‘Is this something the other girls said?’ I sigh. ‘Look, between us, I think some of them are… protesting a little too much, you know? Trying to convince themselves.’Or the audience, I add silently. ‘Not everyone moves at the same pace, after all,’ I insist.
‘It’s not just them,’ she sobs quietly, and I realise that she’s really crying. ‘There’s all these stories about sparks, the overwhelming feeling of it. I’m used to being overwhelmed by feelings but…’
Ah. I see we’re talking about something much bigger than just Patrick here, potentially.
I move to sit beside her, offering the packet of tissues I keep by my bed. She takes one with a wet smile, and dabs at her eyes.
We’ve not been this close when we talked before. I mean, we have, but we weren’t sitting-on-the-same-bed close. It feels intimate. I can smell the sweet-sherbet perfume she douses all her clothes in.
Focus, Dolly. She’s talking about fancying her future husband. Stop thinking about how she smells.
The crumpled tissue lands in her lap. I don’t want the snot to ruin her prettyMad Mendress, so I pick it up with my nails and replace it with David. I feel like he should be here for emotional support.
The weight of Carys’s head on the top of his squishes his face down to look very strange, and I have to stifle a laugh. Carys peers down at her capybara. ‘Oh sorry, David.’ With a couple of quick squishes, his face is pretty much back to normal.
‘But when you met Patrick today, you liked the look of him?’ I ask, trying to get us back on track. ‘And that guy you dated for ages.’
‘Mike. His name was Mike.’
‘Did you ever get the sparks with him?’
‘I think I loved him, in some ways?’
Okay, that feels like a question dodged, or perhaps she’s still answering questions I’ve already asked. God, I’m really out of my depth here.
‘To be fair, you were a teenager. I don’t think it’s weird to not be deeply in love with him when chances are you were just the first two people who mutually fancied each other.’ I’m of the age now where friends, or, well, mutuals I suppose now, are divorcing the men they married right out of secondary school.
‘I don’t remember sparks, though,’ she says finally, as a fat teardrop lands on David’s ear. ‘Does that make me a shallow person? We had sex and I didn’t… maybe I didn’t… I mean I wanted to. I liked doing it. But does that make me shallow?’
I feel like there’s like five layers to this conversation I’m missing and yet somehow we are talking about Carys’s teenage sexual exploits. ‘Speaking from experience, and not to slut shame myself,’ I begin, and I get a little thrill when she laughs. ‘But let me just say that love is not always an essential component for orgasms. For some people it is.’
I can’t quite tell if that’s what she’s getting at, hinting at some kind of asexual or demisexual identity? I dangle the idea anyway, just in case. It would be a lot of pressure to be here if she was. ‘Do you think perhaps you need that connection to feel attraction to someone?’ I say carefully.
Really, I’m not sure if it’s my place to float this aro/ace spectrum to her. But given the situation, examining how she feels about romance and sex might need to come sooner rather than later. I’drather risk a little clumsiness than miss it, if it’s the answer. I know straight women aren’t often given the encouragement or space to think about what attractionreallymeans for them.
After considering it for a while, she says, ‘That’s not really the issue, I don’t think.’
‘Then maybe you just weren’t that into him or in romantic love with him, in the end,’ I offer gently. ‘Like I said, that’s not uncommon.’
‘That makes me sad, though. He deserved better than that.’
The size of her heart genuinely baffles me sometimes. ‘How did it end?’
‘He broke up with me when I was at uni so he could follow his dreams.’
‘Which were?’
She sniffs loudly. ‘Being in a One Direction tribute band.’
Dear God! I pretend to cough to cover my laugh, and reach for my huge bottle of water with my name on it to chug it down. I drank too much show wine on my date today to handle this delicately and I need to sober up stat.
Carys bursts loudly into wails, hopefully not because of me laughing. The racket such a small person can generate is kind of incredible.
‘Well. That’s… unique. Have to admit I wasn’t expecting that,’ I say stiffly.
‘He had a good voice,’ she concedes, hiccupping slightly.
‘Who did he play? Harry?’
