I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

Chapter 1

Now

If you were to press pause on the dancefloor of my life, this is where you’d find me: in sweet desperation, flinging myself across a room to rugby-tackle strangers, in an attempt to catch the bouquet (of a bride I haven’t seen in years) to Gwen Stefani’s ‘Hollaback Girl’. Screaming.

Fucking weddings.

I know the superstitious tradition. I know what it means. But you know, I’ve surprised myself by accidently having a gorgeous time, and everyone else is trying to catch the bouquet, so why not me? I should know better than to follow a crowd. I can hear my mum now: If everyone else jumped off a cliff, Ella Cole, would you? Maybe I’m doing it for all the times I’ve said things like this don’t happen to people like me and sat on the sidelines of my life eating Flame Grilled Steak McCoy’s instead of taking a chance? Probably, most likely, I’m doing this because – well – I’ve drunk about 17,000 units of various cheap alcohol and I don’t know who many of these other people are. So, it’s fantastic really. I’ve got a free pass.

Right now, I’m that champ. Why, it’s as if since doing those three yoga classes on YouTube, I’ve become some next-level athlete and my best friends are cheerleaders. Aoife, Ronks, Bianca – all lovely losers like me – proudly clapping in an enthusiastic semi-circle, egging me on. And I’m the clumsy, unassuming underdog that they’re all rooting for to bring Mia’s bouquet home. A bolt of spontaneous lightning, a local superhero in a that-bit-too-tight hot-pink Eighties jumpsuit with ginormous shoulder pads and gold buttons.

This is the trillionth wedding (third) we’ve had to go to this year. People we know seem to be busting into their thirties with a bang! Like eggs hatching – once one goes, they all seem to go. They’re cracking all over any building they can transform into a function room: warehouses in London, ex-barns in Sussex, ruins in Edinburgh. Our diaries are now punctured with them. Weekends snatched, bank accounts raided. I don’t want to not be invited because yes, of course my feelings would be hurt but at the same time PLEASE DO NOT INVITE ME TO YOUR WEDDING! Where I have to dress up and be fun and pretend I’m not hungover from another thirtieth birthday party the night before that I also felt like I couldn’t say no to or not drink at because then everyone would ask if I was pregnant or on anti-biotics or having a breakdown. How is anybody affording this lifestyle anyway? Financially. Physically. Emotionally? So, please don’t invite me outside. At all. Ever.

And yet, here’s me, in the thick of it, sweating, begging to catch Mia’s bouquet like my life depends on it. What can I say? I’m a romantic at heart and weddings make everyone go a bit weird anyway, don’t they? Unsurprisingly really, when you’ve been asked to Save a Date longer than it takes for a tin of corned beef to expire.

Summer is over and we’ve been freezing our tits off in a derelict dilapidated ex-biscuit factory where everyone’s running around saying ‘Can you believe this was an old biscuit factory?’. Mia’s parents have dug into the cobwebby cellars of their pensions to hire a half bulldozed building site that, let’s be honest, we probably should be wearing hard helmets inside. But once love arrives, draped in lights and hydrangeas, the fairy tale bursts into life: stardust.

My friends and I have been trying really hard to be adults all day. Bless us, we acted terrifically sober even though we’d already knocked back two gin-in-tins each on an empty stomach on the way here. Despite Bianca already harbouring that why does that girl keep looking at me? energy (nobody was looking at her), we stay calm. Tame. We’ve been on our very best behaviour, taking it all seriously for our old school friend Mia and her big day. Acting like we are the kind of people that carry a pop-up chemist on their person: tissues, blister plasters, gum, paracetamol, Vaseline, toothpicks.

Aoife, my best friend of over twenty-five years, got her lashes done for this one; Bianca squished her tattoo-covered body into a bodycon dress, today’s blue hair slicked into some fraudulent bun; and Ronke, seven months pregnant, still showed up in a heel and goddam fascinator for fuck’s sake! Clutch bags replaced our usual reliable rucksacks and bumbags, our everyday trainers and sliders now peep-toe wedges. Except for Bianca, who is making a point of being as stompy as possible in her Doc Martens.

