Chapter 5
I did not have a good weekend.
Winning at Life would have made it into a montage, complete with solemn voice-over about how pitiful it was to spend two days wearing the same pyjamas, eating crisps for breakfast, a family-sized tiramisu for lunch and more crisps for dinner, lying on the sofa under a quilt and binge-watching The Repair Shop in between crushing bouts of anxiety about whether or not I had cancer.
The pyjamas being organic cotton and the quilt from the White Company, the Waitrose food and posh leather sofa didn’t make it any less pathetic.
At one point, in an attempt to convince myself this was a perfectly normal response to everything that had happened on Friday, I tried to remember the last time I’d had a ‘lazy’ weekend or eaten ultra-processed food.
I couldn’t think of one. My mum had spent decades ‘resting’ in her reclining chair, watching rubbish TV while eating a constant stream of junk.
This resulted in my extreme aversion to sitting about doing nothing.
When I was younger, if I wasn’t doing schoolwork, I was cleaning, cooking, planning my future or trying to solve one of the million problems we had to worry about.
After finishing my A levels, I shifted that focus to my job, becoming kebab shop manager at nineteen.
A year later, I switched to receptionist in a recruitment agency and soon made myself indispensable.
I studied every business course I could squeeze into evenings and weekends, and as soon as I had enough money, found a room to rent from an older woman who kept her house spotless.
Every minute, every penny was dedicated to making sure I would never be at the mercy of anyone else’s laziness again.
So maybe this was a good thing, I decided on Sunday morning, while lying on the sofa staring at the ceiling.
It was about time I had a proper break from my endless work commitments.
I hadn’t been able to face turning my phone back on, and it was beyond strange not to have continual notifications lighting up the screen, compelling me to reply immediately. I felt untethered. Adrift.
By Sunday evening, I was so emotionally exhausted, the panic attacks began to subside.
It was as though I’d tipped over a cliff edge and lay twitching in a broken heap at the bottom, too numb to feel scared about my current situation or what I was going to do about it.
Let alone whether anyone was coming to rescue me. I knew the answer to that already.
If this was a film, a funny, irreverent friend would have turned up by now with a tub of ice-cream, bottle of wine and a truckload of solidarity. We’d have been dancing along to girl-power tunes in no time.
But this was real life. My life. And it turned out I wasn’t that great at being my own best friend. I had no idea how to get out of this funk.
Monday morning, however, I woke up with a start. Someone was banging on my living-room window. This was particularly concerning because my living room was on the first floor, so whoever it was had climbed up onto the large balcony in order to reach it.
Praying it wasn’t the window cleaner, or anyone else who might video the TV life-expert crashed out on her sofa at 10 a.m., covered in biscuit crumbs, three-day-old make-up smeared across her blotchy face, I prised open my eyes and squinted at the bifold doors showcasing the forest beyond my hedged lawn.
A figure in bell-bottom jeans, a giant lilac hoodie and oversized ski hat gestured furiously before banging on the window again.
I was so surprised to see my niece, Bronte, on my balcony that I scrambled off the sofa and hurried over to slide the door open.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked as she stepped inside. ‘Has something happened?’
It was a ninety-minute car drive to my family’s home in Crandon, on the outskirts of Leicester. Two trains, a bus and a forty-minute walk for Bronte. She never went anywhere under her own steam.
‘You happened!’ She glared at me for all of three seconds before her lip started to wobble and she launched herself at me for a hug.
I’m not tall, but my niece felt like a baby bird burrowing up against my curves.
As well as our hazel eyes and expressive faces, Bronte shared the Nixon women’s auburn hair, her sleek waves a sharp contrast to my current matted mess.
‘I thought you might be dead. Although – ugh!’ She pulled away again. ‘You reek as if you’re not far off.’
‘Why would you think that?’ I went back to my sofa nest and pulled the quilt over my lap, as if that would smother the smell.
‘You’ve not replied to any messages since it kicked off.’ She took a seat on the matching armchair and grabbed a cushion to hug. ‘I’ve been ringing your doorbell for ages.’
‘Since what kicked off?’ For a moment, I thought she meant the conversation with Lacey.
‘Since your full-on TV award breakdown went viral. Obviously.’
‘It did what?’
