18. words that i can't say
33010 / 50000
I have deemed today Epic Catch-Up Day, on account of the fact that I'm woefully behind. I'm aiming for 35k by midnight. :D This chapter was way out of my comfort zone to write, so I'm just hoping it isn't totally horrible to read.
18. words that i can't say
Katie.
2285 words
For the first time in her life, Katie is starting to realise why some people hate Valentine's Day.
It's bad enough having to watch the shops fill up with heart-shaped reminders of her own loneliness, but it's even worse having to watch other people going around being all happy. Her dad brings her mum flowers in the morning, and it's the first time her mum's looked really genuinely happy in ages, and Emily has plans to spend the evening with Naomi. Katie doesn't know if they've solved all their problems yet, but at least they have each other. Katie has no one. The only person that bought her a card was her mother, and that's so depressing that Katie doesn't even want to contemplate it.
For fuck's sake, the last person Katie had sex with, not that it even counts, was Effy, and that's just--whatever, she's over it, it never really happened. It was just temporary insanity. People get that, right? But now Katie realises how fucking stupid it was, how unlike her, she's never going to let it happen again.
It's just that she misses having someone, and she can remember now why she settled for all those idiot boyfriends who were never good enough for her, because at least having a boyfriend who's a total wanker is better than having no boyfriend at all. Still, a couple of months ago when she tried to get back into that mentality and dated a couple of random guys from college, she couldn't get into it and she quickly dumped them.
It probably is actually better that way, it's just that Valentine's Day is so fucking depressing. At least it's a Sunday, so no one else has to witness what a loser she is.
In the evening she decides to just like, be a total Bridget Jones cliché and rent a sappy romantic comedy and eat a ton of ice cream and just wallow, because if she's going to feel sorry for herself she may as well do it fucking properly. Emily gives her this pitying look when she leaves, and that's the worst of all, that even her complete loser of a sister thinks she's tragic.
Even though it's raining, she walks to Blockbuster, getting drenched in the process due to her umbrella being an absolute pile of shit. She looks a mess, she knows it, and as she's standing there looking at the shelves she starts to wish she hadn't bothered coming. Eventually she picks out 27 Dresses because she likes Katherine Heigl on Grey's Anatomy, and whatever, she hasn't seen it before and at least it's something to watch.
When she walks out of the shop, fighting with her umbrella to get it upright, she hears someone calling her name. Spinning around to see who's calling her, her eyes alight on JJ coming up the street and waving at her.
"Hi, Katie," he says again once he's reached her, and even though Katie's suddenly conscious of how much she looks like a drowned rat, he doesn't seem to notice.
"Hi," she says. "Weird coincidence."
His eyes open really wide and he starts to stutter. "Yes, very weird. Strange. Peculiar, in fact." He pauses, and then says, "Emily told me you'd be here."
"Why would she do that?" Fucking great. Not only does her sister feel sorry for her, but fucking JJ apparently does as well. And Katie likes JJ, but there's like, a social hierarchy and she can't believe how far she's fallen. It's all Effy's fault.
"She thought you might some company, and, well, I'd like some company, so that seemed like a good match. If you like you can come over to mine and we could watch your DVD together." He smiles, and it seems less like him taking pity on her and more like something he actually wants to do.
"It's probably not your sort of film, really," she says. "There aren't any like, spaceships in it."
"I don't only watch films involving spaceships."
"Do you watch films involving girls running around trying to get married?"
"It'll be a new experience for me," he says, smiling so hopefully that Katie can't help but smile a bit too.
"Okay," she says. "Might be nice to spend Valentine's Day just with a friend."
For a moment he looks confused or something, and then his expression clears and he nods. "Right, yes, friends. Just good friends. Okay."
The walk to JJ's house isn't that far, and he manages to sort her umbrella out so that it's no longer turned inside out, so she doesn't get any more wet than she is already. Once she's at his house she glances at herself in the hallway mirror and sees what a state she is, with her makeup running and her hair starting to frizz, but all JJ does is smile again and offer her a towel. She dries her hair a bit in his bathroom and then just ends up taking all her makeup off, because obviously she didn't think to bring her makeup bag with her to the fucking video shop.
But JJ doesn't like, recoil with horror when he sees her without her makeup on--probably doesn't even notice, she thinks--and for the first time today she actually feels kind of relaxed. She sits down next to him on his bed and he puts his arm around her--no stupid yawning pretence or anything, he just does it--and it's actually nice, having a bit of a cuddle with a boy in his bedroom without there being any expectations for anything more.
"I got us a bottle of wine, by the way," JJ says, reaching around to his bedside table. "Or, well, I took it from downstairs, but Mum ended up catching me. She said it's all right though, but that we probably shouldn't drink the whole thing."
Katie smiles. "You need to get better at nicking your parent's booze. I think my mum's like, convinced she's a functioning alcoholic because her stash of vodka keeps disappearing and she never actually remembers drinking it."
"Well, I don't really drink much anyway, although Cook told me that everyone at university has to drink a lot, so I should get into the habit. I'm trying to acquire the taste."
"I don't think I've ever met anyone like you, JJ," Katie says.
"That's probably true," JJ replies. "I'm quite unusual."
He frowns a bit, and Katie tries to tell him that that's not what she meant, but she doesn't know how to say it. Instead she sits in silence while he presses play on the DVD.
