song. Stones dig in my back. Fabric rustles as people bush past the tent.

Suddenly I don’t want to be here.

I thought I was ready.

I’m not.

What’s wrong with me? I like Nathan. I want to lose my virginity, to get it over with, but it doesn’t feel right with only a thin piece of fabric separating us from the outside world.

Without warning, the dome of the tent caves in.

Nathan’s body weighs even heavier on me. Outside, people laugh. Someone shouts, ‘Sorry!’

I can’t breathe. The dome pings back into shape and I push Nathan off.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, you?’

‘Just about. Idiots.’ He rubs his shoulder, then moves to pick up where we left off.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t…’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s weird with all these people around…’

‘They’ve gone now.’

‘Charlie could come in…’

‘I can put the padlock on the zip.’

‘It’s his tent!’

‘He won’t mind.’

My cheeks burn at the thought of them arranging this. Was he confident I’d end up in his tent or that someone would? I hear our friends’ voices outside. I grab my can of beer and clamber out.

They’re all completely wasted. They take turns recounting jokes they heard in the comedy tent and they’re all falling about laughing, but you really had to be there. We sit outside drinking and chatting until it gets too chilly, and we go into our tents. I try to catch Nathan’s eye as we all say goodnight, but he doesn’t even look my way.