Chapter 44 #3
Glad he’s helping – let me know if you need anything?
You got this. You’re incredibly strong
I LOVE YOU!
Thanks
I’m doing better. Actually writing a new book!
Ronan thinks it’s great and useful to keep me stable so I’m going to keep going with it
He’s been great
Omg Mal that’s amazing!!!
I’m so glad you’re writing again!!
You are SUCH A GOOD WRITER!!! AHH!
Fancy a coffee soon to discuss (gossip)?
I’m in a proper flow with writing at the moment – shall I message you when I have some free time?
Don’t worry about me – if I go quiet it’s just because I’m in the zone
And thanks – I think it’s a lot to do with Ronan’s encouragement – but I’m excited
It’s a romance! <3 <3 <3
Oooh a romance
Sounds amazing. Can’t wait to hear all about it
I’ll tell the others you said hi on Friday
Xxxx
You sure I can’t pop round?
Just to say hi?
No no – I’m doing fine
Speak soon xx
I stare at the messages I didn’t write. He’s been replying as me. My fingers begin to move.
Joanie – this is Mal
I didn’t write those messages – it was
But I stop, because I realise the first thing she will do is message him and ask. I remember the night of the party. Seeing her message on Ronan’s phone. Hope Meek Mal gave you some fun in the end. She goes to him now. He is where she finds her truth. Not me.
And Ronan will check this phone, too.
I need to keep things the way they are. Just for now.
I delete the words that I have typed to Joanie and quickly scan through the other unread messages.
One is from Mum about train times, sent three days ago, and the other from a client saying they hope I get better soon.
I glance above the client’s message to see that Ronan has messaged them too, saying that I won’t be available for a couple of weeks because I am recovering from a short illness, like something from a Jane Austen novel. Like I have consumption.
I turn the phone off, put it back in the sock and place it meticulously where I found it – making sure the material of the heel is poking out the exact same amount as before. I check the shoe boxes are precisely as they were, and when I am certain, I close the cupboard.
A memory surfaces. This time, it’s not about my mother, but about Nick.
I am stood at a bar with him, visiting him at university in Leeds.
The floor is sticky and the whole place smells like Red Bull.
We are ordering drinks and a boy sidles up next to him.
They glance at each other. It is only a brief moment, but I notice the look between them.
The smiles they exchange. Coy, understanding, flirtatious.
I realise there is something in this second that I can’t understand.
An understanding born from a history, a history I do not know, a history of the forbidden, that appears to make the exchange all the more exciting.
They both know, in their bones, that the look between them is theirs only.
I feel the heat of tears down my cheeks at the realisation that I will never meet that person.
I will never know him. The life he could have led.
The person he could have been. The smile he shared with that boy at the bar...
He never introduced me to that person...
Because for some reason. For some reason he felt that he could not be that person.
I don’t blame my mother.
I don’t. But she was so desperate for her children to appear a certain way. Living vicariously through us. He might have felt the weight of that pressure.
My father. Could it have been his fault?
But he was absent. He barely knew Nick – and Nick never seemed to care.
Can someone’s lack of presence cause that amount of pain?
Nick never mentioned him. It seems so unlikely that it would be the thing to send him over the edge.
Perhaps something happened? Something he was ashamed of?
Something he felt he couldn’t speak about.
A date gone wrong. A sex party. Like the T-Party.
I wonder if Nick was on Grindr. And if he was, what his profile name would have been. Polite, quiet, shy? Did he have fun? Or did he meet someone, someone like Mo?
And was it a mistake, what he did?
Was he not in his right mind?
Does it matter?
I would have been there for him. I would have. I hope he knew that. But perhaps I was too busy thinking about myself, my own problems, to ever notice him fully.
I think perhaps I was.
I do. I am angry at the spots of tears falling onto the tiles – I feel pathetic.
Ronan called me a narcissist.
Maybe this is true.
I will never know Nick’s story. I will never know what happened. All that can be done now is to try to fill in the gaps. It doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem OK that he is not here to tell it to us.
I quickly make my way to the en suite, to get the laptop. To see if Stan has replied.
Wait.
It’s not here.
If it’s not here, it should be in the kitchen. And it wasn’t in the kitchen.
I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Ronan. He must have taken it. The one person who cannot see what is on it.