During the ceremony, we whisper politely, shuffling and shushing each other nervously along the charming mismatched wonky wooden chairs – you know those old church ones with the slot at the back for the Bible? We flip our phones to airplane mode and speak to Mia’s parents in our best grown-up podcast voices. ‘So good to see you,’ we lie, even though we’re convinced her dad hates us. My face is already aching from its permanent smile because you never know when you’ll be caught off-guard in a wedding photo, so to be safe, you have to be beautiful, dutiful, happy all the time at all the bits. You don’t want to be the only frown. Caught out, doubting the love. Everyone zooming in on your cynical face in the background, thinking it will never last. Glaring into the abyss of existential dread.

So, I am smiling my head off, and, before I know it, the formalities and rituals are giving me the giggles. The ridiculous pomp and ceremony makes me feel like we’re kids in a school nativity with inappropriate tea towels on our heads. Or trying to do the Ouija board at a sleepover. Aoife feels me laughing and pinches my arm – ‘Ella, shhhh’ – only to burst out laughing herself. When I hear her laugh, I know I shouldn’t, it’s bad – terrible – but I begin to laugh harder. Ronks lets out a snort – and she’s not even tipsy – and Bianca starts to cry; she can’t help it. Our bodies are vibrating side by side, trip-wiring ourselves into more giggles. Trying to hold in the laughter only makes it funnier.

‘I can’t breathe,’ I wheeze, clinging onto my chest. ‘It’s not even funny – I don’t know why I’m laughing so hard.’ We already know we’re going to be left with a six-pack after today.

When the room is full, Mia’s fiancé looks down the aisle for her in the exact same way I look for food coming from the charcoaled grill of Nando’s: longingly. Something shifts.

The players of a string quartet glance at each other silently, then start to play ‘Time After Time’.

And it’s got me.

Don’t cry. Oh, I’m crying. What is this emotional rollercoaster?

Aoife asks, ‘Shit, are we unhinged?’

‘I have been flagging this for a while now.’

Tears involuntarily come, carving through our foundation in zebra stripes.

And we turn to see our school friend Mia, the elegant bride, grace the aisle: a visiting angel, a J’adore advert, a Disney princess, Aphrodite. Mia, who I always thought was just as perfectly strange as me but isn’t because someone she loves actually loves her back in the same way.

Wait, am I terrified that it will never be me? That I’ll end up a shadowy ghoul with a hungry soul, wailing, haunting the earth’s crust, picking at the thorny shrubs of the dirt at the end of the world, unloved? Or worse, that it will be me, but I’ll be marrying the wrong person. Not the love of my life. That the fairy tale will be wrong? Am I crying because I know this is something I’ll never have? Unless I settle. Or lie. Or marry myself.

‘Mia Bennett,’ Aoife whispers into my ear; her breath smells of Wrigley’s Extra – the blue ones. ‘Who’d have thought? She’s a friggin’ goddess.’

‘That’s exactly what she is,’ says Ronke.

‘She’s made it alright,’ Bianca agrees.

We take our seats and watch two people in love make their promises. I take photos on my phone because that’s what everyone else is doing. Even though we all know the photos will go nowhere, just sit on my phone until I am free of guilt enough to delete them. At the you may now kiss the bride bit, Aoife elbows us in the ribs to offer a crumbled cereal bar that she’d split into quarters. ‘Weddings need safe spaces’ – she nods as if it’s a gap in the market – ‘just a darkly lit room with some beanbags and soft cushions, you know, somewhere at the back, to run to and cry?’

At the reception, I pick up yet another glass of the cava they keep calling champagne from the little round trays, overly thanking the waiter like they’ve just resuscitated me.

‘I’m saying Yes to everything tonight!’ I announce, and this decision cheers me up enormously.

‘Everything?’ one of those annoying drunk and sloppy NOBODY-ASKED-YOU-ACTUAL-DAD dads pipes up.

‘Ew. Do we know you?’ Bianca turns her back on him.

‘Ooooo canapes. Well posh.’ Ronks grabs a handful from a tray. We tip the tiny squares of toast carrying cress into our mouth like oysters but they dissolve disappointingly like Skips.

