Number One

It was at the beginning of 2008 that I decided to make a change. Change has always scared me, leaving me bewildered and feeling lost in a world which already does not understand me. Yet, my soul, my heart, was urging me to give myself a chance at being a better person.
Everyone has certain things that challenge them, some find it hard to express themselves, and others find it hard to obey authority. I have my limits, and I am sure there is exhilaration in pushing yourself over those limits which restrict you.
The limit I wanted to overcome was one that people usually willingly leap over, desperate for that overwhelming, unique and inexplicable feeling of love. Of loving another human being entirely and having this emotion returned to you with as much energy.
I wanted to feel this, to truly understand why everyone searched for it so frantically.
So at midnight, I waited for her to call. After five minutes I smoked a cigarette, after ten more minutes I smoked another. Five cigarettes later, at ten to one she finally called, apologising because the network had been to busy, and she had tried loads. I took the plunge, “There was something I wanted to say to you…”
“What’s that?” she smiled down the phone at me.
“I love you.”
“I love you too!”

A week later I ended Elisha. I didn’t really love her, I never had done. Maybe speaking those three formidable words would make them a reality, or at least provoke some sort of feeling inside of me that would let me see hidden horizons. All I want is an experience, not a life long commitment.
The first person to hear my philosophy on love and relationships was Kathie. I was sat at her kitchen table, smoking, watching her clean the sides. It was a Saturday afternoon, a most boring and pointless time of the week. Kathie was the only person I knew, who I could happily spend it with and feel entertained and happy and excited all at the same time. With Kathie I took the liberty of talking everything over to her, rather than with her. Like me Kathie is a lesbian, a “muff muncher” as we regularly yell at each other.
“You see I just don’t see the point in them! Relationships I mean. All they do is set you up-to have all your hopes that you built up around that person torn down. People always make the same fucking mistake; they fall in love and honestly believe that they are going to stay with that one person for the rest of their lives. They let the love blind them to the other person’s faults and spend all their time thinking about them, and worrying about them, and letting their rationality get more and more clouded by unfaithful emotions.”
At this point Kathie takes the opportunity to respond while I have a drag on my rollup, “Yeah, I see what you mean. But people do all that because it makes them happy.”
“But it doesn’t! Seriously man, how many times have I seen you cry over HoeFace? People believe that it makes them happy, but so many other things make you happy!” I exclaim waving my hands around, “I mean, I’m just as happy out of a relationship as I am in one, actually I’m probably happier because then I only have myself to worry about. Happiness is an emotion which comes and goes as it pleases whatever we do can never bring about permanent happiness. So I don’t see the point of setting yourself up to get hurt when other things can make you just as happy without the hurting part. Do I make sense?”
“Yeah you make sense. Love is shit I guess. But I love Chaz and I can’t help it.”
“Whatever man, I’m just not cut out for relationships”, I shrug.

I’d noticed her looking at me sometimes, but never thought much of it. Once in the river of college students surging along the corridors to their lessons she grabbed me in a one armed hug, and squeezed for a few seconds. Every now and again I found myself looking at her arse when she sauntered away from the smokers’ corner. But I never thought much of it.
Natasha Maddock has purple hair, and it glows in the sunlight with a strange, glaring appeal. Although at first she is a very quiet girl, after a few minutes of conversation her outrageous giggles can pierce through anyone’s sobriety, and send them down a rollercoaster of girly excitement.
I knew exactly who she meant when she asked me if I liked anyone in college. She tried to make it sound off hand, as if it was a normal everyday question. But sat opposite her in the middle of the common room, with the sound of familiar music blaring from the radio from the other side of the common room, I knew that Kay liked me.
“Erm I don’t know, why?” I asked, fully knowing that more sensitive probing would be needed to get the information out of her.
“Oh no reason, I just wondered.” She looks somewhere else, for an excuse not to look me in the eye.
“You see Tash I know exactly why you’re asking me this. I know you know someone who likes me. And I think I know who it is…”
“Who?”
“You tell me.”
“Fine it’s Kay, OK?”
I grinned at this, because I was right, and because I knew that Katie couldn’t keep mediocre secrets like these to herself. Her flippancy in these areas was of some amusement to me.
It was after this short conversation that I began to wonder what it was that I actually felt for Kay. Was it that I liked her? I sat in contemplation of this through an incredibly tedious English lesson, lulled into my own thoughts by the sheer monotony of Miss Browns’ voice. Miss Brown had a gift with students, although it took many teachers fifteen minutes to lose the concentration of their class, just waiting for her to arrive (she was always ten minutes tardy) dispelled any enthusiasm to annotate short extracts of Dickens. Come on! Even her name suggests she’s the epitome of ennui.