Of course, I’d been cringing every time I thought about my acceptance speech, and the potential repercussions, but I honestly couldn’t remember most of what I’d said and had convinced myself hardly anyone watched TV awards ceremonies any more.
The evening must have produced far better gossip than a low-key reality show presenter having a whinge.
Wouldn’t people dismiss me as being drunk, or suffering from a spotlight-induced wobble?
‘You must have seen it?’ Bronte frowned.
‘I’ve had my phone off. That’s why I didn’t read any of your messages.’
‘You turned your phone off? For three days?’ Her carefully curated eyebrows shot up. I didn’t blame her. Three-days-ago-me would have assumed me dead – or at the very least in a coma – if I went that long without touching my phone.
‘I’ve been taking a mental-health break. If you watched my show, you’d know I consider a few days of self-care every now and then to be vital.’
‘Auntie Alex. This is not self-care.’ Bronte wrinkled her nose at the piles of empty wrappers, mound of used tissues and then me. ‘You look like you need community care.’
Before I could argue, she pressed on.
‘Anyway, the point is everyone has seen you losing it, including Mum, Nana, and the rest of Crandon, who’ve been making excuses to “pop by” all weekend. And you decide that’s the time to stop answering your phone? We’ve been worried sick.’
‘Really?’ I gave her a sidelong glance.
‘Well, Nana and Grandad thought you’d probably gone on a bender. Mum is really stressed, though.’
I didn’t ask whether she was worried about me, or whether this might have any impact on future financial support.
‘I was worried.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘Zendon let me use his car.’
Bronte had been with Zendon since they were fifteen. I didn’t hate him, but I didn’t love how he kept her hanging around Crandon, either.
‘Well…’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry for freaking you out. But I’m okay. I know I might not look – or smell – like it,’ I added, quickly. ‘But I think working non-stop since basically forever finally caught up with me. I just needed a couple of days to chill. You really don’t need to worry.’
Bronte looked dubious. ‘Yeah. But you might.’
She pulled her phone out of her hoodie pocket, brought up the website she wanted, then handed it to me.
Oh.
Oh.
The headline was ‘Alex Nixon confesses she’s a real-life loser!’
Skimming through, it didn’t take long to pick up that I’d been dropped from Winning at Life. The consensus was that I was a sham, faking success while a total wreck in private. It included speculations about substance abuse, serious mental illness, even implying I’d disappeared into rehab.
A previous business client was quoted as saying they fired me for offering advice with as much depth as the average Facebook quote.
The truth was, I’d cut short our working relationship after this particular man had requested help with saving his marriage, then proceeded to hit on me.
An anonymous ‘colleague’ from Winning at Life described how distressing it was for the crew to watch me ‘unravelling’ during the months of filming.
They knew the truth was going to have to come out soon, but felt bad it was revealed in such a spectacular manner, damaging not only my credibility but that of the whole show.
‘Thanks a lot, Harry,’ I muttered, handing back the phone without bothering to read the rest. ‘You know that’s all nonsense.’
‘I get that what they’re saying about you is mostly lies and mean gossip. But what about what you said? You have no friends and your family can’t stand you? You have no one who gives a damn?’ Her chin trembled. ‘That was, like, hurtful, actually.’
‘Oh, Bronte.’ I got up and went to squeeze in the armchair beside her, wrapping my arms around her narrow shoulders.
‘I said most of my family. That definitely excludes my nieces and nephews. And I meant I have no one who can support me, or be there when I need a bit of TLC. You’re eighteen.
It’s my job to help you. You lean on me, not the other way round.
’ She had done until this weekend, at least.
‘It’s still really depressing to hear my auntie saying that. Especially when it becomes a whole thing on TikTok.’
‘I’m so, so sorry. I’d had an extremely stressful day, and two glasses of weird blue cocktail. I never planned to say any of it. I guess it must be hard having a well-known auntie.’
‘It was great, until you had a meltdown in front of everyone. And it sucks to constantly be bombarded with reminders that the only functional member of our family is actually a lonely loser.’
‘I’m not lonely,’ I said, quickly. ‘Or a loser. Like I said, it was a bad day. Nothing some time off can’t remedy. Everyone’s thoughts run away with them now and then. They just don’t usually broadcast them to millions of people.’
Bronte pulled away so she could look me in the eyes. That assessing stare was so much like her mother’s, it made my chest ache.