I WAS JUST TRYING TO BE FUNNY | ✓

▬ 19: 'who's making you?' well, abstract pressures from society at large

                 I know nobody believes me when I say that but I genuinely don't want to go to Oxford.

Still, the fact that I got offers from all the other courses doesn't make the choice any easier. I'm once again seven years old, overwhelmed by all the flavours available at Raj's Ice Cream.

Despite stepping into the parlour with a distinct craving for chocolate chip, upon seeing the options, a range that my Sufsdale-raised mind could never even have fantasised about, I suddenly had no idea what I wanted. Is it even moral to pick something so mundane over popcorn and caramel or peach crumble?

I glare at the UCAS Track page and sink further into my malformed posture. For twenty minutes, I've waited for divine revelation to strike me but no lightbulbs have gone off in my head.

The more I stare at the computer screen, the cursor hovering over the accept option of my Oxford offer, the more I waver. My skull is stuffed with the hum of the fan with no space for thorough evaluation.

Maybe the only reason those ice cream flavours sell is that people feel like they're not seizing life's opportunities if they don't pick the strangest one they can find. Even if it turns out unpleasant, it'll make a good anecdote: "I once tried popcorn-flavoured ice cream in London. Bizzare, right?"

Chocolate or pecan isn't something you share with strangers or friends of friends in an attempt to make conversation that isn't personal. Your enjoyment of the flavour is irrelevant juxtaposed with the social capital.

I shove the mouse left to shift the cursor onto decline instead and click. The thumb-up icon beside Oxford changes to a cross. "Unsuccessful, declined and withdrawn choices".

Holding my breath, I sit in the thing nearest to silence that's permitted by the computer fan and wait. Wait for regret to crash onto me so that I smack my forehead, collapse to the floor or burst into tears before I scramble for the admissions phone number to plead to undo my mistake.

None of that happens. Nothing happens.

With less ardour, though no more hesitation, I accept international relations as my firm choice and fashion marketing as my insurance. If I change my mind, I can always find something else through Clearing.

'What's up?'

I jerk upright which sends the desk chair reeling away from under me and attempt to cover up the screen and shut down the browser at the same time.

When had Baba come home? How did I not hear?

Face burning, I turn to the doorframe where he watches me with a horridly father-esque air. How long has he been there? He didn't see, did he? The office is so small that there's hardly a yard between the door and the screen.

'I'm watching porn.'

Baba smiles. Because he knows I'm lying and finds my choice amusing or because he thinks it's true and has to appreciate the cliché of finding your teenage son wanking?

Either way, he doesn't linger on it. 'Okay... Well, I need the computer.'

'It's yours.' I jump to my feet and log out, slipping past him when the computer is still processing the task, and hurry to my room.

I collapse against my door once it's shut and search for signs of regret in my body. But if anything, all I find is an ease of weight; even if I've made the wrong decision, I have made one. I no longer have to calculate every consequence of every course of action. All I can do is react to whatever follows.

Intending to change out of my uniform, I cross the room only to be caught by movement outside. Miles is returning from his run and, upon seeing me at the window, waves.

He's mocking me. Has he been planning this all along, finding an excuse to spend time with me to mislead me into imagining some connection, just to report back to his friends and laugh for hours like in American teen films from the nineties or Mean Girls? What if it's all just a scheme to dig for details about Edenfield?

I don't want anything between us.

But I wave back.