Chapter 22
I feel bad about how things went last time. Can we talk?
I don’t know, Felix, can we? It feels like everything that’s happened between us has happened on his terms, so why should now be any different?
OK.
Meet me for a drink at the White Hart on Camden Road?
Ha. He won’t even come to me – I have to go to him. Why am I even a little bit surprised?
Feeling like a complete idiot for jumping when he says ‘jump’, but willing to jump nonetheless, I pull on my big, furry leopard-print coat and head out of the door.
I decide to walk rather than take the bus so I have time to figure out how I feel, what I want to say, how much I’m willing to take from him.
The walk passes in a blur. As I’m crossing the road to the pub, someone on the opposite side catches my eye, a large figure in a dark coat, walking quickly, head down against the bad weather.
I see him but he doesn’t see me. Laurie.
I almost call out to him, but I don’t know what I’d want to say.
Probably something weird and rude and awkward.
It’s like we exist on these two different planes and can’t quite connect.
I let him walk by. This evening is about Felix.
Whatever the hell he wants to say to me.
The pub is loud, full of boisterous Friday-night energy, and it feels like there are bodies pushing right up against our little corner of the pub. Hardly the ideal scenario for a serious conversation. But I fight to make myself heard above the noise.
‘So, what did you want to talk about?’ I ask, my heart pounding in my chest. It’s like I know things need to end between us, I know they’re bad, I know they’re wrong, but I just can’t be the person to draw that line.
It’s like I’m just so intoxicated by the whole thing, how much I fancy him, how good it can feel to sleep with him, but I am me and I need to expect better.
And the question is, am I going to get that from Felix?
‘Mary-Elizabeth,’ he says, looking at me very sincerely.
‘I’m sorry about the whole thing. I really fucked up.
’ He shakes his head ruefully and I actually believe that he regrets it.
‘Plus, the magazine wasn’t the same without your advice column this issue .
. . obviously I could move things around so there wasn’t a gaping hole in the magazine, but it just didn’t feel right. ’
It got to the point where I was so late delivering it that I just thought . . . what’s the point? It’s too late now. And then I never turned one in. Not my proudest moment, but I’ve run out of steam.
‘And obviously I knew that was at least partly because of me,’ Felix continues.
I nod, not wanting to let him off the hook.
‘So, yeah, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for how I reacted to .
. . the whole drink-spiking thing . . . and the whole .
. . other girls thing. I like you and I want to keep seeing you and have you writing for the magazine.
’ He pauses. ‘You’re good for the magazine . . . and you’re good for me, I think.’
‘Well,’ I say, not knowing exactly how to respond. ‘That’s nice.’
‘And . . . we can keep this whole thing between us, right?’ he says, fixing me with a soft-eyed stare.
‘What whole thing?’ I ask. My tone is weary but inside I can feel myself rallying, something of the old Mary-Elizabeth coming back.
‘You know, me handling that situation badly, I guess.’ This time his gaze wanders, like he knows he’s obfuscating, knows he’s not covering himself in glory.
‘Are you asking me not to talk to my friends about what’s happening in my life?’ My tone, I can tell, is a little incredulous now.
‘No, of course not, it’s not that.’ He shrugs, raises his hands defensively. ‘I just . . . don’t want you going around telling people I’m some kind of bad guy over all of this, you know?’
I nod slowly, trying to fully comprehend the shittiness of what he’s asking of me.
‘So it’s not so much that you regret being a complete dick to me, it’s that you don’t want people to find out the precise variety of dick that you were, in case it affects your ability to get other girls into bed with your fake feminist posturing?
’ I say, my voice shaking a little. It’s fine that my voice is shaking if my resolve is strong.
In an instant his face transforms from all soft and gentle and apologetic to a disbelieving smile. ‘What? What’s all that about?’ He frowns at me, like he can’t possibly understand where I’m coming from.
‘You talk such a big game about wanting to include female students in the magazine, have girls as section editors and all that, but it’s just .
. . nonsense. It’s just for your image, or because you want to sleep with them.
It’s based on nothing.’ I can’t believe I’m pushing Felix away but even I have a limit, and I’ve just about hit it.
‘Come on now, that’s a bit much, isn’t it?’ Felix scoffs.
I shrug. ‘It’s what it feels like to me.’
‘Look, I like you. I do. But this was meant to be fun. You’re a fun girl, right? That’s your thing?’ He looks at me, searching my face for agreement. Is that what I am? Is that my thing?
‘I can’t just be fun all the time!’ I protest. ‘Sometimes I reserve the right to be zero fun, because I’m a person and sometimes life isn’t fun!’
He sighs. ‘I thought we were on the same page about all of this, just a bit of fun, nothing getting in the way of the magazine or of uni, all time-limited by me going abroad next year, so I don’t understand why everything has had to get so serious with you.’
‘I think I understand you now,’ I say calmly.
‘After we slept together the first time you mentioned your year abroad, and there I was, thinking to myself, Oh, it’s such a shame that we got together shortly before he goes on his year abroad!
How unfair that we won’t be able to keep seeing each other when he goes away!
While, actually, the fact that you’re going away is probably the only reason we could get together at all.
A built-in time limit, a perfect excuse to get what you want but be able to walk away from it on your terms.’
‘I think you think about this stuff too much,’ he says, but I know I’m right. I can see right through him.
‘And I don’t think you think about anything nearly enough.’ I get to my feet and leave the pub, the noise muffled but audible as soon as I close the door behind me, the windows fogged up against the cold from the heat of all the bodies inside.
As I walk home, I wonder how I got the whole thing so wrong.
Was it my fault for wanting too much from him?
And then it hits me that so many experiences we have exist in this weird grey area where you can’t shout, ‘Fire!’ and point directly to the catastrophe that’s happening, and have everyone instantly understand what’s happening and why it’s bad, why it’s a problem.
They exist in this nebulous world where we have this sense that something wrong has happened, that things are out of order in the world, that you’ve been on the receiving end of .
. . something. But what? You get your drink spiked but no one assaults you (in fact, someone goes out of their way to help you) so does that mean nothing happened?
You get into a casual thing with a guy you know is, in some way, bad news, and when it turns out he is, in fact, bad news, you’re just meant to do what?
Shrug your shoulders and move on because it was your fault for thinking it would be any different?
Brush off any of the bad feelings you experienced because they were fundamentally your own fault, because he didn’t promise anything other than what he was?
Once again, you’re left with nothing. Grey.
Even though it doesn’t feel like nothing.
It feels like something. Resolve? Determination? Something like that.
I realise that just as I don’t have anything left to give Felix, I don’t have anything left to give the magazine either.