Chapter 56
Fifty-Six
ELI
Jesse pulled a slice of cake out of his yellow jacket and held it out to me within a minute of us leaving Vivi’s.
“You need to eat,” he said as he shook it in my face. I pushed his hand down.
“I don’t eat Victoria Sponge cake,” I said. Jesse simply pocketed it and procured a slice of caterpillar cake from his other pocket. I laughed softly. “How many slices of cake do you have on you right now?”
“Just those two. Why did you make three Victoria Sponges if you don’t like them?”
The words felt like they were sticking in my throat. Talking about this particular thing always hurt a little. But at least I hadn’t forgotten about it. I cleared my throat.
“It’s my mum’s birthday on Monday. I used to make her a Victoria Sponge every year. I’m not a baker, so I start doing practice ones around Halloween. I’ve never fallen out of the habit and end up with an abundance of sponges for about a week.”
I took a massive bite of cake and immediately felt better. I forgot how hungry the come down from a panic attack could make me. That, combined with the fact that I’d hardly eaten today, made me ravenous.
“That’s beautiful. Did you always not like them, or is that a recent development?”
“I don’t know why, but something about them has always bothered me. I love cake, I love cream, and I love jam individually, but all together, I can’t cope.”
“That’s…unique,” Jesse said slowly.
“You can say it’s fucking weird, I don’t mind. I know it makes no sense.”
“Yeah, it is pretty weird.” He paused for a deep breath.
“There is no way for me to pivot to this casually, so I’m just going to come out and say it.
We can either talk about it now while we’re walking.
Or we can wait until we get home and have a heart-to-heart face-to-face, where you will inevitably clam up because you don’t want to make eye contact while you bare your soul. ”
“Are you going to believe me if I say that it was brought on by my dead mother’s upcoming birthday?”
“No, I’m not. I think it was a contributing factor, but you could breathe just fine until you couldn’t.”
A silence fell over us as I ate the rest of my cake, the chocolate making me feel more and more human with every bite. Jesse didn’t push. He just walked by my side and waited.
We were both walking uncharacteristically slowly for two men with legs as long as ours.
“Well, the therapist that I will start seeing on Monday will tell me that it is all rooted in trauma,” I tried to joke. Jesse snorted and then levelled me with a look that told me that answer wasn’t going to work either.
All things considered, it had been a long time since I had told a friend, apart from Addie, anything too deep.
So many of my friendships had become shallower as time moved on, and I continued to be the only one of us to have experienced near-world-ending grief.
It became too hard to have to keep explaining that grief worked in waves—sometimes it was in the background, and sometimes it made you feel like you were drowning out of nowhere.
And as my friendships—and relationship—became shallower, I threw myself into work more, where I didn’t have to talk at all. Not about anything meaningful.
Jesse had never given the impression that he would be anything but supportive, no matter the ebbs and flows.
I mean, he just left his own engagement party and his fiancée on her birthday for me.
And was feeding me cake and letting me figure out my shit in real time without getting annoyed that we were walking in silence.
“It is rooted in trauma. Trauma of getting disowned by my dad for not wanting to follow in his footsteps, and the rest of the family just going along with it. I mean, before she died, Mum tried to keep in touch. She called me on a semi-regular basis. She still sent me a card on my birthday, and I saw her every year around hers, but she didn’t fight for me.
She didn’t challenge her husband on what he was doing; she let it happen. I was still expendable to her.
“And then I found out she died while I was in the middle of a shift because my sister finally remembered I existed and called me to let me know with all the compassion of a rock. And I just kept on working through that shift. I carried on working in that kitchen until May. Every time I stepped foot in that kitchen, I was reminded of this incredibly shitty thing that happened. I should have left, but it was my kitchen, and I felt bad about leaving. And beyond that, working in kitchens is what cost me my family. I couldn’t leave it behind.
“But Mum dying changed me, and it changed my relationships. For the worse. They hadn’t experienced that kind of loss and didn’t know how to manage the way my grief ebbed and flowed.
I didn’t know how to properly communicate to them what I wanted and needed.
Everything just slowly started falling apart.
And I went through the motions. For years, I went through the motions, and it was enough, I guess.
