Eight Boys and a Walker girl

7 | Virginity

7 | Virginity

"And then he was like...nah, you ain't pretty enough, like- and he just ditches me for that skank! Like, who does that? Tell me, like? Actually who?"

Noises of sympathy and indignance on her behalf are made in response to this part of Jasmine Patel's mind-numbingly boring story about some guy she hooked up with at a party. I nod and shrug and sigh along with the rest of them, trying to appear interested as I lean forward to take a sip of my drink. Ew. What does the school put in this squash?

It's been this way for the past forty minutes. I've been sat here at the A-list table, with all the popular kids- and every other girl or boy in my place would be excited out of their tiny mind at this opportunity. I'm getting envious looks from all around the lunch hall- and seeing as the Popular Table is right in the middle of the room, looks are being shot at me from every direction. What I really want to do is to go up to one of them and say, "Look! I'm gone- go up and take my place! Live your so-called dream! Because you'll soon see that it isn't anything special! In fact, it's boring as fuck!"

For the first ten minutes, Nadia Richards entertained us with a long and detailed story of how her boyfriend broke up with her over the phone, almost breaking down crying in the process of retelling it, dabbing delicately at her heavily powdered cheeks. Of course, she'd taken the time to put on waterproof mascara this morning. Then her friend Mei-Li ranted about how her girlfriend cheated on her with some 'skanky sket who wouldn't know lipstick from lip-gloss'. Then Kyle Montgomery bored me to death talking about this chick he humped at a party and now is always messaging on snapchat. By the time it came round to Jasmine with her story about this guy ditching her for a prettier girl, I'm willing to poke my eyes out with a fork and eat them with spaghetti bolognese if it will save me from the torture of sitting through another twenty minutes of this drivel.

I swear, do popular kids never talk about anything interesting? In other words, anything other than make-up, parties and chipped acrylic nails?

Not that I'm hating on fashion- i don't have a problem with dressing up or painting your face or getting fake nails to feel pretty and confident. What I do have a problem with is when people don't see anything more to life than those things.

The Boys were hard to convince to sit with me. In the end, they only came because there was no table in the lunch-hall big enough for them all to sit together- and even then, not all of them. Harry's sat with the rest of the sixth form at the far end of the hall, next to the geeky-looking girl with glasses. I feel sorry for her- she's receiving glares from every other older girl in the room, and I can gather that she isn't very popular. This attention from the sixth form's hottest new boy is guaranteed to lower her status even more. Still, I'm glad Harry's being friendly to her. She doesn't look like the kind of person with a lot of friends.

But Ty, Frankie, the twins and Jodi are all sat at my table, and there are so many of us crowded around the wooden surface that people have to shout to be heard from one end to the other. Girls seem to like the twins- double the hotness and all that- and they aren't arguing with the attention. Jodi is looking smug at having the attention of so many girls, and Ty- well, he's obviously chatting up half the girls at once, running an hand through his hair and flashing grins at everybody, winking like nobody's business. What an idiot. Oh look, he's holding Kerry Olde's hand- oh wait, hold the phone, he's also holding Jasmine's hand. At the same time.

Player. I roll my eyes. What else was I expecting from a McCartney boy?

Frankie's the only one looking at all out of place, leaning back in his seat and observing the conversation without taking part. This isn't like him at all. I see his eyes flick to his watch once or twice, and smile. At least I'm not the only one who can't wait for this to be over.