why I was always so much more insecure than the others, and maybe my mum’s strictness about boys was why I didn’t get involved with them for so long.
Or maybe there was just something wrong with me.
Even now that I’d figured out eyebrow threading and finally made some amazing friends, I still felt like little Ellie Kolstakis, aged fourteen, the girl no one wanted to dance with at the school disco. I knew it was stupid. I was twenty-two now, with a cool internship, living in an East London flatshare. But when all my flatmates were going on dates, bringing people home and sharing a lifestyle that eluded me no matter how hard I tried? Yeah, sometimes I still felt pretty fucking shit.
Emma and I had met Will and Ollie in the last week of uni. I was still recovering from the joint shock of losing my V-card to a wanker and getting an STI. Emma had taken me out to the Student Union to drown my sorrows in £1 vodka shots. We were £10 in when we met Will and Ollie.
I fell head over heels in love with Ollie. He was half-black, with impossibly blue eyes, and his short hair was dyed peroxide blond. He looked like an Urban Outfitters model. In my vodka-fuelled haze, I realised he was the only man I had ever wanted, the one I was destined to meet after being betrayed by the de-virginiser, and … he was talking to Emma about his girlfriend. The romantic music scratched to a halt in my head as I realised he was firmly out of bounds.
‘Ellie?’ called out Emma, as she waved her hand in front of my face. ‘This is Ollie, he just graduated in Philosophy from SOAS, and Will, who’s studying accountancy at King’s. They were in the same halls as Amelia.’
I put on a fake smile and we spent the rest of the night getting drunk together. Emma charmed the group with funny stories while I subtly tried to take selfies with Ollie so I could sigh over them in the morning. When Will saw what I was doing, he dragged me to my feet and made me dance to music with no words. The DJ was just about to switch from the drum and bass to music I actually knew when Will started snogging the hottest guy in the club. I went to the loo and starting throwing up the ‘vodka’, which was rumoured to be paint stripper. When Emma and I tottered onto the night bus at 4 a.m. with Ollie, Will and Cheng in tow, we realised we’d found our new housemates.
Four months later, we were all living in our Haggerston home with paper-thin walls and rent we couldn’t afford. I was still partly in love with Ollie, but resigned to his love for the beautiful but intimidating Yomi, and semi-scared of Will and his financial speak. Emma was the same as always, but now that she was loved up with Sergio, I was down a wing-woman and more single than ever. It was time to call Lara.
‘Why haven’t you invited me round yet?’ she demanded, as she picked up the phone. ‘We’re meant to be best friends, but suddenly you’re all edgy living in East London and can’t invite me over?’
‘I’ve been here for four days, Lara. We only got a sofa yesterday. The fridge arrived this morning.’
‘I can’t believe you think I’m so high-maintenance I need a fridge and sofa to come over.’
I laughed. ‘Shut up, you know you’re welcome whenever. In fact … do you want to come over this weekend? I miss you.’
‘I miss you too. Oxford is so boring right now. My feminism society is obsessed with bringing down the Bulling-don Club and I’m so over it.’
‘You do realise I have no idea what you’re talking about? But if you’re bored, please get the train down this weekend. We can go out with the hipsters in Hackney.’
‘By hipsters do you mean your flatmates?’
I snorted. ‘They wish. Actually, I guess Ollie is naturally pretty cool. He’s been wearing skinnies since before they were in. But Will is definitely a wannabe.’
‘Mmm, it does feel like he tries quite hard to fit in,’ she agreed. ‘Last time we all went out together, he got really drunk and admitted he consciously tried to get rid of his Leeds accent. He accidentally used the word “brew” and almost had a breakdown.’
‘Shit. I had no idea he cared that much. It explains why he loves you though—he probably thinks you’re really posh because of the Oxford thing.’
She groaned. ‘People really need to get over those stereotypes. Half the students here are as posh as I am, as in total plebs. Anyway, how are you?’
‘Meh. Spent the whole morning tech-harming.’
‘Ellie. I’ve told you to delete Instagram off your phone. Did you do it with Facebook as well?’
‘May-be.’
She sighed. ‘We’ve been through this before. None of them actually have perfect lives. If we Instagrammed the coolest things we did, we’d have perfect lives too.’
‘I know, I know. But some of them are just like golden people. I feel like the pale people watching them on stage.’
‘Stop making Tender is the Night references. You know what happens to Dick Diver at the end. And look at The Great Gatsby. Do you want someone to shoot you in your swimming pool?’
‘At least Gatsby had a swimming pool. I’ll never even get a mortgage at this rate.’
‘Join the club,’ she said. ‘We’re the real lost generation. Screw the 1920s modernist kids—it’s totally us.’
I nodded wisely until I remembered she couldn’t see me. ‘Totally. The generation of unpaid interns.’
‘How is that going?’ she asked sympathetically.
‘Maxine is still a bitch. I’ve spent the past month just getting her NFLs and she still won’t let me write anything even though that’s why she hired me—because she allegedly liked my vlog and uni columns. Today she made me work till 7 p.m. I’m so tired.’
‘NFLs?’
‘No-fat lattes.’
‘That is so stereotypical. Who does she think she is—Anna Wintour?’
‘You say that, but apparently the London Mag makes more money than Vogue. So Maxine has decided she is the Devil Who Wears Whistles and is hell-bent on ruining my unpaid existence.’
‘Well, when I’m a high-flying lawyer who doesn’t have time to do anything, I’ll let you live in my penthouse and fetch me NFLs. I’ll even pay you.’
‘Fuck off, Lara.’
‘Love you too. Anyway, so this weekend …’
‘Yep, you’re coming over?’
‘I can do on Saturday. But if you’re free on Friday night, some of the girls from school are getting together for a dinner.’
‘Oh my God, no. Lara, you’re the one that’s still friends with them, not me. I haven’t spoken to them for years and I’m absolutely fine with that. We don’t need to change that.’
‘Ellie, stop being so dramatic.
