Chapter Seven
Belle
Fairy lights half-peeling from the walls, stuck up with dusty Sellotape and Blu-Tack, inspired by the backdrops of my favourite beauty vloggers at the time.
The bedsheets are those white floral IKEA ones that everyone and their mum had, and a pair of muted green cushion covers have been thrown onto the floor.
On the old dresser beneath the windowsill sits an acrylic tray of lipsticks, pens, pound coins, and false-lash strips.
The mirror beside my wardrobe is cluttered – photobooth photos from a trip to London with Jake, a Polaroid from a friend’s birthday party, a gig ticket to see Lucy Rose play the Tunbridge Wells Forum the year prior, a birthday present from Jake.
A lone cactus bows on the window ledge. A dog barks outside.
I look at Jake now. He’s looking at the gig ticket.
My younger self sits on her squeaky bed, back up against the wooden headboard, frantically scribbling in her journal that’s balanced against her thighs, stopping only to bite her lip, tap her nails on the pen, and look up towards the door.
She knows what’s coming. I can see it in the press of her lips, the way her wing-lined eyes have smudged in the corners, and I remember exactly what she felt. The dread of it.
Still, she’s made an effort with her outfit, wearing her favourite skintight Topshop Joni jeans – the faded black ones with rips on the knees (she has them in every colour) – and a navy polka-dot off-the-shoulder top, tucked into the high waistband.
A tiny love heart tattoo is visible on the side of her foot – a drunken dare with Jake outside a neon-lit parlour in Soho.
She went first to prove she wasn’t scared, but then immediately regretted it.
She used to fill it in with glitter liner on nights out, telling people she had a glitter tattoo, that yes, that’s a thing now – but tonight it’s bare.
My younger self looks up from her journal as the doorbell rings. Jake and I look with her, all three of us frozen for a moment, listening to the familiar weight of his footsteps on the stairs. He had such a rhythm to it, two steps at a time, heavy, the weight of him.
‘Christ, this is brutal. Whose idea was this again?’ I say, going for jokey, which I suspect isn’t fooling anyone, least of all the dead man standing next to me.
‘Yours,’ Jake replies bluntly. This ghost has no empathy.
‘And who brought me here?’ I retort.
‘Do you need me to state it again? Gabe sent me. You agreed. If you back out, your soul is wiped for eternity,’ he says, antsy.
‘I can hardly watch.’ I put my hands over my eyes, leaving just a slit open to see as the doorknob turns.
The Belle on the bed shuffles, closes her diary, composes herself.
She’s self-soothing, I can tell now that I’m watching from the outside – the pulled arm hairs, the jittering leg, the nail biting.
She’s trying to regulate her emotions, cycling through every nervous habit she knows, and none of it is working.
If anything, it’s a sure giveaway, each fidget announcing exactly what she’s trying to hide. She’s panicking.
I spent a long time in therapy learning to name what was happening in my body instead of just picking myself apart through it.
Deep breathing. Grounding. Focusing on what I can see, smell, touch.
It has helped, genuinely. I’m better than I was.
I’m still not sure if better actually means calmer, but either way, I’ve become a pro at composing myself over the last decade.
Young Jake walks in. The lemon and lavender scent of his signature aftershave arrives first. He looks a little dishevelled, not quite as polished as usual.
He wears a black long-sleeved top tucked into similar skintight jeans.
He closes the door and sits on the end of the bed – no kiss, hug, or warmth. He knows what’s coming.
‘You wanted to talk.’ He sighs.
‘Jake, I …’ Belle stares at the bed, picking her thumb. The radiator clicks on in the background. ‘You know the other night, our chat …’
‘Yeah.’
‘The thing is … Do you want a cup of tea? I can go get you a—’
‘I didn’t come for tea.’
‘Sorry, I know you’ve driven over here.’
Jake sits and watches her, still. The girl in front of me is picking her skin apart. I remember the sensation – I can almost hear my heart pounding in my chest from here, ten years in the future.
‘The thing is, Jake …’ She looks to the bedsheets. ‘Sorry, can I start again?’
‘Sure.’
‘Like I said the other night, I just feel like I’m watching everyone else’s lives move forward and I’m just here—’
‘Right, so we’re doing this again?’ Jake rolls his eyes.
Young Belle continues, ignoring him. ‘Do you think we’re … I just wonder if we want the same things.’
Jake shrugs. ‘You know what I think, Belle.’
Belle looks to the side, frowning, pushing her hair away from her face.
‘Where did you go when you left, after our chat?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Jake says.
‘It’s just … Sorry.’
Jake clears his throat.
