Ever So Slightly

I’m sitting in a bus shelter. Because I’m a tramp and have nowhere to live.

Not really - I’m waiting for the 519 bus to Ellesemere.

Obviously.

I’ve been waiting a while, and I’ll be waiting a while longer because the bus doesn’t arrive for a good twenty minutes.

I’m sat here in this little black dress I bought from NewLook a couple of months ago. I couldn’t really afford to buy it at that point in time, but my friend was pretty keen on it too so I thought I’d better ‘get in there’ first, so to speak.

I know when I say the words ‘little black dress’, you think a classy, low neck, short skirted number, so I’ll say now that that’s not what I was wearing. It has a very high neck, with a bubble skirt and a huge bow across the chest - you’ve probably seen it if you’ve been into NewLook recently, they sell it in red too. But anyway, I digress.

I’m feeling a little overdressed actually - I knew I shouldn’t have worn the kitten heels, flats would have been so much more subtle - but at least I decided yes on the opaque tights. Nothing says ‘out for a night on the town’ like bare legs and court shoes, and I’m only going to a little party.

It’s my ex-boyfriends nineteenth, but if you ask my parents, it’s a sleepover with Ellie and a huge pizza.

Ellie’s going to be there actually, to supervise my getting drunk for the first time - I know, eighteen years old and I haven’t even been drunk yet. Seriously, someone shoot me.

I’m wondering actually, if she’ll be wearing my dress - she went back and bought it after I had in the end. “You don’t mind, do you?” she’d gushed, and I didn’t, not in the slightest.

Truth be told, I was feeling a bit apprehensive about it - I don’t usually go for things that short, and I was a bit hesitant about the humongous bow. I figured if I saw her in it first, my mind would be put at ease. Mental checklist, does she look like a slag? Is her arse hanging out? No? Then I feel good wearing it.

Only she hasn’t been anywhere in the dress as of yet.

Which is I why, right now, I do not feel that good.

I can hear voices building up behind me and turn around to see about thirty or forty kids gathered around the bus stop, waiting.

I’m a little shocked, surely all these people can’t be going to Mark’s party? This bus is pretty much the only way of getting there, short of a lift or a taxi.

I strain my neck round in the hope of catching sight of people I know.

Rhys and Mike are sitting just behind me, with a couple of girls.

Ordinarily I’d go over and say hi - I’ve met Rhys and Mike a few times before - but the girls are keeping my bum firmly glued to the bench. Nothing says desperate like a girl in a short skirt talking to an obviously attached guy - I’ve learnt this from experience.

So I stay seated, aware of how odd I look, dressed up for a nightclub, but sitting alone in a bus shelter.