‘They aren’t as good as my ones,’ Bianca says, already unhooking her blue hair from the flowers and pins.

‘Don’t,’ Aoife warns, holding her throat.

‘What you do is you take a Mini Cheddar—’

Ronks puts her finger to Bianca’s mouth. ‘STOP. IT!’

‘Chew it but don’t swallow; instead regurgitate, spread the mixture with your tongue onto the next Mini Cheddar.’

Aoife retches.

‘Why does it sound worse because your tongue is pierced?’ I ask.

‘Like a little spoon for spreading, innit?’ Bianca cackles, biting the stud of her piercing between her teeth like a bullet.

We are directed to our the only girls from secondary school that Mia likes but not enough to invite partners table of eight, which is very close to the toilets and fire extinguisher. The four other girls, already seated, who we know – vaguely – wave at us politely as we find our places. Love your jumpsuit, Ella; that vintage? If having something in your wardrobe since you were twenty-one means vintage then yeah I guess it is.

They begin taking control by passing around a basket of bread, far more Teddy Bears’ Picnic than I’m sure they’d like. I wolf down a seeded stale bread roll, fork at my mushy vegetarian main and gulp back white wine, exhausted, already, by the continuous quiet stress-drip of small talk from the girls – sorry, other women – playing show-and-tell with photos on their phones of babies, dogs, cold-water swimming and house renovations. I swear this is what Facebook is for? And why I am not on Facebook. It’s like a school reunion where everybody seems to have established actual successful lives. Charity CEO. GP. HR. PR. PA. Masters upon masters. I’m a consultant. Cool, I say, consulting in what?

Bianca drains her glass, grabs her handbag and hisses ‘Fuck this’ in my ear before clomping off towards the giant doors to smoke. I’m so jealous of her escape. My yearning glance is interrupted with a: You still writing, Ella? I look at the girl/woman asking, like the word ‘writing’ is one I don’t understand, and I have to catch up. Yep, still at it, I say, then comically raise my fist to the sky like the woman with the red spotty bandana in that American wartime poster. I ask, to be polite, Are you still … lawyer-ing? And she looks at me like ARE YOU HIGH? and says, Yes, I’m still a barrister; I only worked my whole life for it. Like I haven’t worked my whole life to lie about in my pyjamas making shit up all day. A writer is a pointless job that absolutely nobody needs. I’m not academic or, let’s be real, relaxed enough to earn the title. My imposter syndrome, chronic. Published, right? People always have to check you’re solicited. Absolutely nobody likes the terrifying thought of you running around being creative off your own back: delusional, barking up wrong trees in blind faith, debt mounting, ripping through binbags at midnight to eat rotten chow mein like a starved, wild racoon whilst having all these big ‘dreams’ and great ‘ideas’.

I published a book of poems when I was twenty-one. A book I can’t even look at now without cringing. I got a lot of press at the time: POET FOR THE iPOD GENERATION. ELLA COLE IS A POET WHO DEFINITELY DOESN’T KNOW IT. The press cuttings, once sun-drenched, are now in a plastic box under the bed, my plaudits no longer relevant or valid, my press shots terribly dated. I’ve been living off royalties ever since. Not from the book, unfortunately, but from some adverts I wrote in a day and a half, back when all the brands decided they loved poems. A piece for TV and radio about how a fizzy drink can bring people together has been my greatest earner. The message being: if you don’t drink this drink, you’ll die alone. My soul, sadly, sold to the ‘Dark Arts’ bit of the arts. I do a lot of that now to make a living – freelance, helping adverts with words.

I don’t tell any of this lot that though, just say, Yes, I’m published. When they ask, Anything we might know?, it’s like Yes, probably quite a lot if you switch on the TV. But I shake my head and say, Doubt it. Oh. Disappointment for me and themselves. They thought they were about to meet a famous person.

