Chapter 2
Even washing my face and brushing my teeth feels like quite a grand gesture, given how I’m feeling, and the fact that I’m only going as far as the breakfast table. Then again, this is probably an intervention masquerading as a breakfast, so let’s push the boat out – I’ll brush my hair.
I twist my long blonde hair into a messy bun – words that make it sound like an intentional style, whereas the reality of the situation is more that I can’t really be arsed.
A true, styled messy bun always looks gorgeous.
Mine looks like it might have birds living in it, and they are welcome to.
I’d love a little company for the colder months.
The landing feels cold compared to my bedroom. There is one advantage to going downstairs: it smells warm and delicious, like toast, tea and whatever candle my mum is burning to make the house feel autumnal and festive.
I arrive in the kitchen to find Mum, Dad, and my brother Rory all already there.
‘You look how you feel, I’m guessing,’ Rory says immediately – brotherly love at its finest.
‘Mum said you were up for school, but I didn’t realise you’d still be here, ruining my breakfast,’ I point out, collapsing onto a chair.
‘And you don’t want to be late,’ Mum reminds him, placing a mug of tea in front of me – at least I can always say that the service here is excellent.
Rory grabs a piece of toast from the rack and shoves it between his teeth while wrestling himself into his dark green wool coat.
‘He’s a teacher, not a kid, Helen,’ my dad, Ken, reminds her.
‘Oh, thank God,’ Rory says with faux relief. ‘I was dreading double PE.’
I roll my eyes right back into the hood of my dressing gown.
Despite being my older brother – and twelve years older than me – it never quite feels like Rory flew the nest, because he and his wife bought the house next door. He’s got two kids – well, almost. His wife, Sally, is eight months pregnant. Jack, his two-year-old, is very much here.
‘Anyway, see you all later,’ Rory says, grabbing his keys from the side. ‘Sally says she’ll be round with Jack, once she’s got him dressed.’
‘Looking forward to it,’ Mum tells him – and she really is. She’s been talking about grandkids for as long as I can remember, not in a pressuring way, more like a genuine excitement.
Rory opens the side door, letting in a sharp burst of chilly morning air before slamming it shut again.
I remember Rory saying that he was buying the house next door because he wanted his kids to have the same upbringing he did – what I didn’t realise was by that he meant that his parents would be doing most of the hard work.
Mum looks after Jack, while Rory is at work, and while Sally is enjoying time to herself.
She’s heavily pregnant now, sure, but she hasn’t been for the last two and a half years.
‘Come on, Lia, I got all of your favourites,’ Mum prompts me. ‘Well, the ones that survived Jamie Oliver.’
I laugh as I grab the box of Coco Pops, pouring myself a bowl.
Crunching aside, the silence is pure awkward. Dad offers a half-smile as Mum watches me like a hawk.
‘Come on, eat up, it’s the best cure,’ Mum insists.
‘She doesn’t need to eat cereal, she needs to get to the job centre,’ Dad ever so helpfully adds.
‘I was talking about her broken heart, not the fact that she’s unemployed,’ Mum replies.
Yikes, that one stings.
‘Sorry, love,’ she quickly adds. ‘I didn’t mean to bring that up.’
I bat my hand.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I reply. ‘What I really need is fifteen porn star martinis, enough ice cream to cause a shortage, and a horror movie marathon.’
‘I thought it was romcom movies for a broken heart?’ Mum says.
‘Not the way I do it,’ I reply.
‘You really think eating, drinking and screaming will help?’ Dad asks – and it’s like he can’t even hear his own words.
‘Er, yeah,’ I say, as though it were obvious.
‘She has to eat, Ken, do you want to add dying to her list of problems?’ Mum claps back.
I’m pretty sure I have options, before it comes to that. My God, being home is driving me crazy already.
‘So things went south with her boyfriend,’ Dad says casually as he butters his toast. He may as well have stabbed me with the knife. ‘She’s not the first adult to move back home, and she won’t be the last.’
Trust my dad to sum up the total collapse of my life in so few words.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family so much it hurts, it’s just that sometimes it quite literally hurts.
