19
Leaving the hotel the following morning is even more excruciating than expected. Edinburgh is alive with activity: people file through the streets, dipping in and out of bookshops and festival tents. The mood is of excitement, joy. I could not be further from them all.
Jack moves through the crowds as if I’m not there, weaving through the bookshops we’ve arranged to visit before the big event at 4.30 p.m. I follow him in a fugue state and perform my perfunctory duties, then stay at the back like a ghost, making my presence as unobtrusive as possible. It’s 4 p.m. before I realise that he hasn’t spoken a word to me all day.
In a break between shops, Jack strides off, muttering about going to find a coffee and meeting me at the event, and my phone flashes with an incoming call: Sara. Thank God. I light up at the sight of it, sitting up straighter and pressing it to my ear.
‘Hey, stranger,’ she says, and I almost cry with relief. Her voice is tired, cracking. I want to ask her how she’s doing, what’s really going on, but I feel my own problems spilling out of me before I can – I’m desperate for her, for someone, to tell me what to do.
‘S, I fucked up,’ I say, tears starting to fall as I speak.
‘What happened?’ she asks, and I can hear her shifting in her seat, her attention totally on me. A weight lifts off my chest, even as it constricts with everything I’m about to say. I take a deep breath and recount the events of the last twenty-four hours: sleeping with Jack, my mum’s wedding e-vite, the fact that I’m somehow currently living my worst nightmare, back in Edinburgh with the last person I’d ever want to be here with.
‘You slept with him?’ she says when I’m done, all tiredness leaving her voice. Despite myself, I feel a flash of hurt at the fact that out of everything I’ve just said, that’s what she picked up on. ‘What the ever-living fuck, Andie?’
I swallow the hurt and laugh. ‘Yeah. Pretty stupid, right?’
‘I wasn’t going to say that,’ she says, some of the shock fading from her tone as she processes the information. ‘But yes. Very stupid.’ I said it first, but something about Sara echoing my words stings.
I laugh again, though my chest feels hollow, and press on, sure that she’ll know what to do, how to help me through this. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I say. ‘With my mum. Or this. I feel like I’m messing everything up. There’s still a few days here, and the truce—’
Her voice cuts through mine, her tone suddenly and unexpectedly exasperated. ‘Not that truce again, A. Can’t you see that’s how you’ve ended up in this situation?’ There it is again: the tone, the judgement. My stomach drops. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s not normal for Sara. Usually she’s a gentle hand; my constant source of support. My Sara. The one who, once upon a time, would have dropped everything to help me figure this all out.
‘Ouch, S,’ I say, my throat suddenly thick. ‘Bit harsh.’
She takes a breath. ‘Sorry,’ she says, and I breathe out, relieved and hopeful that she’s reverting to her usual form. ‘I just—’ she pauses again, then sighs and continues, her tone still clipped. Dread seeps through me, and I have sudden déjà vu, the same feeling I had with the texts yesterday – that something is very, very wrong. ‘Obviously you can’t help the Edinburgh part. But honestly, this whole situation could have been avoided.’
Shame spreads through me, heating my face. My hand clenches tighter round the phone, and I’m overwhelmed with a sudden, panicked urge to justify myself. Like a child, being told off. ‘I was just trying to—’
She cuts me off again, her tone a little gentler this time, but still firm, still endowed with the sense that she’s right about this. And she probably is. But I don’t want her to be right – I want her to be my friend. ‘You were trying to do what you always do, Andie. What you’re still doing.’ I hold my breath, braced for the blow that comes. ‘You’re running away.’ The blow hits harder than I thought it would. I close my eyes, willing the tears not to come. I know that she’s right. Because she’s always right. And if she’d called me back in Berlin or answered my SOS last night, I might’ve taken this all in, might’ve listened. But now, standing in the city where it all went wrong, trying desperately to avoid the memories it brings up, her words only open a deep wound.
‘S, please,’ I say, making an attempt to get the conversation back in control. ‘I just need support right now.’
She sighs, sounding weighted down, and my stomach drops. ‘I’m sorry, A, but I don’t think I can give you that right now. You’re spiraling, and you’re hurting yourself. If you’d just listened to me—’ Another sigh, and this time I can hear the exhaustion in her voice. I press the phone to my face, intent on her next words. ‘You need to talk to Jack, to clear this all up, or it’s just going to hurt you further. And I can’t just stand by and watch that happen. If you want a best friend who is going to cheer you on while you self-destruct, you need to find a new one.’
A hole gapes inside me, the fear blowing it wide open – I can’t lose Sara, too. I squeeze my eyes closed to the streets around me, momentarily speechless.
‘I didn’t mean—’ she starts when I don’t respond, apparently realising the impact of her words. But it’s too late – they burn through me, igniting my worst fear.
‘I know,’ I say, but I’m lying, my walls going back up to protect me. ‘Listen, I’ll call you later, OK?’ I choke out, trying desperately to keep a lid on the hurt that seeps through me, overwhelming me, and hang up, my hand trembling, before she can reply.
I put the phone back in my pocket, almost shaking with the effort, my breath still coming in gasps. Loneliness rips through me. It hits me in the next second that I haven’t even managed to call my mum back, yet, I’ve been so wrapped up in my own problems. And yet the thought of her moving on in such a permanent way still brings me to my knees: I don’t know what I’d say, how I’d be able to keep it together when everything is going so horribly wrong. Sara, drifting further and further away from me. Perhaps forever. And me, on a street in Edinburgh, surrounded by memories I never thought I’d have to relive again.
I take a long, shaky breath and attempt to shut out my surroundings, pressing my hands to my temples and willing the horrible thoughts spiralling in my brain to shut the fuck up. They don’t, converging into fear, blinding fear that runs like electricity through my veins. The fear I’ve been keeping one step ahead of for years now: that if I let myself go back to that time again, it will shatter me. And this time, I might not be able to put myself back together.
But here, in this city, I can’t get away. It presses in, shutting out everything else. The car park, Jack. Those months afterwards: the call from my mum, the visits to the hospital. The memories merge, a vast tangle of pain and sadness, collapsing into a black hole I’m not sure I can emerge from this time. It’s all too much, all at once. Without warning, the image of my dad’s face in those final days drifts into the forefront of my mind, bringing with it a wave of grief so immense it paralyses me. And this time I can’t push it away. In this moment – totally alone, in the city where everything started falling apart – I need him, even just his memory, even if it hurts. He comes into my mind’s eye: larger than life, slowly wasting away. A bear hug of a man. My best friend. Gone, just like that. It hurts so much, still, even to think of it – forever: the word so final, a cliff edge with nowhere to land. My breath catches in my throat, the wave increasing with each second. But even as I hold it there, waiting for it to tear me apart, as I always knew it would, his words come to me, echoing Sara all those weeks ago. Sara, who’s always right. Who I should have been listening to, this whole time: The only way out is through .
For a moment, I hesitate, then my feet start to move as if of their own accord – as if they know where I need to go. What I need to do.
I move down the street and take a left, my step firm, the roads familiar. I don’t need to think about where I’m going – it’s like an invisible force is pulling me to where I need to go, leading me. It’s only when I arrive, my feet crunching on familiar gravel, that I allow myself to look up. The student union is busy. Somehow I’d envisioned that the car park would be empty, like it was that night. But it’s not: it’s full of students, milling around, going about their days. They pass me without really noticing my presence: perhaps they think I’m a postgrad. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Invisiblilty is good considering what I am about to do.
I walk over to the bench in the corner, by the bar, three feet from the spot, and sink down into it. I dig my nails into my knees and close my eyes, letting the memories come.