“
What’s going on?’ she said. ‘Talk to me.’
‘I …’ I looked down. I didn’t want her to see me. But Rooney was
looking at me, eyebrows furrowed, so many thoughts churning behind her
eyes, and it was that look that made me start spilling everything out. ‘I just
care about you so much … but I’ve always got this fear that … one day
you’ll leave. Or Pip and Jason will leave, or … I don’t know.’ Fresh tears
fell from my cheeks. ‘I’m never going to fall in love, so … my friendships are all I have, so … I just … can’t bear the idea of losing any of my friends.
Because I’m never going to have that one special person.’
‘Can you let me be that person?’ Rooney said quietly.
I sniffed loudly. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean I want to be your special person.’
‘B-but … that’s not how the world works, people always put romance
over friendships –’
‘Says who?’ Rooney spluttered, smacking her hand on the ground in
front of us. ‘The heteronormative rulebook? Fuck that, Georgia. Fuck that.’
She stood up, flailing her arms and pacing as she spoke.
‘I know you’ve been trying to help me with Pip,’ she began, ‘and I
appreciate that, Georgia, I really do. I like her and I think she likes me and
we like being around each other and, yep, I’m just gonna say it – I think we
really, really want to have sex with each other.’
I just stared at her, my cheeks tear-stained, having no idea where this was
going.
‘But you know what I realised on my walk?’ she said. ‘I realise that I
love you, Georgia.’
My mouth dropped open.
‘Obviously I’m not romantically in love with you. But I realised that
whatever these feelings are for you, I …’ She grinned wildly. ‘I feel like I
am in love. Me and you – this is a fucking love story! I feel like I’ve found
something most people just don’t get. I feel at home around you in a way I
have never felt in my fucking life. And maybe most people would look at us
and think that we’re just friends, or whatever, but I know that it’s just … so
much MORE than that.’ She gestured dramatically at me with both hands.
‘You changed me. You … you fucking saved me, I swear to God. I know I
still do a lot of dumb stuff and I say the wrong things and I still have days
where I just feel like shit but … I’ve felt happier over the past few weeks
than I have in years.’
I couldn’t speak. I was frozen.
Rooney dropped to her knees. ‘Georgia, I am never going to stop being
your friend. And I don’t mean that in the boring average meaning of ‘friend’
where we stop talking regularly when we’re twenty-five because we’ve
both met nice young men and gone off to have babies, and only get to meet
up twice a year. I mean I’m going to pester you to buy a house next door to
me when we’re forty-five and have finally saved up enough for our deposits. I mean I’m going to be crashing round yours every night for
dinner because you know I can’t fucking cook to save my life, and if I’ve
got kids and a spouse, they’ll probably come round with me, because
otherwise they’ll be living on chicken nuggets and chips. I mean I’m going
to be the one bringing you soup when you text me that you’re sick and can’t
get out of bed and ferrying you to the doctor’s even when you don’t want to
go because you feel guilty about using the NHS when you just have a
stomach bug. I mean we’re gonna knock down the fence between our
gardens so we have one big garden, and we can both get a dog and take
turns looking after it. I mean I’m going to be here, annoying you, until
we’re old ladies, sitting in the same care home, talking about putting on a
Shakespeare because we’re all old and bored as shit.’
She grabbed the bunch of flowers and practically threw them at me.
‘And I bought these for you because I honestly didn’t know how else to
express any of that to you.’
I was crying. I just started crying again.
Rooney wiped the tears off my cheeks.
”
”