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Thirty-Two
Magnolia
Boxing Day. Me and Taura are at the boys’ house. And by ‘boys’ house’ I mean the house with the boys I can go to.
There’s a multifaceted fracture in our friendship group, the first and most personally prevalent of these being Jordan Dames, but the second one, while harder to see on the surface, is rather foreboding also.
Taura’s sleeping with both Henry and Jonah.
They both like her.
She likes both of them.
They both know it.
They’re all functioning right now by pretending it’s just sex, that they’re all just having casual sex the way they have casual sex with other people, but this is different.
The fact is that the older I get the less sure I am that sex is ever just casual.
Henry’s had girlfriends in the past, but not in a while. And Jonah’s never had a girlfriend. He doesn’t really keep female company, maybe because of what happened to his sister.
Just me and Bianca Harrington — neither sexual — we’re the only girls he’s ever kept around. Now Taura is in the mix with the added sexual component.
I can see them all falling for each other, the boys’ eyes getting stormy whenever she pays attention to the other. That’s what tonight is though; she’s trying to treat them evenly.
Tomorrow Jonah’s organised for Tausie, me and Beej to go up for a private tour of some of the ruins up on the Isle of Anglesey with a Neolithic archaeologist. This is something Taura exclusively is excited for because she’s weird like that and that’s what she wanted to do for her birthday.
But Jonah arranged it just for the four of us. No Henry, no Christian.
It’s a recipe for disaster.
Henry and Taurs are sitting on a single seater sofa, cuddled up, as coupley as this hideous day is long.
I mean, like, legs tossed over each other, playing with each other’s hands, she’s wearing his socks, all that sort of awful tripe.
I stare over at them and absentmindedly fiddle with the necklace BJ gave me last night.
“You guys are cute.” I turn to Christian who’s sitting next to me on the couch and we trade looks.
“It’s fucking disgusting,” he tells them and I smirk.
We’ve hung out a lot these last few weeks, me and Christian Hemmes.
And please do calm down. It’s not like that, we’re not going down that road again.
We’re both just… in love with people who don’t want us and/or are with other people. He spent Christmas Day with Daisy, if you can believe it, but he said the policeman ruined it. Both of our Christmases could have been perfectly perfect and they were both hijacked respectively by a sexy policemen and an evil Australian, so we’re mutually miserable and our best friends are in love and so all we have is each other. And do you know what we do?
We go to the gym. I do weight training with him, he does Reformer Pilates with me (however he flat-out refuses to come to my barre classes), we swim, we go to the sauna, we bond over how annoying Jordan is. Occasionally I say, “Fuck the police,” so he feels better about Daisy Haites being with that sexy policeman she’s dating. We go to his house or my house and watch a disaster film to feel better about our own lives.
Does it work? Unsure, as I’m still here in my workout clothes. Didn’t even bother to shower.
Still prettier than Jordan though.
Anyway, tonight’s pick is The Day After Tomorrow. Very un-Christmassy.
Not really sure why Michael Bay hasn’t yet graced us with a Christmas-themed disaster film, but it is bound to come out eventually.
Christian nods at the TV screen. It’s the part in New York where they’re running to the library.