‘I don’t think you think I’m good enough to make it on my own.’
‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ Jake says.
‘You haven’t done anything wrong,’ Belle repeats, almost a whisper, testing the words in her mouth.
‘So what, you’re saying I’m holding you back? I’m the reason you’re miserable?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘OK, well, what have I done wrong, then?’
‘Really?’ Belle sounds surprised. Jake frowns.
‘I’ll never be good enough, I get it. Do we have to repeat this again and again?’ His jaw tightens, eyes to the cushions on the floor.
‘You know it’s not that.’ Belle’s eyes are glassy now, filling with tears.
‘Well, what is it, then?’
‘You know what? Actually, I need to ask you something.’ Belle shakes her head and Jake waits. She reaches for a cup of water on the bedside table and sets it down again without drinking. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What doesn’t?’ Jake asks.
‘Forget it.’
‘Okay.’
‘It’s just, whenever I try to take some time and space for myself, you kick off, and it ends in a fight. It’s like – do you want me to be happy?’
‘So, I’m ruining your life?’
‘I didn’t say that. You always twist it around!
All I’m saying is I don’t know who I am or what I want.
And I thought you cared enough to support me, not make it all about you and how you’ll never be good enough.
’ She swallows, audibly, like she’s trying to force it down.
Jake ignores the lump in her throat. ‘I want someone who supports me and my goals and wants me to succeed. I want someone to want more for me than … this!’ Belle holds her hand out to the room.
‘I’m twenty-five, and I live at home in my childhood bedroom – I want more than this. ’ A tear drops to her lap.
There’s a pause and I can taste the tension in the air.
‘Belle, I don’t know what else you want from me. I haven’t cheated; I haven’t slept with anyone else. You said yourself that I haven’t done any—’
‘You haven’t done anything, yeah, right.’
‘Well, I’m sorry that I’m not good enough, that this town is not good enough.’ He shrugs, eyes wide. ‘You’ll realise what you had.’
Young Belle’s face goes blank.
After a moment she nods, lips twisted to one side.
‘I’ve seen the video, Jake.’
Young Jake goes pale, his face set in stone. The room is silent.
Belle’s tears stop like someone has turned off a tap, but her lip is doing that thing, that subtle wobble in the corner.
It was always going to end this way, this conversation. I called him round to have the London talk again and I thought I could keep what I knew under wraps, but I couldn’t. It was bubbling away on the surface, on the tip of my tongue.
I glance towards the Jake beside me and he’s looking away, studying the wall beside him.
Young Belle’s nails are pinching her arm and I realise I’m doing the same, so hard that there are indents left above my elbow.
I had been sitting on the sofa downstairs when the video had come through.
A Facebook message from Jake’s best mate.
I’d opened it with a grin, expecting a funny dance, a joke.
But there was Jake, wearing the same T-shirt he’d worn the day we’d argued, the big fight when I’d told him I wanted to move to London.
He was swinging a whisky bottle and raging.
I feel that familiar drop in my stomach, like it’s happening all over again. The words he’d said. I’d watched the video so many times, I could quote it by heart.
‘Let her fuck off to London, she’ll never find anyone better. Her life will be nothing without me … Not even that good in bed.’ A swig of whisky, a palm to wipe the drip from his chin. ‘Hope she has a great fucking life … alone.’
Young Jake shuffles on the bed and there it is: the look – the one thing I didn’t expect.
The one image I’ve had plastered in my mind for the past ten years.
His lips twist up, the dimples on his cheeks deepen.
It’s not a grin, but a sort of tight amusement.
A disbelieving half-laugh, the patronising one.
‘What video?’ He tries his luck.
‘Jake.’
‘You’re not actually upset about that, are you?’ He shakes his head, eyes closing slowly. ‘Belle, come on, that was a joke.’
‘Didn’t sound like a joke.’
Jake’s mouth is still upturned at the corners, hands running back through his hair.
‘Saying I’ll be alone forever isn’t a joke,’ she stutters, swallows. ‘Saying I was a shit shag isn’t a joke. It’s not funny.’
A laugh escapes his throat now; his brows are raised, and he’s still shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Everyone takes the piss out of their girlfriends – it’s what lads do.’
Young Belle turns away from him, covers her face with her palm. The video wasn’t venting. I didn’t recognise the boy in it; he wasn’t the Jake I thought I knew.
‘Who even sent you that? Vik? So he’s shit-stirring and I’m the bad guy.’ Jake slaps his palms to his knees.
‘Do you know how hearing that made me feel?’ she cries.
‘It’s not that big a deal, Belle.’
Belle flinches.
‘Did you mean it?’