The film is all right, nothing hugely special but Katie likes it all the same. What she likes more are the ridiculous puzzled faces that JJ keeps making at the TV, like he's understand perfectly if the film were about aliens trying to destroy New York or whatever, but normal people doing real life things are completely unfathomable.
"How does she know so many people who are getting married and want her as a bridesmaid?" he asks. "Twenty-seven seems to be an awful lot."
"It's just a film, yeah. You don't have to take it so seriously."
"Oh, okay," he says. "I just think that even a Hollywood romantic comedy ought to make sense."
"Maybe you should pretend that like, Katherine Heigl is secretly a cyborg or whatever."
"Which one's she?"
Katie raises her eyebrows. "She's like, the main one."
"Oh." JJ thinks about it for a moment, and then he breaks into a smile. "That actually makes it a much better movie."
He looks so pleased that Katie can't help but laugh.
The films ends, and Katie said, "Well, this was actually fun. Thanks for asking me over, JJ."
"No problem," he says, smiling, and then his expression turns into a frown. "Wait, does this mean you're leaving now?"
"No," Katie says. "I mean, unless you want me to go now."
"No, no, not at all. I'd like it if you stayed." He pours her a bit more wine as if to make his point, and then says, "I'd say we could watch another film, but you'd probably hate all of mine."
"Probably," Katie says, laughing. She looks at him then, really looks at him, and for some reason she's surprised--surprised that even though they've kind of been friends for a while now, she's never really appreciated him before. Maybe because she's never spent much time alone with him.
She leans in and kisses him on the cheek, just to say thank you or whatever. Because she has had a good time, much better than she anticipated this evening being. He goes pink, a smile spreading across his face.
"Oh," he says. "What was that for?"
"Sorry, I just--"
"No, don't--don't apologise, I mean, it wasn't a bad thing. It was quite nice, actually."
"Yeah, I suppose it was," Katie says, and she kisses him again, on the mouth this time, just for a second. And she's as surprised as he looks, because--because it's JJ, and she shouldn't have liked it as much as she did.
Except she doesn't fucking know why she apparently shouldn't; that's just some bullshit from last year when she decided stuff like who she fancied based on who was the biggest wanker, or whatever. She'd never thought as JJ as anything but a friend, but now...
Well, this year her ideas of who she should be with are completely upside down, and if she's going to start fancying weird people it's better if they're people like JJ than people like Effy. JJ's actually a nice person, for starters.
They kiss again, for longer this time, Katie's noticing stuff like how his lips are really soft, and he has this nice soapy-clean smell that she likes, and mostly she just feels like she's with someone actually decent for a change. She doesn't quite know what to do with it; she's used to just like, fucking for the sake of it, because it's better than having a conversation, and she doesn't think it would ever be like that with JJ.
She doesn't even know why she's thinking about fucking him, definitely didn't expect anything like this when she ran into him earlier in the evening, but the longer they kiss the more right it feels, the more sense it makes. It's not even that she's drunk or anything, just nicely tipsy enough that it doesn't really matter.
She pulls away for a moment just to pull JJ's hoodie over his head, and he looks at her, surprised. "Oh," he says, "are we going to--?"
"Shut up," she says, kissing him again, and then she starts tugging at his t-shirt. He pulls apart from her and takes his t-shirt off, but then he gets a bit shy and leans back, keeping his hands to himself.
"It's okay," she says, taking his hands and pulling them towards her so he can peel her top off. He fumbles with her bra for a minute until she helps him out, and then it's not long until all their clothes are off and they're under the covers, kissing some more.
"Have you got a condom?" she asks, and he nods.
"Oh, yes," he says, sounding a bit breathless, and he starts to fumble with the drawer of his bedside table. "Cook tell me to always be prepared, although I haven't actually had much cause to use them yet." He looks a bit pink, but Katie's not sure if that's due to him being embarrassed or out of breath.
"It's okay," she says, and she kisses him again to make him believe it. He fumbles some more with the condom and she has to help him with that too, but once it's on he seems to more or less know what he's doing; maybe he doesn't have the experience that her previous boyfriends had, but he makes up for it with enthusiasm, which is something Freddie at least never had.
It doesn't last very long, only a couple of minutes, and when he comes he seems so fucking happy, looks at her with such open affection, that she smiles.
"Wow. That was--wow," he says. Katie kisses him again once he's got his breath back, and then he says, "Wait, was that--how was it for you? Was it good?"
"Yeah," she says. "It was really nice, JJ."
"But--you didn't come, did you?"
Katie opens her mouth in surprise; she doesn't think anyone's ever actually asked her that. "Well, er, no," she says eventually. "But I mean, it's all right."
"No," JJ says, frowning at her, "it's not. But we'll just have to do something about that, won't we?"
"Uh, yeah, okay," she says, finding herself smiling. And she has to help him out, tell him what to do and guide him a bit, but it's worth it.
Totally fucking worth it.
"Wow," she says, and he looks so pleased that she laughs at him, but definitely not in a nasty way. "You're not like other boys, JJ."
"No, I know, I'm quite strange."
"I didn't mean it like that," she says. "I meant that you're special."
---
When Katie wakes up it takes her a moment to realise where she is, and when she does, she smiles.
"Good morning," JJ says, and Katie gives him a quick kiss. He smiles slightly, but then he says, "Is this going to be a secret?"
"Oh," she says, "I don't know. Maybe--I mean, maybe it would be a bit weird with Emily."
"But she told me to go for it with you."
"Just give me a bit of time," she says.
"Right," he says, looking unhappy. "Yes. I understand."