Chapter 6
this is me trying - Taylor Swift
A
bby stared.
‘You’re moving to London.’
‘That is what I said.’
‘Permanently?’
‘Yep.’ He leaned back in his chair, lazy satisfaction evident in his sprawl. This was third drink Erik in all his glory. Not drunk, not even close, really, but smooth and loose and radiant in his relaxation.
She let herself imagine more nights spent talking in a bar until the early hours of the morning. Stumbling back to her flat to eat cold pizza and watch dumb movies and sit on the roof until the sun came up.
They’d spent their entire childhood side by side, but they’d had so little time to enjoy being young together since.
‘What about work?’
‘They’ve offered me a position here. Basically what I do now, but from the office. Less on-site work, more planning and co-ordinating on projects around the world.’
‘But you love your job. You love travelling. Getting to be outside.’
‘I do.’
‘So…why?’ Her heart had slowed, and she could feel each heavy beat thudding in her ears.
‘There are…perks to returning. Things back here that I love more.’ Before she could process that , he continued, ‘I miss my family. And the travelling has been amazing, but I miss having a home. I want to sleep in the same bed for longer than six months and not move when I’m just getting used to it. I want to have real friends again and actually be able to hang out with them. I’m ready to put down roots, you know?’
There it was again, that twist in her stomach at the thought of Erik settling down and moving on with his life beyond her. The comfortable fantasy she’d been building in her head wobbled, but she held tightly onto it.
She’d indulge in it as long as he let her. Simply enjoy having her friend back before the inevitable took him away from her again.
‘Plus I get to spend more time with my favourite girl.’
Her stupid heart gave an honest to God flutter .
‘Who says I have space for you in my schedule?’ she teased.
‘Oh, you thought I was talking about you? Nah, Alex adopted a rottweiler and she’s the light of my life. I can’t wait to be reunited.’
‘You’re such a prick when you want to be.’
‘Only because I know you can take it, Sunshine.’ His grin was friendly and easy and he couldn’t possibly know what that phrase meant to someone who read as many romance novels as she did. ‘What about you? How’s uni going?’
Abby winced. Her research was going fine, documents and journals increasing in allocated file space on her laptop with every passing day. When it came time to use that research though—to draw her own conclusions, to use those studies to support her own thesis statement—she was met with only a blinking cursor, a blank page, and a deep sense of inferiority.
Who was she to talk about the liberation of female pleasure when she could barely have an orgasm without feeling the crushing weight of shame? How could she muse on the changing attitudes towards kinks in modern sexual encounters when she couldn’t even acknowledge and accept the list of things she wanted to try, never mind ask a partner for them?
But thanks to their careful boundaries erected almost exclusively around the topics of relationships and sex, she didn’t say any of that. Instead, she shared the broader, but no less crippling, truth: ‘Sometimes I think my parents were right.’
Erik paused with his glass halfway to his lips, staring at her with undisguised shock.
‘Maybe I should have studied something more concrete, more practical. I’ve given seven years of my life to academia and for what? I have nothing to show for it.’ She stared into the depths of her drink, willing herself to blink away the stinging sensation behind her eyes.
‘You have a Masters degree, for one thing.’
‘That’s a piece of paper.’
‘No, it’s proof that you put a shit ton of work into something you’re passionate about and made a success of it. Look at me, Abby.’ Eyes made of liquid silver bored into hers, his mouth a tight, concerned line. ‘Where is this coming from?’
She’d been working through the answer to that for the last six months.
She felt like a fraud.
For the topic she had been intent on pursuing. For thinking she had any right to work towards that height of academic achievement. And mostly, she already felt as if she’d lost the game.
‘Sometimes it feels like everyone around me has moved on and done something with their lives, and I’m still in the same place I was when I left high school, just with a few more letters behind my name. Most of my friends are settled in good jobs. Sarah is her own boss. You’re basically Captain Planet, travelling around the world saving the environment. Your brother is a finance bigshot with more money than God. And I’m trying to get people to care about the feminist implications of pegging.’
Erik sputtered into his drink, but she was too deep in her monologue to care.
‘I’ve gone into a field with extremely limited earning potential, and only a handful of options for employment. All the things my parents said when I told them I wanted to study literature. And I’ve now narrowed my options even further by focusing on a largely ridiculed area of that field. Even if I ever finish this PhD, no one is going to respect the person who tried to legitimise the role of romance novels in the literary canon.’ Abby took a long, hard breath when she finished, followed by a large swallow of alcohol that made her eyes water.
The ground jolted, and suddenly Erik was right next to her. When she glanced down, she saw one large hand still on the underside of her stool. He pulled her another inch closer.
‘That’s a lot to unpack, Sunshine,’ Erik said, his voice low and even, and the sound combined with the warm fingers wrapped around hers was already soothing the ragged edges that had been forming in her brain. ‘For a start, Alex might be a bigshot now, but do you remember what he actually studied at uni? He should not have become as successful as he did. But even though my parents thought he was insane, they supported him because that’s what parents are supposed to do. I heard their whispered concerns about what the hell he was going to do with his life, but when he came home on weekends, they’d ask all about his degree and shower him with encouragement. They never let him see those worries. I wish your parents could have trusted you the same way.
‘And you want to talk about limited earning potential? When I chose my A-levels, my parents probably thought they were getting a doctor, maybe a pharmacist. Then I applied for environmental science. And the job I’m going into now is decent. It pays alright and it has good benefits. My parents will probably be thrilled when I tell them I’m going to have a steady, stable job with a retirement plan after I’ve spent the last three years basically being a permanent volunteer. But if they were ever concerned about the choices I’d made, they never let me see it.
‘As for you, do you believe in your research? Pegging and all?’
Abby blushed furiously. After her brain had caught up to her mouth, she’d hoped he would have forgotten that slip of the tongue. ‘I believe it’s an important subject. I just don’t know if I’m the right person to do it.’
‘You’re passionate about it, though. I could tell from the first email when you asked me to read through your proposal.’
Helping women embrace their sexuality? The very thing she wished someone could help her do? If her work made only a handful of women reject and move on from the kind of shame her desires brought her…it would be worth it.
‘And I can see it all over your face now. This matters to you. It’s a great topic. It’s an important topic. No one clutches their pearls at the thought of a guy watching hardcore porn anymore, but there’s still a stigma around women reading sexy books? Which are about so much more than the sex stuff, in addition to being objectively less harmful than a lot of porn is. So don’t sideline it or minimise it. Go for it. Do something amazing with it. And show them they were wrong for underestimating you and your books.’
It was a good thing the chair under her was solid, because Erik in supportive feminist mode was…a lot to handle. Combined with the alcohol in her system, her legs had gone weak the longer he spoke. So when he gestured to her empty glass and asked if she wanted another, she nodded. Abby was already pleasantly buzzed. Well on her way to tipsy, in fact, and a fourth drink might push her over the edge. But more time to allow her limbs to solidify again felt necessary.
Erik signalled to the bartender before excusing himself to the restroom. He’d been gone less than a minute when a warm hand touched her shoulder.
‘Abby?’