“Go on.”
“It’s the language boys use, the language all of us use when we talk about girls. It’s so screwed up. Like, there are all these horrid words for being girls with no male equivalent – like ‘slut’ or ‘psycho girlfriend’. Like Tim saying ‘being tied down’ implies we’re a burden, that we, as a species, tie boys down and take away their freedom. Why do they get freedom and we don’t? Why does everyone assume boys want freedom and girls want to be attached to someone?” I took another square of chocolate and it helped my dulling hangover. “Think about it,” I continued. “When boys get older, if they don’t find someone they get called bachelors. We get called spinsters. There isn’t a word that means male spinster. Just like there isn’t a word for a guy who sleeps around – whereas there are TONS for girls. The English language itself is sexist – it reinforces these overgeneralized, screwed-up notions about how boys and girls are allowed to be…” I trailed off when I noticed them both staring at me.
“What?” I asked self-consciously.
“You’re quite smart, aren’t you, oh quiet one?” Lottie said, grinning. “I forget sometimes.”
“Well…umm…”
Amber re-flopped on the bed, causing another mini-earthquake.
“I hate the word spinster,” she said. “I’m already worried about becoming one and I’m only sixteen. And then I get mad at myself for worrying so much about meeting a guy.”
“Why don’t we reclaim it?” Lottie asked, grinning wider. It was the first time she’d smiled all day and she looked gorgeous – all lit up from inside. I felt proud that Amber and I were able to turn her round so quickly. “We can reinvent the word ‘spinster’, make it the complete opposite of what it means? Like ‘young’ and ‘independent’ and ‘strong’? She yanked out her phone again, tapping away madly, pulling up photos of a protest in London – mostly of women, waving placards and wearing miniskirts. “Look, a couple of years ago some feminists tried to reclaim the word ‘slut’. And they organized these protests called ‘slut walks’ all around the world. It didn’t completely work, mainly because slut is such a horrible word it can just never be empowering. But why don’t we try and reclaim ‘spinster’?”
Amber smiled. “I like it.”
“At the moment, spinster, technically means, what? An older unmarried woman? But it also means more than that. It’s the scary fairytale word girls are told about so we fear being unattractive to men from a young age. It means left on the shelf. It means a life wasted. It means cat lady. It means lonely and sad and bitter just because a man doesn’t want you… What if we reversed it?”
“To what?” Amber asked.
And I answered.
“Being a spinster means you value your female relationships as much as your male ones.” I thought of Jane. “Being a spinster means not altering who you are, what you believe in, and what you want just because it makes a boy’s life easier.”
They both smiled wider and Lottie took over. “Being a spinster means you’re not afraid to look at society and say loudly, ‘I don’t agree with this, this is wrong.’ Being a spinster means not worrying that boys won’t find you cute or sexy for saying those things.”
I smiled as Amber finished up. “Being a spinster means looking after your girlfriends and supporting them through whatever they need.”
I grabbed their hands – one each – and raised them to Lottie’s ceiling. “I formally announce us…SPINSTERS through and through.” And we clapped and cheered and whistled ourselves and, for the first time ever in my life, I felt strong.
Twenty-one
At my next appointment with Sarah, I told her about the party. She wasn’t impressed, funnily enough.
“I can’t believe you’re not proud of me for doing all those shots.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes over her pad full of notes.
“I work for the NHS, i.e. the institution responsible for keeping people alive and healthy. Do you know how much of our budget is spent each year looking after underage binge drinkers in A&E?”
I flung the wooden caterpillar I’d been playing with back into the toy bin. “But I willingly did something that could make me sick. I did an exposure all on my own accord!”
“I don’t think you drank all that, sambuca, was it?”
I nodded, defiantly at first, then a bit meek and ashamed.
“Well I don’t think you drank all that because you wanted to try an exposure.”
“Well I’ve told you that’s why and I don’t care that you don’t believe me.”
I crossed my arms.
I did care.
Just a bit.
Sarah left us in silence for a while, her favourite trick. Then she said, “One, you know you’re not supposed to drink alcohol on your medicine, even if your dosage is really low now.” She ticked it off on her finger. “Two, I find it unlikely you’d do an exposure that extreme, of your own accord, in an environment like a house party. And, three, you just told me about your date with that Oli guy and it sounds like you’re pretty upset by what happened with him, and by how your friends reacted.”
“So?” I bet she thought she was Miss Marple. I bet she was imagining herself in an ITV Agatha Christie drama.
“So,” Sarah said, all calm as always, “I think you did all those shots to escape the bad thoughts you were having about your friends.”
I shook my head, all no-no-no. “I didn’t have bad thoughts about my friends. They are cool and understanding and awesome.”
“And where do they think you are this afternoon?”
I blushed. I didn’t reply.
“Where?”
“Well, it’s half term.”
“Where do they usually think you are on Monday afternoons?”
“They think I’ve got last period free,” I said to my toes.
Sarah did a triumphant face. It involved a tiny eyebrow raise and a smug grin she struggled to hide.
“I do have a free period last thing on Mondays! That isn’t a lie.”
“But you don’t go straight home, do you? You come here and see me.”
“So, it’s not the whole truth, so what?”
My skin was all prickly. I felt like a hedgehog, my spikes up, ready for a fight, or protection, or whatever it is that makes hedgehogs put their spikes up. Or are they always up and they just roll into a ball? I was too busy pondering this to initially realize Sarah had produced a sandwich.
She put it on the table in front of me and instantly, every other thought – about Oli, about Guy, about the girls – vanished.
I felt sick.
“No, Sarah, not today, come on.”
She gave me a small smile. “I warned you we needed to keep doing exposures – to see how you handle them on your lower dosage. Now, have you had lunch?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Well, you can still manage a sandwich, can’t you?”
I didn’t want to touch it. I could already see its poison, glowing, invisible to everyone else, through the cardboard triangular box. I reached out slowly and took the packaging. With my fingers shaking, I turned it over and looked at the sell-by date.
I dropped it instantly. “TWO days past? Sarah, seriously? There’s meat in it.”
Sarah picked it up off the floor and put it back on the table. “What’s your number right now, Evie?”
“Why are you doing this? You didn’t warn me. You didn’t say it was today. Put it away, please!”
“Your number, where are you on the anxiety scale out of ten?”
My palms were already damp with sweat. My throat felt like I was wearing a boa constrictor as a necklace. And I was quite sure I would’ve felt less doom-filled if the four horsemen of the apocalypse had cantered in.
I gulped, hating her. “Eight out of ten.” It came out all raspy.
“Okay, eight, that’s quite high. Breathe with me, Evie.” She did an exaggerated breath in and out. I tried to copy her but the snake around my neck tightened.