Chapter Twelve Dolly #2
Or at least, that’s what I think she says. ‘Sparks?’ I echo.
‘Yes. I hear all this talk about sparks, fireworks, about feeling something deep in your chest when you see them. And then also about just knowing when you’ve met the right person.’
‘Well, yeah,’ I scramble, trying to follow what she’s saying. ‘The fireworks? That’s attraction, really. That’s not always the same thing as love.’
She shakes her head, and the moment her eyes move off me, I realise how hot I felt under that gaze. ‘I just wish it was clearer.’
‘When you have them?’
She doesn’t answer me.
‘Is this something the other girls said?’ I sigh. ‘Look, between us, I think some of them are… protesting a little too much, you know? Trying to convince themselves.’ Or the audience, I add silently. ‘Not everyone moves at the same pace, after all,’ I insist.
‘It’s not just them,’ she sobs quietly, and I realise that she’s really crying. ‘There’s all these stories about sparks, the overwhelming feeling of it. I’m used to being overwhelmed by feelings but…’
Ah. I see we’re talking about something much bigger than just Patrick here, potentially.
I move to sit beside her, offering the packet of tissues I keep by my bed. She takes one with a wet smile, and dabs at her eyes.
We’ve not been this close when we talked before. I mean, we have, but we weren’t sitting-on-the-same-bed close. It feels intimate. I can smell the sweet-sherbet perfume she douses all her clothes in.
Focus, Dolly. She’s talking about fancying her future husband. Stop thinking about how she smells.
The crumpled tissue lands in her lap. I don’t want the snot to ruin her pretty Mad Men dress, so I pick it up with my nails and replace it with David. I feel like he should be here for emotional support.
The weight of Carys’s head on the top of his squishes his face down to look very strange, and I have to stifle a laugh. Carys peers down at her capybara. ‘Oh sorry, David.’ With a couple of quick squishes, his face is pretty much back to normal.
‘But when you met Patrick today, you liked the look of him?’ I ask, trying to get us back on track. ‘And that guy you dated for ages.’
‘Mike. His name was Mike.’
‘Did you ever get the sparks with him?’
‘I think I loved him, in some ways?’
Okay, that feels like a question dodged, or perhaps she’s still answering questions I’ve already asked. God, I’m really out of my depth here.
‘To be fair, you were a teenager. I don’t think it’s weird to not be deeply in love with him when chances are you were just the first two people who mutually fancied each other.
’ I’m of the age now where friends, or, well, mutuals I suppose now, are divorcing the men they married right out of secondary school.
‘I don’t remember sparks, though,’ she says finally, as a fat teardrop lands on David’s ear. ‘Does that make me a shallow person? We had sex and I didn’t… maybe I didn’t… I mean I wanted to. I liked doing it. But does that make me shallow?’
I feel like there’s like five layers to this conversation I’m missing and yet somehow we are talking about Carys’s teenage sexual exploits.
‘Speaking from experience, and not to slut shame myself,’ I begin, and I get a little thrill when she laughs.
‘But let me just say that love is not always an essential component for orgasms. For some people it is.’
I can’t quite tell if that’s what she’s getting at, hinting at some kind of asexual or demisexual identity? I dangle the idea anyway, just in case. It would be a lot of pressure to be here if she was. ‘Do you think perhaps you need that connection to feel attraction to someone?’ I say carefully.
Really, I’m not sure if it’s my place to float this aro/ace spectrum to her.
But given the situation, examining how she feels about romance and sex might need to come sooner rather than later.
I’d rather risk a little clumsiness than miss it, if it’s the answer.
I know straight women aren’t often given the encouragement or space to think about what attraction really means for them.
After considering it for a while, she says, ‘That’s not really the issue, I don’t think.’
‘Then maybe you just weren’t that into him or in romantic love with him, in the end,’ I offer gently. ‘Like I said, that’s not uncommon.’
‘That makes me sad, though. He deserved better than that.’
The size of her heart genuinely baffles me sometimes. ‘How did it end?’
‘He broke up with me when I was at uni so he could follow his dreams.’
‘Which were?’
She sniffs loudly. ‘Being in a One Direction tribute band.’
Dear God! I pretend to cough to cover my laugh, and reach for my huge bottle of water with my name on it to chug it down. I drank too much show wine on my date today to handle this delicately and I need to sober up stat.
Carys bursts loudly into wails, hopefully not because of me laughing. The racket such a small person can generate is kind of incredible.
‘Well. That’s… unique. Have to admit I wasn’t expecting that,’ I say stiffly.
