Chapter 10
I sit outside the hospital on a bench for a while, staring into space and at my phone. How did I end up here? Were things really normal only a few days ago, before I decided I believed in clairvoyants?
I can’t help running through the day’s alternative timeline.
Right about now is when I’d have been deciding what movie to watch on the plane.
(Terrible plane movies are basically the best part of a holiday.) Then I’d have been half watching whatever movie I chose, because I’d be fretting too much about my friends and family opening their letters.
The letters.
A few hours ago they felt so far away. Now they’re catching up to me with immense speed.
I can’t BELIEVE I said all those things.
I can’t believe I said all those things WITHOUT A SUCCESSFUL GETAWAY.
I can’t go away now. I have about enough funds left for another flight, but what would I do when I got there? I’d have nothing.
I’ve gone beyond mortification. I barely even feel it anymore. I think I’m hysterical. You have to laugh, really. Don’t you? It’s actually quite funny. Isn’t it?! I start laughing.
My parallel-life self touches down in Bali. My real-life self picks up the phone. I have extremely limited time before Dami and Angie read those letters. Now is not the time to be sitting feeling sorry for myself.
Damilola’s phone rings. Just when I think she’s not going to answer, she picks up. “Hello, we left your suitcases under your bed, in case your mum went into your room.”
“Thank you so much, Dami, but she knows now anyway.” I can’t help my voice wobbling. “Dami, I’m really sorry to ask you for yet another favor today, but . . . could I possibly stay at yours tonight?”
I’ve got a plan. The plan is: go to Dami’s, hide her letter.
Hopefully Angie will still be there and I’ll ask to come back to Angie’s to get a book she borrowed months ago, where I’ll hide her letter too, then head back to Dami’s and stay in her cozy, comfy spare room and let her feed me Ben & Jerry’s while we watch First Dates.
There’s a silence on the other end of the phone that surprises me.
Dami’s a people pleaser and incredibly generous, so she usually says yes to everything straightaway, even if you can tell she doesn’t really want to.
“Hang on,” she says. I hear her answering her work phone and talking frantically to someone about a campaign that’s running behind.
I know I’ve asked a lot today and I’m highly aware I’ve been a huge pain in the ass, but the fact that she’s answered a work call during this conversation stings.
She comes back on the phone. “Becky . . . I’m sorry,” she says softly. “I don’t think you can stay here tonight. It’s a bad time. Can you ask Angie?”
A lump rises in my throat and I barely think before the words are out of my mouth. “Oh, no problem. Do you have a deadline? I guess that is more important than your best friend’s life falling apart.”
There’s another silence. “No, actually.” She coughs. Her voice is very quiet and I can barely hear her. “But seeing as I do have such limited free time these days—as you’ve pointed out—I thought I’d spend it with people who actually still like me.”
I nearly fall backward off the bench. Partially from the realization that she’s read it, but mostly because Dami has never spoken to me like that before in her entire life.
“Sorry,” she adds softly.
“I . . .” I’m lost for words. “I’m sorry too,” I finally say, thinking back over what I said to her. About work taking over her personality. About Phil making all her decisions. About not knowing who she is anymore. I guess I deserved that.
She hangs up.
Fuck.
WHY IS THE brITISH POSTAL SERVICE SO FUCKING EFFICIENT?!
I order an Uber to Angie’s house. I have to get hers before she sees it.
I just have to. The magnitude of my words is setting in.
If sweet, passive Damilola reacted that badly, then how is Angie going to react when she reads that I compared her boyfriend to a fleshy, murderous blob-on-legs in an eighties horror film?
My words still didn’t really seem tangible until now. They were dreamlike, floating in the ether. I was more preoccupied with my imaginary demise. Now they are real.
I feel giddy and lightheaded as the Uber pulls up. This entire day, this entire week, has been a terrible, terrible dream. The only thing keeping me sane at this moment is that I know for a fact if Angie had read the letter I’d have heard from her.
From the depths of my long-lost memories, I faintly recall I’ve got an app that tracks Damilola’s and Angie’s locations.
I frantically search for it while sitting in the back of the taxi.
I’ve not used this in forever, since uni, when we still went out dancing and wanted to make sure each other got home safely from nightclubs.
My heart tugs thinking about how close we were then.
Opening the app feels like opening a time portal.
It takes a while to load but eventually I see the little dot that is Angie.
Thank God. She’s not at home, but she’s moving toward it.
She must have left Dami’s only fifteen minutes ago.
She was probably there when Dami opened her letter and they realized my mum wasn’t the only person I’d written to.
I can see her now, speeding home to find out what hers says.
The race is on.
“Is there any way we can go a bit faster?” I plead with the driver.
He frowns at me in the rearview mirror. I guess that’s a no.
So boring. When does that request ever get refused in a film?
! “Follow that car!” “No, I’m sorry, ma’am, please buckle your seatbelt as we safely and somberly follow the speed limit.
” Has this man never seen Ronin? He needs to live a little.
Or maybe he’s frowning because there’s so much traffic my request is basically impossible.
