she said to the Toilet Boy.
âHello,â replied the Toilet Boy.
âSorry, I ⦠thought it was locked. I didnât realize there was ⦠anyone else in here.â She said that to me rather than him.âItâs just that ⦠someone âs downstairs waiting for you, thatâs all.â Her eyes were boggling like a crazed lunatic.
âOK,â I said, slowly. âCool.â I turned to the Toilet Boy. âSorry, Iâm supposed to ⦠I said Iâd â¦â No proper sentences were forming, so I left it at, âIâd better go.â
He nodded and put his hands back in his pockets. âCool. See you.â
As we marched down the corridor, leaving Toilet Boy in the toilet behind us, Grace reached down and held my hand. âOh my god. I am so sorry,â she hissed. âWho is he ?â
âIâll tell you later,â I said. Iâd just caught sight of Freddie at the bottom of the stairs.
Sam
Freddie. Of course there was a Freddie. Thereâs always a fucking Freddie.
In films and books youâre allowed to meet pretty girls in bathrooms without any Freddies popping up to ruin it, but in real life, you always get Freddied. Or, at least, I do.
She â the Ribena Girl â just muttered something about having to go, and then walked straight out the door. I didnât even get the chance to introduce myself â Samuel or otherwise.
I listened to her friend whisper excitedly at her as they disappeared down the hallway. I just stood there, staring at that stupid fucking stag painting on the wall, and wondering what had just happened.
Nothing had happened, really. Not in a tangible, something-I-could-brag-about-to-Robin-and-Chris kind of way. All their stories with girls involved proper, physical activities â kisses, bra removals, handjobs, or threesomes that were technically not threesomes. They certainly didnât involve high tens and discussions about hot Ribena.
All that had happened was that Iâd had a conversation with a girl in a bathroom. Why did that feel like a big thing when, in Robinâs eyes, it wouldnât even have warranted a text message?
Maybe because it was all so ⦠easy . Talking to girls is usually a nightmare â trying to find the perfect balance between saying things they want to hear, and saying things that donât make you come across as an utter knobhead. There was none of that with the Ribena Girl. It just ⦠flowed.
But it was more than that. She was, undoubtedly, really pretty. That was what made the whole easy, funny, flowing conversation thing so weird. She had blue â really blue â eyes and soft, straw-coloured blonde hair, strands of which she would occasionally, absent-mindedly unfurl from her ponytail and chew on. It sounds odd, but it was actually really sweet.
Her smile seemed to cover her whole face, and she smiled a lot. I only got a brief glance, but I was pretty sure she had a really good bum, too.
Basically, she was hot. And in my (admittedly limited) experience, hot girls do not do easy, funny, flowing conversation. They only do standing around sulkily, pouting, and waiting for someone like Toby McCourt to come and talk to them. Toby McCourt. He was a Freddie, too. He was probably a biggerFreddie than Freddie.
My not-particularly-productive train of thought was finally interrupted by the door being thumped open by a bloke in a grey hoodie swaying drunkenly on the threshold.
âOh, sorry, man,â he mumbled, looking slightly confused to find me standing in the middle of the bathroom and staring intently at the wall. âAre you finished in here? Because weâre not allowed to piss in the rose bushes any more, apparently.â
I nodded, not entirely sure why heâd felt the need to impart the rose bushes information, and stepped out into the hallway. I slunk along it feeling glum. Somewhere downstairs Ribena Girl was with Freddie.