Loveless

by Alice Oseman

‘I think I might be … asexual. And also aromantic. Both of them.’ Sunil stopped walking. ‘Yeah?’ he said. ‘Uh … yeah,’ I said, looking at the floor. ‘Um. Don’t really know what to do about that.’ Sunil stayed very still for a moment. Then he moved, his arm dropping away from me and turned so that he was standing directly in front of me. He put his hands on my shoulders and bent a little so that our faces were level. ‘There’s nothing to do, Georgia,’ he said softly. ‘There’s nothing to do at all.’

‘But … what if what I am is just … nothing?’ I breathed out and blinked as the photographer took the first shot. ‘What if I’m nothing?’ ‘You’re not nothing,’ Sunil said. ‘You have to believe that.’ Maybe I could do that. Maybe I could believe.

We both started giggling, and then we couldn’t stop, until the professor shushed us and we looked at each other, grinning. Everything might have been shit still, I’d hurt my two best friends and I knew I had so far to go before I could even begin to like who I was, but at least I had Rooney sitting next to me, laughing instead of crying.

have always felt lonely, I think. I think a lot of people feel lonely. Rooney. Pip. Maybe even Jason, though he hasn’t said so. I’d spent my teenage life feeling lonely every time I saw a couple at a party, or two people kissing outside the school gate. I’d felt lonely every time I read some cute proposal story on Twitter, or saw someone’s five-year-anniversary Facebook post, or even just saw someone

hanging out with their partner in their Instagram story, sitting with them on a sofa with their dog, watching TV.

loved Jason and Pip. And now they were gone. I had been so desperate for my idea of true love that I couldn’t even see it when it was right in front of my face.

‘McDonald’s. She never lets me down.’

thought for a moment. Then she said. ‘Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they’re just as important. Actually, for us, they’re way more important.’ She

‘Georgia Warr is the reason this play is even happening,’ he said. ‘And it might just be a small play, but it matters to all of us. Quite a lot. And Georgia deserves to have something made just for her. So, this one’s for you, Georgia. This is a play about love.’

We didn’t have to say it, but we all knew. We all knew what we’d found here. Or, I did, at least. I knew. I’d found it. And this time there was no big declaration. No grand gesture. It was just us, holding each other.