“Come on, come on,” I will the traffic. I keep refreshing my app, and thankfully Angie’s progress toward her house seems to be slow as well. She must be stuck in the same jam that I am.
When we get to the junction heading up to Angie’s road I thank the driver, dive out of the car, and bolt up the road toward her house.
I can barely breathe. My lungs burn. This has to be the most exercise I’ve had since school PE.
Running is impossible. I think I’m actually moving more slowly than if I’d walked.
I try to look at the app as I “run.” Angie’s still in the same place. How is that possible?! What happened? Did her car break down by some miracle? Whatever happened, thank the Lord! I’m going to make it!
Then, with a sinking heart, I realize the app’s not connecting. It refreshes as my data loads. Angie’s little dot slides from behind me, right past me, to her house.
Nooooooooooooooo.
SHE’S HOME.
I keep dragging my lead-filled legs toward her house. She can’t read it. What was I thinking?! She’ll never speak to me again! I pant, heave, crawl the rest of the way, and arrive wheezing at the end of her road.
I make a mad dash up her garden path and bang frantically on the door.
“ANGIE!” I holler.
Angie’s neighbor whose name I can’t remember—old, bald, bulbous nose, wears a lot of scarves—is approaching his own garden path and eyeing me inquisitively.
I wait on the doorstep, shifting my weight nervously from foot to foot. Her neighbor just keeps standing there. Even when I glance back at him and make eye contact. Wow.
Ten seconds later the front door opens and Angie emerges. For a minute I think everything might be OK . . . until I see she’s holding the dancing llamas.
FUCK THOSE FUCKING LLAMAS. I SWEAR TO CHRIST.
“Well, you must feel really good about yourself.” She leans against the doorway and folds her arms.
“I don’t know what . . .”
“Do you feel better about not having a relationship now you’ve shit all over mine?”
Ouch.
Angie’s neighbor has moved up the garden path so he can hear better. He’s lingering by his front door, pretending to fumble for his keys. It’s very distracting.
“That’s not . . .”
“I’m stupefied, Becky.” Angie shakes her head.
“Look, I’m really sorry, OK?” I say. “I was having a meltdown. I was convinced I was going to die. I didn’t mean it.
Jacob is . . .” Urgh. I try to think of an appropriate word that will bridge the gap between the ugly truth and ever being friends with Angie again.
I can’t say that I like Jacob, because I don’t.
“A creep, yeah.” Angie repeats my word. I wince.
“You think I don’t see him flirting with other women?
Of course I do! It’s fine. It’s only flirting.
God, Becky. We’ve been together nearly a decade.
Being in a relationship doesn’t mean you can’t ever look at another person.
It may surprise you to learn that I find other men attractive too, OK? ”
“Sure, yeah, you’re right,” I say. I don’t mean it—Jacob’s behavior definitely goes beyond finding other women attractive—but I just want to make up and forget this ever happened.
“Yes . . . I am right,” she says, but less confidently this time. Her cheeks are blushing.
“You all right, babe?” says a deep voice from inside Angie’s hallway.
Urghhhhhh.
Jacob comes up behind her and puts an arm around her. He looks at me with an amused expression, like he finds this funny. “Becky.”
URGHHHHHHH.
“Hi, Jacob,” I say awkwardly. How do you act around someone you said you’d rather wax your own eyebrows off than have them look in your direction?
“Look, I just wanted to reassure you,” he starts. For a moment I think it’s genuine. “You don’t have to wax your eyebrows for me to not find you attractive.”
BURN. Angie’s neighbor, who I’d sort of forgotten about, cough-laughs.
Angie finally addresses him. “For fuck’s sake, Steve. You really need to start watching a soap opera.”
And with that, she closes the door. Steve goes inside too and I’m left completely alone.
I keep standing on the doorstep in shock.
I can’t believe I sent those letters. I can’t believe I’m not eight thousand miles from here floating my troubles away on the back of a sea turtle. I can’t believe I’m not dead.
I crouch down and put my head between my legs. Not for the first time today, I wonder what the fuck I’ve done. I have hit the self-destruct button on my life and now I have a front-row seat to watch it burn.
Where am I supposed to go?! Damilola and Angie are the sum total of my friends that I can actually ask favors of and they are both, understandably, pretty mad at me.
Should I check into a hotel? But how’s that going to work?
What if I have to stay for ages? How much money would I end up spending?
I’ll burn through a grand within a fortnight . . .
What was the point of living at home for so long?
! Why did I not save more?! WHY DID I BUY SO MANY TEQUILA TROLLOPS?
! Just because you like the name of a cocktail does NOT mean you should order ten in one night just so you can keep saying it!
! How am I twenty-nine years old with so little to my name and nowhere to turn?
I breathe in, and out, in, and out. This is all a terrible, terrible nightmare. Yesterday I had a family. Yesterday I had friends. Today I have nothing.
I have one last option. The one person I really, really don’t want to face. If I could take back one letter out of all six I would snatch back this one in a heartbeat.
I cringe and pick up my phone.