Nick and Charlie. Alice Oseman

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СКАЧАТЬ don’t have Tumblr, despite Charlie trying to make me use it many times. I don’t really think it’s my sort of thing.

      Charlie rolls on to his back to make room for me and takes out his phone. I lie down next to him and pull the laptop towards me. He’s already exited Tumblr, so it probably wasn’t anything I would have been interested in.

      On another tab is the page I started reading this morning about the University of Leeds’ rugby team, which I’m gonna try and join when I get there, if I’m good enough.

      That’s where I’m going in September – the University of Leeds. It’s pretty far away; like, two hundred miles or something, and me and Charlie have obviously talked about the fact that we’ll be long distance. While it’s not ideal and no way near as great as the way we hang out every day at the moment, we’re both completely fine with it. Charlie has a Saturday job at Topman now and they pay pretty well, so he reckons he can get the train to see me every few weeks, and I can get the train back every few weeks, and that means we’ll definitely see each other at least every two weeks, if not more. And we’ll text and call and Skype all the time anyway.

      I start telling Charlie all the facts about Leeds’ rugby team – how many tiers there are at the university and whether I think I’ll be able to get in (I honestly do, I mean, I’m pretty good at rugby, in my opinion), how much their gym membership is and whether I’ll be able to get a job somewhere when I get there, whether it’s worth trying to get a sports scholarship, whether I’ll be really crap compared to everyone else, and how nice their uniform is (green and white).

      Charlie stays still on his back and listens and asks a few questions, but after I’ve been rambling on for a while I can tell he’s getting bored because his voice quietens and he starts fiddling with my sweatshirt sleeve, and then, as I’m in the middle of a sentence, he rolls on to his side and pulls me down by the back of my neck for a kiss, which sort of takes me by surprise because we’re long past the stage of needing to make out every time we’re alone.

      After a few seconds I go to move backwards, but he just pulls me further down. I laugh against his lips and I feel him smile too, but neither of us stop and after a minute or so I feel my hand subconsciously reach to run through his hair. This is a bit of an odd time of day for us to be doing this, but it’s difficult to care, especially when he surges forward so he’s lying on top of me.

      “Did you want to talk about something else?” I murmur, wondering where this has come from. I push his hair back from his forehead. I probably have a thing for Charlie’s hair.

      He meets my eyes. Then he sits up, leans back and switches on the radio. The Vaccines are playing. He moves back down, tilts his head and says, “Not really,” and then his lips are on mine.

       CHARLIE

      Basically, I hate hearing Nick talk about university.

      I’m a horrible person.

      He’s ridiculously excited about going to uni. And he should be. I’m glad he is.

      But lately he’s been talking about it all of the time. And every single time he mentions it, it just reminds me that we’re approaching the end of this. That come September, I’m getting left behind.

      Basically, I’m scared.

      People keep messaging me on Tumblr about it too and they haven’t been helping. I’ve got quite a lot of followers on Tumblr and many of them are weirdly interested in Nick and I. I think it’s probably because we’re both boys. Everyone on the Internet’s obsessed with same-sex couples. I delete questions about our sex life on literally a daily basis.

      So as soon as I mentioned that we’d be long distance from September, I was flooded with asks about how I should be prepared for all the horrible things that come with long-distance relationships. And they’re pissing me off. I stopped answering them a couple of days ago, but people are still sending them. I don’t even understand why all these people care that much to make the effort to send me messages about it.

      Thankfully, Nick doesn’t mention university for the rest of the day, not when we take his dog Henry for a walk, not during dinner, not while we’re watching Alien. When he wanders off to have a shower at around ten o’clock, I check my Tumblr inbox again, and there are even more now.

       Anonymous said:

      Have you talked to Nick about what it’s gonna be like when he goes away? I know so many couples that tried to make it work when one of them went to uni and they all ended up breaking up. You should really at least talk to him about it.

       Anonymous said:

      isn’t it weird u’ve been together so long tho??? like 14 is so young to get into a relationship.. u shouldn’t feel like u have to stay in ur first relationship forever…

       Anonymous said:

      Dude long distance never works, trust me it’s better to end it now and save yourself the pain

       Anonymous said:

      Everyone should go into uni single!! University years are your sexiest years!! Gotta bang as many people as you can!!!!

      I don’t really want to bring this up with Nick because I don’t want him to feel bad for going to university. He’s completely right to be excited about it.

      It doesn’t matter how I feel about it.

      Nick returns from the bathroom in just pyjama shorts, rubbing a towel over his hair. “What’s up?”

      “What?”

      “You’re frowning again.”

      I quickly close the Tumblr app. “Am I?”

      He walks over to the mirror and picks up his hairdryer. “Yep.”

      “Maybe that’s just my face.”

      “Nah, your face is usually way nicer.”

      I hurl a pillow in his direction, but he steps to one side to dodge it, laughing.

      I can’t tell him about this. He’d feel awful. He’s had enough of feeling bad because of me. I’ve already been the most annoying boyfriend in recorded history, what with all my mental health stuff.

      “Come take a selfie with me,” I say. “I want to piss off my Tumblr followers.”

      Nick grins and puts down the hairdryer. “Why would that piss them off?”

      “Selfies piss everyone off.”

      “So passive aggressive.” He walks over to the bed and flops down next to me.

      I open the camera on my phone and before he has the chance to say anything about it, I kiss him on the cheek and take the photo like that.

      Nick laughs again. “Oh, you’re doing that on the Internet now, are you?”

      I wrap my arms around him. “You know it’s what they all want.”

      “At СКАЧАТЬ