Fifteen years old
Sam
Ithink I’m about to die from embarrassment.
The only consolation is that Kath also looks like she wants the ground to swallow her whole.
This may be the only time when I regret that we chose to share a desk even though we aren’t required to sit in alphabetical order anymore.
Mr Lee is obviously trying very, very hard not to make this awkward.
But teaching a sex education class to a co-ed group of fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds cannot be what he envisioned himself doing when he signed up to be a maths teacher.
This is no one’s idea of an ideal Monday morning.
But he’s our form tutor, and apparently this is what all the form tutors are scheduled to do this morning.
“Who can tell me about different types of contraception?” he asks.
The room goes completely silent.
Kath glances at me with wide eyes, but I shake my head. She’s the one who usually helps the teacher out, not me. Eventually Claire saves the day, putting her hand up with confidence that I frankly rather admire.
“Well, there’s the pill,” she says. “And condoms.”
“Exactly, Claire.” Mr Lee’s visibly relieved someone appears willing to speak. “And can anyone tell me why people might use different types of contraception?”
Another painful pause.
As Mr Lee ploughs on with heroic determination, I stare straight ahead, pretending I’m invisible. Silently, I beg the desk gods not to be called on.
And then come the bananas. He starts handing them out with a stack of condoms, and my soul leaves my body. I stare at the one in front of me like it’s a live grenade.
“It’s fine.” Kath grabs a few packets. “Ever used one of these before?” she asks, flipping a condom packet in her hand.
I laugh. “Nope. You know I haven’t. I tell you everything, remember?”
“Just checking you weren’t hiding a mystery girlfriend.”
“I don’t want a girlfriend,” I mutter, more sharply than I mean to. Why is everyone always on about this? “I’ve said that, like, a hundred times.”
And I have. It’s basically a running joke now—while everyone else is off texting girls or going on awkward park dates, I’m swimming or hanging out with Kath.
Because swimming is my life. Not that I begrudge it.
At least not most of the time. And like my coach said, to win you have to be focussed. No distractions.
“Well, you can be mysterious.” Kath shuffles around the condom packets. “You disappear for hours.”
“I’m literally just swimming or doing homework.” I groan. “If anything, I’m aggressively not mysterious. And if I had a girlfriend, I’d tell you.” I eye the banana between us. “Want to go first?”
“What a wimp,” she teases. I gulp and look away. You know who isn’t looking away? Bobbie fucking Reynolds. And his stupid hair is looking particularly stupid today. I glare at him, and he flushes.
God, what’s wrong with me? Well actually, I know exactly what’s wrong with me. I’m a teenage boy with a pulse and a long-standing crush on the girl currently ripping open a condom packet. Come on.
Why am I even pretending I’m cool about this?
I’ve had a thing for Kath for years. Well, definitely the last eighteen months.
I just buried it under training schedules and a gold-medal level performance in lying to myself.
My palms feel clammy. I’m pretty sure a sheen of sweat is visible on my forehead.
I try to subtly adjust myself under the desk while she smooths the condom onto the banana, frowning at a wrinkle like it personally offended her.
I think I’m holding it together until I spot Josh smirking at me from the next desk.
I shoot him a glare. He mimes zipping his mouth but adds a very unsubtle eyebrow wiggle.
I shift in my seat again. This is a disaster.
Ben flicks a condom across the room so it lands on our desk.
I turn to glare at him and he cackles, launching another one at my face. It hits me in the forehead.
I look at the clock. Ten more minutes. I can do ten more minutes.
It feels more like an hour by the time we finish, and I also feel like I need a cold shower.
I’m embarrassed. But in my defence the top button of Kath’s shirt had come undone, and she doesn’t realise she has boobs now.
I really shouldn’t have looked. But now I know she was wearing a bra in her favourite blue.
I shouldn’t know that. A friend wouldn’t know that.
By the end I had to resort to reciting Olympic individual medley winners under my breath to distract myself.
Josh taps me on the shoulder as I’m powerwalking out the door, leaving Kath chatting to Claire. “Doing alright there, mate?” He grins like he knows exactly how flustered I am.
How does he look so unbothered? My cheeks are burning and I probably look like I just finished a 100m freestyle sprint.
“I’ve been better,” I mutter, swinging my bag over my shoulder and untucking my shirt.
“Frustrated?” he grins.
“You have no idea,” I tell him grumpily, opening my bag again to check that I have my textbook for the next class.
“Oh, I have an idea of how you feel,” he says. “What I don’t understand is why you won’t just ask her out. You know that she’d say yes.”
“I don’t want a girlfriend,” I remind him.
Also, I’m not really sure that Kath would say yes. She’s just as driven as I am. I don’t even know if she wants a boyfriend, it’s never something she’s spoken about. And whilst I feel comfortable asking her almost anything, that’s one question I don’t want to go near.
“Really?” he says, pulling me away from my thoughts.
“I have swimming, not girlfriends,” I grunt. “And you don’t have one at the moment either.”
“You guys are basically an old married couple anyway. You pretty much spend all your time together, and I know you like her,” he whispers to me as we make our way down the corridor.
“Of course I like her,” I whisper-shout back, looking around furtively.
“Then what’s stopping you?” He looks genuinely confused. “Come on, man. I promise to drop it if you just explain it to me. You’re being an idiot. If you don’t ask her out, someone else will.”
“I’d be a crap boyfriend,” I hiss. “I want to focus on the Olympics this year, and I can’t let myself get distracted by a relationship. If we got together and it didn’t work, she’d hate me. That’s worse than never asking.”
I pause, slightly out of breath from my monologue, and he just looks at me with a slightly sad expression.
“Wow, you’ve thought about this way too much,” Josh tells me. “It’s not that complicated, Sam.”
I open my mouth to retort when I hear someone coming up behind us.
“What’s not complicated?” Kath asks, brushing past me. Fuck. My pulse skyrockets again. I don’t know what to say.
“The school disco,” Josh cuts in smoothly. “Sam’s just figuring out how to fit training around it.”
“Are you coming this year?” Kath asks, hopeful.
And that’s when I know I’m going.
I shoot Josh a look. He knew exactly what he was doing.