I thought I had everything, living in London, working for a company that managed tours for bands and organised music festivals, and I thought I was in a loving relationship with my boss too (I know, what a cliché) but it turned out that he was also in a loving relationship with his boss, so when it all came out I got sacked and dumped on the same day.
Yep, it’s a tale as old as time. What’s also obvious in the aftermath – not that you overthink it as your life is falling apart in real-time – is that it’s impossible to afford to live in London when you don’t have a job.
I styled it out for as long as I could, while I looked for work, and I’m sure you can guess how well that went, given that I’m back living in the seaside town where I grew up.
‘Listen, can we not mention to anyone that I’m here?’ I ask.
‘Who are we even going to tell?’ Dad replies, as though that were a stupid thing to say.
‘Yes, of course,’ Mum adds.
‘Great, thanks,’ I reply.
‘Just a small thing really,’ Mum continues. ‘I did tell Mel.’
‘Oh,’ is about all I can say.
‘She was your best friend, I knew she would be so pleased that you were back,’ Mum continues. ‘And I thought it might cheer you up.’
Having to explain my situation to my childhood best friend – who I haven’t really kept in touch with – is the last thing I want to do.
I arrived home late last night under the cover of darkness, avoiding everyone except my family, and I had really wanted to keep it that way for as long as I could.
‘She said that she would love to meet you for lunch today,’ Mum tells me. ‘So I told her you would meet her at the deli, in town.’
‘Right, okay, so that’s a plan, is it?’ I check.
‘Yes,’ Mum replies. ‘You might like to think about getting ready soon. You don’t want to see her for the first time in years with your hair looking like that.’
‘Oh, none taken,’ I say sarcastically because it’s tradition to tag ‘no offence’ on to the end of an attack like that. ‘I suppose I’ll go get ready then.’
Now that I’m fully awake, I can see what a mess my bedroom is.
Until I dumped all my stuff here last night, it was exactly as I abandoned it before I went to uni all those years ago.
When I occasionally came home for Christmas or birthdays, it was a novelty.
Like a themed hotel room, decorated with things that would make me nostalgic.
Of course, things like that are fun for a while, but the novelty inevitably wears off, and it’s nice to get back to reality.
The weirdest part of my room, without a doubt, are the posters all over my walls.
Yep, when I was a teenage girl I wore my heart on my sleeve, and my heart clearly belonged to Leonardo DiCaprio, because most of the posters are of him – back when he was still practically a baby and dated women who were older than me.
Gosh, it was all to play for back then, not like now.
Nothing will make you feel old quite like realising you’re probably too old for the celebrity you had a crush on when you were a kid – she says, as though my age would be the only thing that would make me unappealing to an actual movie star.
I do wonder why I never took them down. They’re vintage, at this point.
Antiques. I remember an older family friend giving them to me when I was twelve or something like that, almost like she was passing her crush on to me when she outgrew it.
I remember going back and watching movies of him when he was younger; even when he was doing more gritty movies, it was like the younger floppy-haired version of him was the only one who existed to me.
How’s that for an idea of an unattainable man?
The kind you could only date with a time machine.
The remaining 10 per cent of my posters, if you’re interested, are of Robert Pattinson, who captured my heart when he was a sparkly vampire.
These days, come on, there would be no contest. In the battle for my heart, Rob would win easily (again, though, bold of me to assume movie stars would fight over me).
I suppose I could take them down, seeing as though I’ll be staying here for the foreseeable, but it might be kind of nice to feel like a kid again (and I clearly haven’t grown out of fantasising about marrying one of them).
I look outside, frowning because the weather seems like it’s taken a turn.
Summer feels like nothing but a distant memory, and next summer couldn’t feel further away.
Right on cue, a gust of wind rattles a flurry of leaves from the tree outside my bedroom.
It won’t be long before it’s stripped back to the bare branches.
Right, time to get myself into the shower and get ready to meet Mel – oh, and to get my story straight, because I’m not sure how much I want to tell her about my situation just yet.