Chapter 35
When my exams actually start, I return to the flat in Tufnell Park with Aleesha and Morgan.
I can’t be commuting to do my exams now, can I?
Not when there’s a perfectly good flat with perfectly gorgeous flatmates waiting for me on the Northern Line.
And when I leave my mum’s house, I feel lighter than I have in a very long time.
Between properly committing myself to revision with no distractions, and feeling like me and my mum are actually on the same page for the first time in my life, everything looks that little bit brighter. More possible.
‘This was a good idea,’ Aleesha exhales, breathing in the calming scent of the tea cooling in the cup in front of her.
I forced the pair of them to participate in a Salon de Mary-Elizabeth with me, on the grounds that we can’t spend literally all day every day studying and that it’ll be good for their brains to switch off for a couple of hours.
So far we’ve done massages on each other that we learned on YouTube, I’ve given them both manicures – Morgan’s mostly so she doesn’t bite her nails down to tiny little jagged stumps – and I’ve been using a gua sha stone on their faces, which allegedly promotes ‘lymphatic drainage’ and I don’t know what that is but I do know that it feels sort of nice.
‘Yeah, man,’ Morgan concurs. ‘I heard you scraping around at like two o’clock in the morning last night. You need a break.’
Aleesha sighs. ‘I know. I just . . .’
‘What?’ I urge her.
‘It’s a lot of responsibility, that’s all. Being the first person in my family to go to uni and all that. Shit’s expensive too.’
I squeeze her shoulder, what with her hand being out of action due to my manicure skills. ‘Honestly, I don’t know how you do it. Natural sciences is no joke.’
‘I guess the weight of my family’s expectations is how I do it.’ She chuckles darkly.
‘I hear you . . . but I’ve seen how consistently you’ve worked the whole year. Do you really think staying up late to study is going to make that much of a difference at this point?’
‘Or maybe a good night’s sleep would be more useful?’ Morgan offers gently.
Aleesha nods. ‘Maybe you guys are right. I mean, I already feel a bit clearer-headed after taking this time away from my laptop. If I got a good night’s sleep, who knows what miracles I could accomplish?’
‘Rest, hydration and a sense of zen. That’s what we need to get us to the end of the year.’
‘Rest, hydration, zen,’ Aleesha repeats after her.
Of course, the energy on campus is not zen and is, in fact, totally manic: people bumping into each other in the quad because their noses are buried in reams of notes; queues for the library starting forty-five minutes before it even opens, so desperate are people to get a seat near a plug socket.
Unlike at some other universities, every year of every course at Queen Anne’s College ‘counts’ towards your final degree classification.
Back in first year, I had no idea what friends from school were even talking about when they said they didn’t care how they did in their end-of-year exams because it didn’t make a difference.
We have to be on our guard for the entirety of our degree. How’s that for rigorous?
On the last day of exams, as I’m emerging, blinking into the gorgeous summer sunlight from my two-hour Sculpture in Space exam, in which I’ve written a blinder of an essay about land art, I’m once again pounced on by one Tyler Shaw, fresh from their penultimate history exam.
‘Mate, did you hear?’ they ask, their eyes full of that manic exam-season energy.
‘Hear what?’
‘Quad mag is –’ They draw a line across their neck with a finger.
‘Oh my God, what? It’s finally happened?’
‘Finally,’ Tyler says, nodding. ‘The axe has fallen.’
‘I guess Felix couldn’t save it in the end,’ I say, shrugging. ‘The end of an era.’
‘I mean . . . within the magazine there wasn’t much will for it to continue. By the end it was sort of his vanity project. Most of us wanted it to end, or at least for Felix to fuck off.’
‘I didn’t know that . . .’
‘Well, you leaving was sort of the beginning of a downward slide. You brought the good vibes, plus everyone could tell Felix had wronged you somehow even if they didn’t know exactly how, and I think there was a lot of .
. . defensiveness towards you, in a way?
So with you gone, everyone’s resentment towards Felix just .
. . grew, so the only one fighting for the magazine’s continued existence was him. ’
‘It’s nice that people think of me like that . . .’ I say, my eyes flickering to the floor, unable to meet their gaze.
‘Oh, yeah, for sure. Plus it’s like, “whatever” for me, because I’ve got you on the cheeky little pod, haven’t I?’ they say with a smile, but I’m still lost in my thoughts about Quad Magazine disappearing.
‘So it’s just . . . gone?’
‘Eh, sort of. Bits of it are being subsumed into the paper. We’re having an end-of-year party that’s sort of a farewell to the magazine. You should come,’ they say cheerily.
‘Ty . . .’ I say grudgingly.
‘What? You’re invited – I’m inviting you now.’
‘I don’t know . . .’
‘You were an important part of Quad Magazine! People will want you there!’
I nibble my lip for a moment, thinking about it.
As much as I don’t want to see Felix, I really, really do want to see Laurie, and this might be a good excuse to do it without having to make a move of my own.
‘OK, I accept your invitation,’ I say finally.
‘Let me know when and where and I will be there in my swishiest dress, with absolutely zero chat for Felix.’
‘That’s the spirit! You never know, he might not even turn up.’
‘We live in hope.’
I head to the studio to get a couple of problems recorded that Tyler can drop into podcasts over the summer. My brain is exam-fried, so I choose a nice one first, something to which I’m sure I know the answer.
Dear Genius of Love,
I’ve been feeling really down since my break-up a few months ago and just want to feel like my old self again. How do I bounce back after living in a little depressed troll hole for months?
Love,
Lost Soul
Dear Lost Soul,
Well, the good thing is, it sounds as if you like your old self, so that’s something.
There’s nothing worse than suffering a setback or a big drama and realising your whole life is just rubbish and you don’t know where to go from there.
So! We need to focus on getting you back on track.
I’m so sorry that you’ve been feeling so down.
Break-ups suck. Big time. There’s no sugar-coating it and the only thing that can really get you through that is time, so I’m glad you’re a few months out from the break-up itself.
Basically, everything you’re saying to me leads me to believe you are in the perfect position for the comeback after the setback.
Now, for the practical steps: first, how would you identify your old self?
What did you like about them? What did that person do, on a daily or weekly basis, that you’ve stopped doing?
Make a list of things you know have dropped out of rotation since the break-up.
Is it a hobby? A place? A group of friends?
Something to do with your image, like wearing make-up or doing your hair?
Are you less interested in what you’re wearing these days when you used to be well into fashion?
For example, I’m a very sociable and extroverted person, and I knew things were not going well for me when I wanted to avoid everyone and hide in my room.
The next step is choosing one of those things to do tomorrow.
What would be an easy win? Pick the low-hanging fruit first. If you used to love painting your nails but haven’t done it for ages, do that.
Then, if you’ve been avoiding going to football practice or to LGBTQ+ Network meetings or whatever, build up to that.
Try to remember the things that made you the person you are, the things you loved, and get them back in circulation.
And once you’ve done that, maybe think about a new thing you’ve always wanted to try, like playing tennis or learning to knit or whatever, and adding that into your life when you have time.
Because you’re not just the old you, you’re also a new you, and that’s exciting!
Treat this time like a new, exciting gift: you’re ready to get back out there and be part of things! How exciting is that?
Love,
Genius of Love