40
“How was it?” Emme asks the moment I close the door.
She’s spread out on the sofa with her pyjamas on and is watching Legally Blonde . I wish I had stayed in with her tonight but everyone, and I mean everyone, made me go on this date.
Tinder guy #4 is actually really sweet. He asks me questions about myself, he always pays, he opens doors for me, and he hasn’t once gotten annoyed when I’ve ended every date with a chaste kiss. It’s been two weeks and we’ve been on four dates. The only problem is that I keep comparing him to Miles.
His kisses aren’t as sweet, his questions aren’t as deep, and every so often, I feel like he’s rolling his eyes at me not being able to function as a human. I know this is probably stupid. I know he’s probably not annoyed at all, I know it’s my own insecurities at still having not found someone who accepts me, but I don’t know what to do. I am trying.
“God, Emme,” I say, dropping down onto the sofa, “He’s so fucking sweet. Sweeter than anyone I’ve been out with really, but I just don’t know ”
Emme frowns, “So Tinder Guy #4 isn’t the one?”
“Probably not, but I don’t want to give up just yet, you know,”
Emme nods, “No harm in dating him, it might flourish,”
I nod.
“Anyway,” Emme says, “Since it’s just past midnight, you’re officially twenty-eight,” she says, and then she hits play on her phone and starts singing ‘Happy Birthday to you.’
I roll my eyes, “Uh, I hate my birthday,”
Emme chuckles, “I know,” she says, “That’s why we’re staying in, eating pizza, and pretending it doesn’t exist,”
I look pointedly at the phone and she snorts, “Okay fine,” she says, hitting pause, “We start ignoring it now,”
I grin, sitting back and kicking my shoes off.
“Want to open a card before you go to bed?”
I sigh, “Okay,” I say, “But it better have money in it, I need to cover heating bills this month,”
Emme snorts and hands me an envelope, “This one is from your parents, I think,”
I look at the envelope, noting that it does in fact look like my mum’s handwriting. I rip it open and pull out the card and then I stop.
The front image is in a doodly style I’d know immediately. It’s Miles’s style.
The cartoon shows a girl with ginger hair hiding behind a pillar as everyone sings Happy Birthday to her. The text reads ‘*whispers Happy Birthday so no one hears*’ and I actually want to cry. Then I do cry. I put the card down and tears fall from my face.
“What?” Emme asks, picking up the card and opening it. Money does fall out and I can see my mum’s generic message to me, but Emme hasn’t realised that it’s not the contents of the card that’s the issue.
“Miles drew the card,” I say quietly.
Emme’s eyes widen, she picks it up and reads the front and then chuckles, “He knows you so well,” she says, “Explain to me again how fake it was for you both,” she adds, chuckling. And then I really start to sob, because how can he be both? How can he be this sweet? And then make me feel pathetic and pitied.
Emme looks alarmed and wraps her arms around me. She lets me cry for a few minutes and then she pulls away.
“I’ve avoided asking you this, Del,” she says, and Miles’s nickname for me makes me sob harder, “But I just can’t work it out. What happened? You guys might have started fake but, my god, it didn’t end that way,”
I shrug, “It just, I just…” I trail and cry even harder.
It takes another five minutes of me crying like a crazy person before I can breathe enough to tell her.
“I just didn’t fit. His family, they’re all rich and posh and I couldn’t be what he needed,” I start, I recount the conversation I overheard, tell her all about Adriana and her dad’s warning, and when I’m done, Emme is just staring at me.
“So, nothing actually happened,” she says slowly.
I frown, “Did you not hear everything I just said?”
“Sure, sure,” she says, “You don’t fit with his family, but it never really seemed like Miles cared an awful lot what they think,”
“He basically said he wanted to get back with Adriana,” I retort.
“No, no I don’t think he did at all,” Emme says, frowning.
I frown right back, indignant now, “You weren’t there, Emme,” I say.
She raises her brows at me, “You’ve just told me the whole thing and, as an outsider, and someone who believes that any man would be lucky to have you, I think you have created this in your own head,”
My frown deepens, “Why aren’t you supporting me?” I ask, pouting petulantly now. I don’t want Emme to say these things and give me hope, “He hasn’t even texted me,” I say.
“What did you last text him?” I show her and she rolls her eyes, “Of course, he didn’t text back, you idiot,” she exclaims.
“WHAT?” I yell, “So, he basically says he wants Adriana back but he can’t do that to sad, old me and I’m in the wrong?”
“But he didn’t say that, Del,” she retorts, “He said he wouldn’t do that to you, he didn’t say he really wanted to give you up but couldn’t. He was also speaking to his dad, who had already acted hostile to you, who had already made it clear he thought you weren’t good enough, maybe he really would just say that to get his dad to shut up. Don’t you think he was aware you might be able to hear? You already said you stopped listening, you didn’t hear the full conversation. This whole thing is out of context,” she finishes.
I frown at her again, “So, what? You think I shouldn’t have sent that text?”
“Well, I think you should have told me all this a few weeks ago so I could talk you down from your crazy,” she says, and then she sighs, “Oh Del, I really wish you could believe you’re good enough,”
I roll my eyes and she shakes her head.
“I’m serious,” she says, “I don’t know when you started believing you weren’t good enough for anyone or anything. I don’t know who was the first to make you feel like a burden, but I could kill them,” she says, “Because you are good enough. And I don’t care if you believe me, but I think Miles thought you were too. You’re going to break your own heart if you can’t learn to love yourself, Del,”