Aoife kicks me under the table with her espadrilled wedge like don’t do yourself like that, so I clear my throat and offer, I’ve actually just finished my first novel … Lol. Because lol is what you say when you actually want to cry. Oooh. They perk up. I’d made a promise to myself – annoyingly out loud and in front of Aoife – that when I turned thirty I would submit my first novel, which I’ve only spent the past four years writing, to my agent. But now that I actually am thirty, I’m scared to let it go because everyone will know I’ve tried. It was fine when I was twenty-one. Now, it’s exposing, embarrassing actually. It takes a lot as an adult to say, I’ve written a book. It’s presumptuous – the hours, the effort, the sacrifice, the discipline, all those words. Then comes the hard bit – the reviews, the judgement. I want the whole world to read my work except anyone who knows me.

What’s it about?one of them asks. It’s a romance. Calm down, Lord Bloody Byron. But without the … I pull a face to mean sex scenes.

One of the girls bangs the table with her gavel of a wedding ring and demands, Have you ever heard of … and goes on to only name the No.1 romance novel that sits on the whole world’s bedside table and is now a major Hollywood movie. The table reacts with a gush. Ow. I LOVED that book. She clutches her chest. I smile like I’m so delighted that they’re all reading this big famous book that isn’t mine. Aoife tries not to crack up with laughter at my suffering; Book Club has begun and I’m somehow the host for a book I’ve not read. I’ve always wanted to write … one of them confesses, as if I’ve never heard anybody say that before … I feel I’ve got a book in me.

‘Everyone’s got a book in them,’ Ronks replies, ‘but not everyone needs to read it – do you know what I mean?’

The table laughs. Ronke winks at me. I love her for it.

After pushing creamy loveless dessert around our plates, the others get up to mingle.

‘Is it time? Are we allowed yet?’ I ask Aoife with desperation. And we both undo our belts and zips, letting our bellies flump out, and breathe a sigh of relief.

‘I honestly thought they were never going to feed us; what kind of nasty endurance test was that?’ Aoife complains. ‘I’m too old for mind games.’

We slump back into our chairs with ecstasy as our dislodged organs find their natural resting places.

‘Why do I do it myself? I’m two sizes bigger than when I last wore this dress; I need to accept that. Look at my poor belly … ’ Aoife points at the crimped grooves from the seam before rubbing her skin with affection. ‘I think I was going a bit mad. I said fabuloso earlier.’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ And we crack up laughing, looking out at these people we barely know mingling around a red velvet cake (my worst – but I’ll eat it) to The Killers. How soon is rude to leave? Then ting ting it’s time for more cava in champagne flutes, cava we don’t seem to have been given because we’re forgotten stragglers at the back so we scramble for the dregs in our finger-smudged glasses.

Mia’s husband steps up to the microphone. ‘I’d like to make a toast … ’

Shit, best do my buttons back up already.

‘Mia,’ he begins, ‘sometimes I wake up and think I must be in a dream to be with you. And if I am dreaming – sleeping or … in a coma – then please, never wake me up.’

The room yelps and swoons. Applause. Tears bubble in my eyes.

‘Bad News,’ snorts Bianca, appearing from behind us, stinking of the 600 Camels she’d smoked. Where the hell has she even been? ‘They’re making us pay for the bar now.’ Her fake eyelash hangs off. ‘What a piss-take. Some of us are on probation here! It’s not like I haven’t had to sell my clothes to be able to even afford a new dress for today! Then they’ll want money towards a honeymoon.’

I haven’t told her that the ‘honeymoon’ money is going towards the deposit for a flat. Mia told me. Turns out, if you want to get a deposit for a house fast – throw a wedding and invite three hundred people.

‘I feel like I’ve been mugged.’ Still Bianca fumbles for her bank card in her splurging handbag, which vomits tampons, a loose mascara wand and a weed grinder that rolls out like a circus act across the biscuit factory floor. ‘Shots?’

Tequila. Sambuca. Café Patrón.

Cut to me in the designated smokers’ area, cigarette hanging out my mouth (WTF?) – telling Aoife, Bianca, Ronks (anyone who will listen) – that Jackson – my boyfriend – and I don’t have sex any more; is that normal? We haven’t in ages and I’m fixated on it becoming an issue; we’re flatlining and I’m taking it personally. Bianca’s livid: Just pounce on him tomorrow morning, she says; that’s what I’d do. No shit, Bianca, but Ronke agrees: It works both ways, she says; you have to make an effort too, Ella. Some girl begins to give me advice. It might be golden but I can only make out one in every seven of the words she slurs.