Then I walked in on my girlfriend having sex with someone else on our sofa, and I needed out.
“So naturally, I applied for a job that brought me back to London. The city that raised me and also still houses my loving family. Because it’s healthy to leave a situation where you don’t feel like you’re loveable to go back to sharing a city with the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally. ”
Jesse choked on a laugh. “So maybe it is rooted in trauma. What happened tonight? You seemed fine until you didn’t.”
I took a deep breath.
“Addie was the first girl I ever had a crush on, and she could not stand me. She wasn’t even mean about it; I could just tell that she didn’t like me because I challenged her.
And fuck, was she fun to challenge for those two years.
Once we got through our GCSEs, we parted ways, and I didn’t think about her all that much.
Crushes come and go. It was what it was.
“I knew when I applied for the job that Darren Henry was the father of the girl who once hated me. I recognised him even though we only crossed paths a couple of times at parents’ evenings.
So, I knew that it was highly likely I was going to see Addie again.
That likelihood became a guarantee when Vivienne told me that the flatmate I had agreed to was none other than Addie.
“I knew immediately that the crush I once harboured for her was about to come back with a vengeance. And it did. She is infinitely smarter than she was when we were sixteen and fucking funny. All the hard edges she had as a teenager are somehow both sharper and softer because she knows exactly who she is, and she’s not going to apologise for it.
And unlike before, she doesn’t hate me. Lo and behold, she even likes me. ”
Another laugh from Jesse. I huffed a laugh of my own.
“She likes me enough to have sex with me. And she made it clear that that was as far as she was letting it go. Under no circumstances was I supposed to fall in love with her. I don’t even know when I fell, but it happened against my will.
And that’s on me because Addie even told me that we should date other people.
Actually, she said that I should date other people because she said she didn’t date.
Which would have hurt less if she didn’t then decide to go on a date with him.
It tapped into the idea that I am not good enough to stick around for. To choose.
“Maybe if I was being confronted with this reality at a time when I wasn’t making Victoria Sponges out of pure muscle memory, it wouldn’t have hurt so much that Addie didn’t choose me, but…here we are.”
I shoved the remaining cake in my mouth and blinked my eyes rapidly to stop the tears from falling.
“She didn’t choose him. Josh, that is.” I barked out a laugh.
“I mean, she did, but it was only because Becky was doing what Becky does—meddling in the love lives of her friends. She said that Addie should give it a go, and I’m not going to pretend I know anything about her motivations behind agreeing to go on a date, but I am pretty sure that the two are linked.
And it was a bust. Addie went over to Becky’s when it was done, and the rest of the girls were there, so Clara told me the headlines.
The main one being that the date was shit and Addie was going to use it as proof for the rest of time as to why she doesn’t date. ”
Words that should have made me feel elated felt like a slap in the face. “Wait, she went to Becky’s?”
Jesse nodded slowly. “Where did you think she was?”
“She said she wasn’t coming home and—”
“You assumed that meant she was with Josh. Did you talk to her about it?” Jesse cut in.
I scoffed. “You know I didn’t.”
Jesse muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked pointedly.
“I called you both fucking idiots,” Jesse said louder. It forced a laugh out of me.
“You’re not wrong. But the damage has been done.” I shrugged.
Jesse pulled his keys out of his pocket as we approached his flat.
“What damage? Josh kissed her. It wasn’t reciprocated, and when I left, she was telling him in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t interested.
Clo and Rachel are with Addie now, and given what Rachel knows, I imagine Addie might be having some sense talked into her.
Because you two are clearly perfect for each other, and if you talked to each other about all this, you’d have the power to be a terrifyingly brilliant couple.
But that is a tomorrow problem. For now, let’s go watch a film and snuggle. ”
I smirked. “Snuggle?”
He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and pulled me closer to him. “Don’t act like you don’t need a hug. I have it on good authority that I am a good hugger.”
“Is the authority just your wife-to-be?”
“Yes. But when you take into account that Clo doesn’t hug anyone all that often, it’s quite a good authority.”
“Hmmmm, I’ll be the judge of that.”
Jesse unlocked his door and held it open for me.