‘He had a good voice,’ she concedes, hiccupping slightly.
‘Who did he play? Harry?’
‘Niall.’
‘Oh, so he was Irish?’
‘Not even a bit.’
This is so absurd that we both burst into peals of laughter.
At least she’s crying for a different reason now. She laughs so hard that she has to clutch my arm so she doesn’t fall off the bed.
This is hysterical, or maybe literal hysteria setting in. Call the old timey psychologists! We’ve got a pair of wandering wombs.
When I can finally speak, I gasp, ‘Not even like how Americans say they’re Irish when they mean like five generations ago?’
‘Nope. English all the way down.’
I’m at least a quarter Irish on Mum’s side and Scousers are a different breed, so I feel confident when I say, ‘That might have been one of the problems with him then.’
‘One of many,’ she giggles, and I feel relieved to see her smile again.
Mike’s bizarre career choices aside, we still have spark-gate to address. Plus I really am too gay to know anything about One Direction beyond who was even in the band.
‘So… Patrick?’
‘It was fine, I think.’
Wow, endorsement of the century.
It appears she realises how flat that sounded, and continues, ‘I mean, it was lovely to see him! I like him a lot! I’m just…
I feel like there’s so much going on in my head all the time, and right now, when there’s so many other couples happening around me, it feels like I can’t make all that noise quiet again. ’
‘Okay,’ I say, mostly to signal I’m listening rather than I’m following. ‘Like the sparks?’
‘Yeah. I worry that perhaps I’ve been looking for sparks in the wrong places.’
What does Carys mean, looking in all the wrong places? I almost say, this is a heterosexual dating show – what righter place exists than this? But I manage to stop myself at the last second.
‘Well, if this has come about because you’ve seen Patrick, did he and Mike look alike?’
‘Not at all. Mike’s really fair, Patrick’s dark with chestnut hair. Different faces too. ‘It’s not that I don’t like Patrick, though. I do. I do.’
Speaking of girls protesting too much…
‘Right. So he’s not your type?’ I’m struggling to find the thematic link between a vet and an off-brand Niall. I’m about to say this, hoping to get another laugh out of her, but then she looks at me.
Really looks at me. I feel like I’m the one in the spotlight.
Carys has the kind of big sad eyes you could fall into, and keep falling. She doesn’t make eye contact much when we’re alone, which I think is why, when she does, it’s like looking at the sun.
I swear it’s just the amount of time it’s been since I last kissed someone that makes me glance at her lips.
‘I—’ she begins but stops suddenly.
‘You can tell me.’ I take one of her hands in mine in an act I tell myself is platonic.
This seems to surprise Carys. I’m about to withdraw my hand in case it’s too much, but she squeezes back.
What the hell am I doing? Hurting my own feelings for definite.
But then her face has changed. Gone is the sadness.
Her pretty mouth falls open. Her cheeks are flushed from crying, but… If this was anyone else, I would think she…
No. That can’t be it?
Heat prickles at my neck.
She’s straight.
She’s straight.
Isn’t she?
‘Dolly,’ she whispers my name like a promise. ‘They’re both men. That’s what they have in common. I think… perhaps I’ve been lying to myself about who I am for so long that it’s all coming out now.’
Oh fucking hell.
I am in trouble.
Sirens might be blaring in my ears saying get away, get up and move, stop looking at the pretty redhead, but I cannot move.
No wonder I can’t stop looking at her. I never did fall for straight girls.
She drops my hand and while my skin yearns for her touch again, I’m relieved for the space. ‘Sorry,’ she says, jumping up. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. I shouldn’t assume. I just… I wonder if I’ve been burying the real me so deep for so long that it’s spilling out now. Erupting?’
‘Like a volcano?’ I say stupidly.
When she laughs, it’s like a burst of fire in my chest. ‘The metaphor is a bit tortured but it will do. I think it’s not that I don’t like men, because I think I do, but I’m starting to realise that I like women too.’
I am hit with a barrage of feelings.
Relief, that this whole time she wasn’t asking about my connection to queer women because she was investigating me.
Terrified about what happens next.
Thrilled that she might, possibly, like me.
Shut up, brain! I’m still sitting on her bed, which feels dangerous, even if she’s pacing back and forth.
God, how the fuck do I navigate this conversation without outing myself? ‘That… sounds difficult.’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t— I didn’t—’ she splutters, whirling back and forth. ‘Fuck, I’ve made you uncomfortable, haven’t I? I’ll ask for a room transfer.’
Before I can think it through, I grab her by the wrist. ‘Carys, stop. It’s fine. I don’t feel uncomfortable.’