37
I don’t really remember getting home on Sunday. I know we got the tube back, and I know we parted ways at the station with the promise of getting together through the week. I know I faked my smile well enough that Miles didn’t even think anything was wrong. He gave me a quick peck on the lips as we left each other but it all felt wrong. Just so wrong.
Thankfully, Emme was out on a date with some guy in a band she met last week and she stayed at his place so I didn’t have to go through the entire weekend with her. She’s going to be excited. She’s going to tell me to explore this relationship outside of the fake part, but I can’t.
I spend the night tossing and turning, going back and forth. He never actually said he wanted to get back with Adriana. Turn. He sounded so desperate though, as if I really was holding him back. Flip. Both Art and Ray made it very clear they don’t think I’m good enough, I won’t be accepted even if I try. Repeat.
By morning, I am so tired and drained that I send a quick email to my editor, telling her I’m sick which is a lie but one which she accepts quickly. Instead of doing any work, I just sit and stare at the television. There are reruns of some sitcom on but I couldn’t tell you which. Thankfully, Miles doesn’t text me that day, and Emme doesn’t come home. Instead, she sends me a quick message to tell me that the guy is a drummer and she wants to see how much he can really do with those hands tonight.
I get into bed completely exhausted but I don’t fall asleep. I don’t know what to do. I feel so hurt.
The anxious lady in my brain is telling me to cut him off now. I can’t fit into his world, even if he does want me to, and she suspects he doesn’t.
I’m not just going to drop Del, Dad. I… I can’t, it’s not fair on her…
It’s not fair on her, like I am someone so pathetic, so in need of love, that he is going to stay with me anyway? He doesn’t even want to, but he knows he’s led me on so much that it would be unfair to leave me? It’s not like he doesn’t know exactly who I am. The girl who got cheated on by her high school sweetheart, the girl who has never managed to fit in with anyone. Does he pity me?
I don’t remember falling asleep but when I wake up it’s like I didn’t sleep anyway. I go through the day like a zombie and am sitting on the sofa eating ice cream when my phone flashes. It’s Miles.
Miles : Wanna get food tomorrow? There’s an absolutely terrible chip shop in Dalston that always tastes great after a night out. We could find out if it’s as good when sober.
I stare at it, and stare, and stare. It seems so normal.
I can’t just drop Del… It’s not fair on her…
It is normal, but everything he did seemed normal, caring even.
For a moment, I think I am overreacting, that maybe he really did mean that he didn’t want to date Adriana, that maybe he was just making it seem like he considered it, but then I realise how pathetic that sounds. I realise that I don’t want to be pathetic anymore. I only want to be with someone who actually wants to be with me. Miles was really good at acting like that, but it was acting. It was fake.
I lock my phone and go back to whatever shitty romcom I was watching.
Emme eventually arrives home, dressed in a man’s clothes and grinning from ear to ear .
“Oh my god,” I say, “Have you found the one?”
She snorts, dropping her bags and plonking herself down on the sofa, “Absolutely not,” she says, “His family has their own ski chalet. He’s much more rich boy musician than struggling artiste, you know,”
I raise an eyebrow, “Yet you spent two nights with him,”
“He’s good in bed,” she says with a grin, “I’ll see him a few more times and then let it fade. Leave him with a beautiful memory for when he marries whichever daughter-of-their-friends his family has picked out for him,”
I chuckle, but what she says makes me think of Miles and I am sad all over again. Maybe I will be that beautiful memory for him. Or more likely, his bit of rough before he finally settles down with the girl his family approves of. The one who will stand by him as he takes over his dad’s company.
“To be honest, I expected you to practically move in with Miles after the weekend you’ve had,” Emme says, standing up and going over to the fridge.
“Why?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the TV.
She snorts, “You were like love’s young dream when you left here on Thursday,” she says.
Thursday.
It’s been less than a week and yet everything feels so different.
“It was fake, Emme,” I say, a little too harshly, but it shuts her up for the evening.
*
On Friday morning, I get a notification to say I’ve been tagged in a post on Instagram. I open it to find a picture of Jas and me. We’re dancing and laughing, it’s in black and white, and it’s actually beautiful. We both look so happy.
Jas has captioned it ‘Something new.’
I am absolutely overcome with emotion.
How can it be that a girl who scared the living crap out of me, who I secretly hated for choosing Julian over Miles, who was the embodiment of everything I want to be in a girl but have never quite managed, cool, confident, absolutely beautiful—how does she value this new friendship so much that she took the time to find this picture, post it, and caption it that.
I don’t mean to cry, but I do.
Miles has liked the picture, obviously. It confuses me, and then I realise he’s probably just trying to support the sad sack he fake-dated.
I hit like, and then comment underneath it with a blue heart. Jas likes the comment immediately and then my phone buzzes with a direct message from her.
JasminStuaaaart : Hey Del, I just want to say thanks for coming to the wedding. You’re such a great person. Miles is so lucky to have you. I hope we can be friends. We should grab coffee when I’m back from the honeymoon.
Like, what the fuck.
I would never admit it out loud, but this girl was intimidating, terrifying, and so beautiful I wanted to cry when I met her. I kind of hated her. I dreaded her wedding. But it turns out she’s made of pure gold. It turns out that if you’re beautiful on the inside it really does show on the outside.
Fuck.
Women really are the true MVPs.
I hit reply.
ThisisnotDelaneyMorrison : Thank you for having me. It was such a beautiful day. Hanging with you was so much fun. We should definitely meet up. Have a fab time in the Bahamas, you deserve it!
Can I be friends with this girl? This girl who makes me feel like I’m crap at being a girl but also somehow managed to make me feel comfortable at a wedding where I felt very much not wanted by most of the other females??
If anything, at least Jas thinks I am good enough.
*
It takes until Saturday for Miles to send a follow-up text. I probably should have just replied to him, but I just didn’t know what to say. I can’t rage at him, because that’s even more pathetic than he already thinks I am. And I don’t want to let on that I thought this was real. I can’t. I can’t be the girl who got duped again.
I try not to cry when I open the message but I do.
I cry for what could have been. For the way that he made me feel. For the way he made me want to be myself more than anyone ever has. For the way he accepted me. And let’s be honest, a little bit for the way he fucked me, and then fucked me over.
This feels monumental.
It feels like, after years of knowing I wasn’t good enough, someone made me feel like I was, just for a moment.
And then he pulled the rug out from under me.
I open his message.
Miles : Hey, I’m going to assume you’ve lost your phone, but I just wanted to see if you’re free for drinks tonight. I’ve missed you this week.
I take a deep breath and hit reply.
I struggle for a long time, trying to work out what it is I want to say. My feelings are so confused. There is a very small part of my brain that can’t accept it, that won’t accept that it was all fake. A part that truly believes Miles could like me and want to be with me. But then I remember what he said, I remember how he sounded, and I remember everyone else at that wedding. Feeling like I’m not good enough, feeling like I can’t fit in. Even if I fit in with Miles, I don’t fit in in his world. I don’t fit with his family, and I don’t fit with his future. And he deserves that future. I can’t hold him back if deep down he wants it too. If he wants that validation and acceptance too. He won’t get it with me. And it seems like I’m not going to get it with him after all.
I’ve spent so long not fitting in, not feeling comfortable in my own skin. There haven’t been many people in my life who have made me feel safe and accepted, and none of them have been romantic partners. I got a feeling of what that could be like with Miles. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if it was all for the people around us.
Real or not, that feeling was incredible.
Delaney : This was supposed to be fake. Let’s just leave it like that.
I hit send and then I turn my phone off, pledging to not even look at it for the rest of the weekend.