23 Attempts at Love

Chapter 12: Dingy Student Flats and Finances

After the Winstident, as Katy and Sasha liked to refer to it, I decided yet again that I would be focusing on three things this year: swimming, my course, and landing my dream job. The first of these was going well: my ankle had healed nicely and I was back in the water at both competitions and training, with the occasional social night out when I wanted to attend. We stopped having joint socials for a little bit when Hannah and her boyfriend – the boys' captain – took a break, which helped me avoid Winston.

My job hunt was in progress: I had an interview lined up at a publisher in London who covered a huge range of material, and who seemed really interested in my CV on the phone. I didn't want to get my hopes up about it because the chances of landing a job in publishing were pretty slim, but Mum and Dad had already sent me a "Good Luck!" card which was on display in my bedroom.

Finally, my course: I loved it. I loved that the size of the course was really small so I knew everyone pretty well, and I had a really good group of friends I now spent most days with in the library, including the two I mentioned before: Ivy and Henry. Between us all we compared and shared notes, worked together on projects and had a group chat which constantly pinged with the latest book releases and publishing news. It was the nerdiest time of my life, and I loved every second of it.

Of course, every chapter in this book (bar one) contains some kind of dating disaster from my life, and this is no exception. In this chapter the boy in question is called Harry: a friend from the course who walked home with me most days because his house was a little further along on the same route. Harry was average height, with crooked teeth and an upright walk. He was from London and everything about him oozed privilege and a middle-class upbringing, right down to the embossed designer wallet in his pocket and his absolute reluctance to have any connection with his emotions.

I'd organised a Christmas end-of-term social for everyone to visit the market and go ice-skating and have a few drinks to say goodbye before we all travelled to different parts of the country – and the world – for the break. I'd fallen into this social secretary sort of role because myself and Ivy were the loudest in the group, and the ones who were pushiest about getting people to join in the fun with us. It was a joint effort between us: I'd organised everything and told everyone where to go, and she'd told everyone to wear Christmas jumpers or else.

I liked talking to Harry: he was extremely clever, read a lot of newspapers and had an opinion on almost any topic I could come up with. He could tell you about conflicts in the Middle East or the current state of China's economy, and bore you to death with technology updates in the publishing world and on which of the latest bestsellers were published by who, right down to the author's agent.

He also had a wicked sense of humour which toed the line of appropriate and offensive, and he revelled in the shocked faces surrounding him when he knew he'd gone just a little too far. But he could get away with it, because he was Harry.

Our Christmas get-together ended with Harry and I walking back home together, laughing about another friend falling over on the ice and sharing gossip we'd heard: Ana was dating someone doing a Creative Writing MA and he'd fallen completely in love with her (but not her with him), and two of the girls in his seminar group had missed the last three weeks' of work and had no idea what was going on. Harry thought they'd probably have dropped out by now.

I was drunk. He was drunk. Sasha and Katy were both out with other friends and weren't home yet, so I invited him for a drink to carry on chatting. That's what I told myself was happening at the time, anyway.

We drank an entire bottle of red wine in an hour, sitting on the sofa chatting. Then I realised Katy and Sasha would be home soon and when I mentioned it, Harry suggested moving into my room for another drink and to watch a film. I agreed.