Chapter 18
It doesn’t take me long to get to Felix’s house, but I barely even know I’m walking anyway.
It’s like my brain is too buzzy and full of thoughts and distractions to register my steps from Laurie’s to Felix’s.
As if by magic, I’ve made it to the corner of his street, and as soon as I turn the corner I start to wonder why I’m there, what I think I’m going to get from him.
But I know just seeing someone familiar will make me feel a bit better, a bit more at home in the world.
So I carry on, until I’m at the end of the gate leading up to the front door to the house where Felix lives with Oscar and Mitchell, that tidy garden and the paving stones a sharp contrast to the slightly neglected ex-council block I just left.
And then I see them. It’s like a huge cosmic joke. Of course. Of fucking course.
That stupid, floppy blond hair and that stupid, ugly, brightly coloured fleece and those stupid slippers can only belong to one person and that’s stupid Felix shitting Balfour and he’s kissing some girl with long red hair on the doorstep and of course that’s exactly what would happen to me right now because why wouldn’t it?
Why would something good and nice and reassuring happen to me today when I needed it?
I can make it be like I was never here at all.
It never happened. I spin around and start walking away so quickly I can almost convince myself I was never even here.
I’m certainly quick enough to have managed not to be seen by either Felix or the girl, but that’s not enough for me.
I want to be able to erase it from my own memory, obliterate it all completely fuck fuck fuck why can’t this be the thing that went into my black memory hole why did I do this why did I come here why did I think it was going to be different?
I need to go home. I need to get the hell out of here. I need to be with people who will actually make me feel like everything is vaguely OK in the world. I need to go home.
The whole way home on the bus I feel like I’m vibrating with unhappiness, like the fear and the anxiety and the disappointment are radiating off me and people can see it.
This is the thought that shocks me the most: that I could feel like this about myself.
It makes me wonder if I’ve just been completely deluding myself this whole time about who I am.
I suppose I thought I was . . . sort of invincible, and now I know I’m not.
I didn’t know I could be someone who people mess with and who gets messed around.
A tragic, pink-haired clown girl. Pathetic.
My hand is shaking as I put the key in the lock when I finally make it home, like everything has built up inside me and has to come out somewhere.
From the front door I can see directly into the kitchen, where Aleesha is painting her nails at the kitchen table (she’s not been seen with naked nails since her trip to Le Salon de Mary-Elizabeth), while Morgan taps away on her laptop.
A cosy Sunday scene. Two steaming cups of coffee sit on coasters, and I realise I want nothing more than this.
To be home, with my flatmates, in the kitchen.
Both of them look up as I disturb the serene tableau.
‘There she is!’ Aleesha says at the sound of me emerging into the flat. She sounds joyful, but also a bit relieved, like she was worried about me until I showed up.
‘Where have you been, eh?’ Morgan asks. ‘Snuggled up with Felix?’
It’s only then that the floodgates open and I properly let myself cry, in the safety of my flat, in the safety of my flatmates.
‘Mate!’ Aleesha carefully but quickly puts the top back on her nail varnish and stands up, holding her arms out, fingers awkwardly splayed, defensively guarding the wet nails.
‘I just feel really stupid, you know?’ I say into her shoulder.
‘Why? What happened?’ she coos gently as Morgan gets to her feet and comes over.
She wraps her arms around both of us, a tight, warm hug that miraculously does make me feel marginally less like a piece-of-shit worthless person.
‘Did something happen to you last night? I did have this . . . this feeling but just dismissed it. God!’ Aleesha shakes her head.
‘Too many things to explain,’ I say, feeling overwhelmed with everything that’s happened in the past twelve hours.
‘Try us.’ Morgan leads me to the little rickety kitchen table and flicks the kettle on. ‘You can have mine. I just made it and haven’t drunk it yet.’
‘No, I can wait!’ I insist, but my voice comes out high and shaky.
Aleesha slides the coaster and the mug in front of me. ‘Drink up, girlie.’
Morgan hoists herself up and sits on the edge of the work surface as the kettle boils, crossing her arms over her chest, her fuzzy black jumper hanging off one shoulder.
The sight of her sitting there, nibbling on one of her short, stubby, unvarnished nails, is so obviously the kind of comfort and familiarity that I needed that it strikes me as profoundly stupid of me to think I was ever going to feel this by going to see Felix.
What did I think was going to happen? What kind of love and attention did I think he was ever going to give me?
‘Did the night . . . go badly or something?’ Morgan asks.
‘No, it went really well!’ I take a sip of coffee. Pure comfort.
‘It felt like it was going really well! It was one in, one out by the time we left!’ Aleesha says, which makes me glow with a little bit of pride, despite it all.
I nod. ‘Yeah, it was great . . . Amazing attendance.’
