on a high. I had truly never been happier.
Lucy and I hung out at school after that, but it wasn’t easy at first, because no one in the group she sat with was particularly warm to me. Lucy had a lot of friends—or, at least, girls who were friend-adjacent—and she was involved in seemingly endless clubs and committees. I was the opposite. My camp confidence disappeared pretty quickly once I was back.
Zach went to a school near ours, and the three of us began to hang out on weekends and message each other daily. We had game nights and movie nights. We lent each other books. We started our own little three-person TV club. We shared the creative stuff we were doing: fan fiction, short stories, poems, plays. We planned a screenplay we wanted to write together. We contemplated starting our own YouTube channel. We had running jokes. It was what I’d always dreamed having friends would be. My parents were overjoyed.
But I still didn’t go to parties or join any groups. I didn’t magically become cool or popular or less self-conscious. Some days I still hid in the library when I didn’t have the energy to negotiate lunchtime with Lucy’s friends. She would come and find me in the library though, and our status as best friends soon became a known thing among other people in our year level. Natalie and Lucy. Lucy and Natalie. Having a best friend was like having a protective armour, something I’d never experienced before, and something I desperately needed. Lucy navigated social situations for me, and in return I made her laugh and helped her deal with her mother. In Lucy and Zach, I’d found my group, and it was small, but it was enough, more than enough, to keep my head above water. They saved me.
So yes, I probably do owe them some good gossip from my first solo party experience.
‘Maybe you should text Owen,’ Lucy says to me now.
‘Why would she do that?’ Zach says.
‘To say thanks for the party invite.’
‘That’s terrible advice. Don’t do that. Nobody does that,’ Zach says.
‘It’s good manners, Zach,’ Lucy says. Her family is big on good manners.
‘Look, the thing is, Owen is really just not that interesting. I don’t want to text him,’ I say, before they can get any further into the discussion.
Lucy and Zach solemnly nod as if I have said the greatest truth they’ve ever heard.
‘And also, he winked at me,’ I add.
‘Yuck. Okay, don’t text him,’ Lucy says.
‘You are way too good for him,’ Zach says. I hate it when Zach gives me compliments like this. If I was so amazing, Zach would have chosen me over Lucy. Which is a terrible, awful, self-pityingly, pathetic, desperate, bad-friend thing to think, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Zach and Lucy chose each other, so they have to say things like ‘You are too good for him’ to me to hide the fact that no one chose me. Also, ‘You are too good for him’ usually means ‘You are the less-attractive person in this equation’.
At that moment, Alex appears on the deck.
‘Hi,’ he says.
I gulp and sit up a bit straighter because there’s no point in wearing the Boob Top if you’re going to slouch.
‘Hi. Hello,’ I say. I try to sound very casual but somehow instead sound very formal.
‘How are you?’ he says. Does he sound casual or like someone who is trying to sound casual? I can’t tell.
‘Good. How are you?’
‘Good.’
Zach is looking back and forth between us. Alex and I don’t usually exchange pleasantries.
‘So, did you have fun at the party?’ Zach asks Alex.
‘Yeah, it was all right,’ Alex says.
Oh, god. There are so many bad ways I can interpret that answer, and no good ones.
‘Anything interesting happen?’ Lucy asks.
Why is she asking that? Would she normally ask Alex such a question? It sounds like I’ve set her up to ask that. I am sweating.
‘We played spin the bottle,’ Alex says, grinning as he sits down in one of the deck chairs and props his feet on another.
‘What?’ Lucy and Zach both pretty much yell in unison.
Fuck.
Alex’s eyes flick to me very quickly and then away again. I hope, in that nanosecond, I have communicated the millions of pieces of information I wish to convey to him, including: why the hell did you bring that up; don’t tell them we got each other; don’t tell them we sort-of kissed; don’t tell them we didn’t actually kiss; don’t say