Page 65 of Oleander

Sex, for me, has never been the mindless pleasure-filled paradise my peers would have me believe. It’s never been that simple animalistic act driven by lust and need that people often describe it as. For me, it’s always been accompanied by some great complex maelstrom of emotion.

There is some pleasure, of course. Beautiful, transcendent, and glorious. But it’s fleeting. Guilt and regret, shame and remorse; those feelings always linger long after the pleasure has receded.

I felt all of those things in the moments after that first time.

I’m not sure what Ellie felt. Maybe she felt regret too, it was possible. But she’d looked happy.

Ellie, who I cared for, but didn’t love.

I was ridden with guilt because I’d said something I didn’t mean. Regret, because I wished I hadn’t. Shame, because I’d turned myself into one of those boys who lied to girls to get them to have sex with them. Then there was the remorse for all of that.

Maybe because of how my first time was, this has laid the foundations for every sexual encounter I would go on to have thereafter.

After, we cuddled silently for a bit before Ellie’s phone started ringing from across the room. She picked it up to her mothershrieking down the phone. I couldn’t hear the words, but the sounds of a tinny, angry parent reached me. Ellie said very little to her mum. She didn’t argue, raise her voice, or deny anything. At the very end, in a very childlike-sounding voice, she apologised before hanging up.

“She’s on her way.” She came back to sit on the bed by me, looking entirely unbothered that she was likely grounded for the foreseeable future.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is it gonna be bad?”

She shrugged. “She’ll be annoyed for a bit, pretend I’m grounded, then get sick of me moping around the house, and that’ll be it.” She leaned in and kissed me again, smiling against my lips. “Totally worth it.”

My cheeks turned hot. “What time is it?” I asked.

“Just after ten. When’s Alfie’s parents due back?”

“About twelve, they said.”

“Sorry, I’m not gonna be able to help you clean up downstairs.” She didn’t look sorry in the least.

“They told us not to bother. They have a cleaner coming tomorrow.”

“God, Alfie’s a spoiled brat. It’s sickening.”

I nodded in agreement.

We sat there for a bit, and though everything felt different, changed, a little frightening, I felt the morosity begin to lift from my chest a little. Finally, she let out a sigh and stood. I watched her pull on her red dress before I realised.

“Ellie, you can’t put that on – it’s covered in my sick.”

“I wiped most of it off,” she said, nonchalantly. “But I will borrow this if that’s okay?”

It was the hoodie she’d bought me for my birthday. I nodded, and she proceeded to slip on her black shoes.

“I should get up too.” I sat up feeling exposed and vulnerable, naked but for the duvet pulled over my lower half.

“You’ll probably need to borrow something of Alfie’s. Your shirt looked sort of ruined.”

“Great.” How would I explain that to Beth?Be sensible.

I’d had sex, but I had used a condom. Was that sensible?

After Ellie left, I showered in the ensuite and wrapped myself in a towel. Then I went looking for Alfie, Josh, and my phone. In Alfie’s bed, I found Josh, fully clothed, mouth wide open, and dead to the world. I pulled out a pair of sweats and a tracksuit top from Alfie’s tallboy, put them on, and ventured downstairs.

By some miracle, we’d managed to restrict the chaos to the Den; the living room looked almost untouched except for a stray beer bottle and a glass with some pinkish liquid at the bottom. Outside, a strong wind was rattling the balcony doors, which hadn’t been closed properly.

As I went to shut them, I spotted my phone on the concrete, face down with its bright blue rubber cover facing up. As I reached down to pick it up, I was kicked in the face by the memory. I was the one who’d been out here. I’d been out here on my phone, in fact.

A chill spread out from the base of my spine and over my entire body, leeching it of all warmth. Somehow, my phone was undamaged and still had some battery left.