Enter the siren’s song of Britney’s ‘Toxic’ resounding like a choir of angels, and we kick our shoes off and run to the dancefloor. Turns out that hours of being nice and patient to everyone without one sip of water takes its toll. Like Gremlins that did eat after midnight, our true selves come out. Hair comes down or scrapes up into topknots. Abdominals relax. Lipstick smudges and skirts hike. We did good today. We pat ourselves on the back. We’re the life and soul, turning it up. And it’s to Destiny’s Child’s ‘Lose My Breath’ that I lose all sense of dignity and pride.

So, when it’s time to ‘throw the bouquet’, who could have known it would be me, in the thick of it, elbows out, ready to catch my fate?

The flowers take me down with their weight, heavy and wet, knuckles kissing the dancefloor as I bow like the branch of a tree to catch them. Surprise, gasps, laughter, the room applauds. Aoife and Bianca scream; Ronks films me. My shocked face is apparently priceless. I never catch anything. I never win anything. The photographer snaps photos – bedazzled … stunned – a halo of silver stars around me like I’m Miss World.

‘Congratulations!’ says Mia’s nan with a grip so hard she could kill a minotaur. ‘That’ll be you next to walk the aisle then, love. Got anyone special?’

It could be a coincidence (it’s definitely a coincidence) but it feels like a targeted attack when the DJ plays the next song. I know it by the feeling; the feeling always comes before the sound. I feel it before I hear it. It’s my ‘friend’s’ (the ‘’ are important) band, True Love. It’s him. Lowe. The guitar line, the melody in those recognizable chords, his voice, warm syrup over sponge, always collapsing me to mush. And I shove it down, just like I always do, and excuse myself.

In the toilets, Book Club are doing coke off what I’m pretty sure is a nappy bin. They look at me with an oh, it’s just you and get back to it. No one ever offers me drugs. Do I just give off that boring scent? The irony that now is the one time I could probably really use a drug. Some sort of pain relief. A droplet or two of Rescue Remedy at the very least. The acoustics of the bathroom make his voice jump and vibrate off the walls. I find a cubicle, sloppily slam the door behind me and slump on the toilet with my jumpsuit round my ankles. It’s fitted, so I am not wearing a bra, which feels extra exposing but also fun. A one-piece is great until you realize you will spend a lot of your time sitting naked on toilets. Boobs hovering above spread thighs in contemplation.

I think of him.

Of course I do. He lives rent free in my head. Does he think of me? I want him to be doing something, somewhere and stop. And for that one second think of me. Let that moment of his be mine. Let his hairs stand on end in some contagious shudder of ET telepathy. I have the urge to speak to him. I should know better, trust that I’ve been here a million times before, that the feeling always passes. Find the wisdom to remember that another passage of time will go by where I won’t even think of him and I’ll be grateful that I didn’t send that impulsive message.

I take my phone out … I search for his name in my phone book, heart beating – I’m going to do this tonight. I’m going to text him. It’s a great idea … isn’t it? Isn’t it?

But then the cubicle door flies open with a bang. Shit, the lock. I leap up to slam the door shut. ‘Sorry!’ I shout out even though the door-pusher should be the one apologizing. But it’s too late: Mia’s father-in-law has seen it all. Mainly the hovering boobs.

He’s so angry with embarrassment, I hear him muttering something prehistoric about ‘the trouble with unisex toilets’. And, as he storms out: ‘I’ll take a piss by a tree!’

Well, that was sobering. I put my phone away.

The door barges open again and I hear Aoife’s familiar voice: ‘They’re playing “Young Hearts Run Free”! Where is she? Ella! You in here?’ Aoife kicks the cubicle door next to me wide open.

‘Yeah,’ I call out, ‘I’m here!’

Followed by Bianca: ‘Did Mia’s dad-in-law just see your tits?’

But I don’t answer because I don’t care. Because I’m not here; I’m back there, back where it all began.