Free Virgin by Radhika Sanghani

the stairs before she could say anything else. I put my head into my hands, wanting to curl up in a corner, but then I saw Emma. I was still on the staircase, so she couldn’t see me from my vantage point, but I saw her walk over to a very attractive guy and start talking to him. At first he just looked pleasantly surprised, but within seconds his body language suggested he was interested. Okay, I understated—he looked like he was ready to throw her over a banister and shag her immediately.
    How did Emma find it so easy? She didn’t even let people like Hannah bother her. I trudged down the rest of the stairs, feeling the effects of my motivational speech slowly ebbing away. I poured myself a glass of vodka with a few drips of orange juice.
    I was gagging after my first sip when I saw a guy standing in the corner of the room on his own, his arms crossed. He wasn’t very attractive—his face was kind of squashed-looking and he was very pale and freckly. On top of that, he looked pissed off. He was wearing a dark red, zip-up hoody and had a book poking out of his pocket.
    He looked like a pretentious idiot. The perfect guy on whom I could practice my new confident persona.
    Without letting myself think, I decided I’d walk over and say hi. I could feel my little enzymes and cells inside urging me on.
Come on, Ellie, you can do this,
they yelled.
You don’t even particularly fancy him—you have nothing to lose.
They had a point.
    I closed my eyes and quickly walked over before I had a chance to convince myself not to. The blood pounded in my veins as I approached him.
    I smiled. “Hey, I’m Ellie.”
    He looked up at me suspiciously. “Hey. I’m Jack.”
    “Hi! So, how do you know Amelia?”
    “Who’s Amelia?”
    “Oh, um, she lives here and it’s her party. I thought maybe you’re a friend of hers.”
    “No, I’m just here with a friend, Eric.”
    “Oh right, I don’t know him.”
    “Yeah, he’s dating a girl who told him to come. Hannah Fielding?”
    Of course he was dating Hannah. Fucking typical. “Yeah, I know her. We both study English together. How do you know Eric?”
    “We work together.” He shrugged.
    I smiled. “Oh, cool. What do you do?”
    “I work in graphic design.”
    I winced. He was giving off strong
leave me alone
vibes and the monosyllabic responses suggested he definitely didn’t want me here and was about to reject me.
Come on, Ellie! You’re beautiful and brave,
I yelled at myself inwardly. I gave it one last shot.
    “Graphic design, cool. What kind of stuff do you do?” I asked optimistically.
    “Well, I really hate the idea of working for the commercial side of things, so I’m working for a small start-up in Shoreditch.”
    Typical. This guy was a total cliché and I was ready to bail. Then my new mantra popped into my head—
What would Emma do?
    I opened my mouth and a stream of words fell out. “Right, and you like underground music, you hate girls who wear fake eyelashes or nails, and you secretly want to be a millionaire—but in the meantime, it makes you feel better to say you hate capitalism or whatever.”
    He stared at me in silence with his mouth slightly open, looking like a confused goldfish. Fuck, why had I just done that? I was an idiot. Emma never would have said all that.
    I tried to undo the damage. “No, wait, I didn’t mean it like that. Sorry, I got carried away. I’m sure you’re nothing like that. It’s just that a couple of people here are, and I kind of assumed you would be too, but that’s just me being stupid. Ignore me, really.”
    Why
did I have so much verbal diarrhea? I cringed at what I had just said and hoped he wouldn’t think I was deranged. I thought about trying to explain what I meant, but at the last minute his face broke into a half grin. I breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Yeah, you’re right. I guess I am a bit of a pretentious twat. I bet capitalism and commercialism would look pretty fucking great if I was a