‘So then . . .?’ Morgan lifts her eyebrows expectantly before busying herself with making herself another coffee.
All I can do is shrug. ‘I don’t know exactly, but I think someone must have spiked my drink. At the end. Because I can remember the whole night, but then . . . as soon as I’m starting to pack up, it’s all just . . .’ I wave my hands vaguely. ‘Gone.’
‘What the fuck?’ Aleesha’s face is ashen. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Did anything happen?’ Morgan asks nervously.
I shake my head. ‘No, thank God . . .’ I swallow.
‘Someone I know from Quad was still there at the end and realised I was acting weird, I guess, so took me home, back to his house, and put me in bed and he slept on a chair.’ I realise in that instant that I don’t want to talk about him at all, because I don’t know what to say about it. I want us to move on from Laurie.
‘So nothing . . . you know, bad happened?’ Aleesha asks resolutely.
‘No, I promise. I would tell you if it did.’
‘Insanely scary though. I’m not surprised you’re upset about it,’ Morgan says, before taking a sip of coffee from her replacement mug.
‘I just can’t get my head around it . . . this big black hole in my memory . . . It’s really rattled me, even though I know I’m safe.’
‘Thank God for your friend from the magazine,’ Aleesha says, and I don’t correct her that it was actually one of my newspaper rivals, and Laurie no less, who helped me out.
‘I can’t even think about what would have happened otherwise.’
‘Don’t,’ Morgan says quickly. ‘Don’t think about it, that’ll only make you feel worse.’
‘Speaking of feeling worse . . .’ I look down at the table, too embarrassed about the whole thing to be able to look at my flatmates. This is the part where I really should have known better. This is the part where I really blame myself. ‘I made a bad decision.’
Even though I’m not looking at them, I can feel Morgan’s and Aleesha’s eyes meeting. ‘Go on,’ they manage to say in unison.
I let out history’s heaviest sigh. ‘Well, my friend who I stayed with, when I left there, I realised I was kind of near . . .’ I pause, the shame burning hot on my cheeks.
‘I was kind of near where Felix lives.’ Morgan’s face involuntarily rearranges itself into a grimace, like she can already see where this is going.
‘And he hadn’t come to the union last night because, well, he said he had a magazine emergency and .
. . God, I just wanted to see him, you know?
I thought it might make me feel better. To have a hug and some kind words.
’ They both nod silently. ‘But when I got there . . . he was, like, kissing someone else on the doorstep, which is obviously fine because it’s not like we’re exclusive or anything, but it just really .
. . made everything feel that bit more shit,’ I say, and with every word my voice gets higher until it’s basically audible exclusively to dogs.
Morgan sets her mug down, slides off the work surface and walks over to my chair. She slides her arms around me from behind and I feel her heavy blonde curtain of hair fall around my shoulders, resting her head against my candy-floss puff. ‘He really is a shit.’
‘I can’t even figure out what I’m crying about,’ I say, the tears sliding down my cheeks again. ‘Because, like, nothing really happened after I got spiked, and then seeing Felix – it’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything, so I don’t really have a right to be upset.’
‘It’s everything happening at once, mate,’ Aleesha says, her tone soothing and lovely. ‘But the thing is . . . he did kind of lie to you about why he wasn’t at your night, yeah? Like, that did actually happen.’
‘I guess so,’ I say. ‘I just feel really stupid, and I hate feeling stupid because I think everyone already thinks I’m stupid, so when something like this happens I’m like, oh, so they were right all along, you know? Like I really am an idiot.’
‘Babe, you’re not an idiot,’ Aleesha tells me, and it sounds like she means it, even though it’s clearly not true: I clearly am an idiot.
Only an idiot would get involved with Felix in the first place, despite everyone warning against it.
How predictable! How pathetic! What a cliché!
I thought I was above it, that I was better than everyone else, all the other girls he messed around, but it turns out I’m just like everyone else.
I go upstairs and drop my letter ‘M’ necklace into a trinket dish on my desk.
In the absence of being able to think of anything better to do, I get into bed and stare at the ceiling.
Then I decide on a change of scenery and roll over onto my side so I can stare at my bedside table for a bit.
A text illuminates my phone. How was last night?
Sorry I couldn’t make it, things are so hectic with Quad at the moment, but I know you’ll have smashed it.
I let out a heavy sigh. I know that if I hadn’t gone round there, I’d be so delighted to get a text from Felix, all fizzy with excitement even though it’s really just crumbs rather than the whole cake.
Yeah, things got weird at the end of the night and I went by yours this morning but you were kissing some girl on the doorstep so that’s all been fun, I reply impulsively.
I got what I wanted. I slept with Felix. Mission accomplished. If only I had been clever enough to leave it there.