Chapter 28 #2
She tilts her head curiously. ‘Have you seen how he looks at you?’
‘No,’ I say easily. ‘Maybe he thinks I look like an interesting bird. Like a buzzard.’
‘Mmm. You definitely haven’t seen how he looks at you,’ she says in a flat voice.
‘Do you mean the glaring? I don’t think that means he’s obsessed with me.’
‘Right.’ She speaks carefully. ‘I don’t think it’s entirely unlikely, though. Don’t you think it’s worth… considering?’
‘No,’ I reply with a sharpness in my voice that I hadn’t anticipated.
She watches me, her eyes betraying a hint of sadness. ‘This is probably an annoying thing to say: but I wish you could see how pretty and fucking wonderful you are. Everyone knows that you’re a catch, but somehow you don’t.’
I clench my mouth shut in a tight smile. Hennie often tries her best to raise my confidence, and I do love her for it. She’s always been quick to remind me of the traits that she loves about me – how much she wishes she had my freckles, how she craves fuller lips like mine. That she adores my hair.
But while I appreciated her praise, I found it difficult to believe whilst I had consistent insults thrown at me by our peers for the same traits. I hated to admit that the observations cancelled each other out. But for me, they did.
Thankfully, my confidence has grown incrementally since then, but not enough to believe that anybody would ever find me beautiful. Any compliment that has kindly been bestowed upon me by anybody over the last couple of years has rolled right off me.
I lie down again with a sigh.
‘Listen. Do you remember last year we met those guys on the beach in Hove and one of them desperately wanted to go out with you–’
‘Desperate is a very strong word,’ I mutter.
‘But you do remember that he asked for your number and you said you had a very important business call and ran away?’
‘I did have an important business call,’ I retort.
‘You did not. It was eleven p.m., Nora.’
‘Mmm.’
‘And you were jobless.’
I fiddle with one of my rings. ‘I’m not sure that’s relevant.’
She gives a short and hard sigh of exasperation.
‘My point is that you didn’t even open yourself up to the idea that a random guy on the street might deem you dateable.’ She looms over me, her dark eyes wide. ‘Which you are, by the way. If I haven’t made that abundantly clear.’
‘You know I love you for saying this,’ I say softly. ‘But the truth is that nothing is going to happen there, especially not with someone like Elliot. He looks like a fucking oil painting or something.’
‘That’s going a bit far–’ she says with a frown, before swiftly cutting herself off. ‘So you do like him… a little bit?’
I sit up slightly, feeling my chest pang with the familiar sensation of anticipatory rejection. I find it very hard to lie to Hennie, so I decide to sidestep the question.
‘He’s obviously good looking. And he’s…’ I pause, fighting for the right word. ‘He’s altogether a really kind and sort of… brilliant person. But I know better than to put any of my eggs into that basket.’
‘But maybe you can Nor – perhaps even just one of your eggs. A tiny egg. The tiniest of eggs. You never know what will happen with the egg. You know?’ She leans towards me, looking entirely too eager.
I tilt my head with slightly narrowed eyes. ‘Why bother? I’d rather look after my eggs.’
‘You can’t keep your eggs locked up forever,’ she says teasingly.
I decide it’s time to kill the egg analogy. ‘He doesn’t fancy me, Hen; I’m not going near the territory of letting myself like him.’
She grasps my hand.
‘Okay, stay with me as I say this,’ she says, shuffling closer.
I brace myself. ‘One day, someone is going to fall hopelessly in love with you. And if you don’t believe that right now, then that’s okay.
But please do something for me: do yourself the honour of really believing that someone like Elliot could like you. Love you, one day.’
My eyes linger on her black boots in the corner, decorated with striped shoelaces. I follow the pattern of the black and white stripes around the loop of the bow tied at the top.
‘You’re worthy of that. More than worthy,’ she says fiercely. ‘You are completely fall-in-loveable.’
I make a noncommittal noise and nod.
Her fingers gently pull my chin up so my eyes are forced to meet hers. They’re alight with such indignation that the sight summons a tender smile from somewhere within me.
‘Can you do that? For me, please?
I don’t believe it. But I do love her for believing it.
‘I would do anything for you,’ I relent. ‘You know that.’
Her face breaks into a dazzling grin as she wraps her arms around my shoulders.
‘Good.’
I brush a bundle of her hair away from my nose and whisper, ‘This is where you say you would also do anything for me.’
I feel her shake with laughter. ‘There are some things I wouldn’t do for you, I’m afraid. I would never kiss Nigel Farage on the mouth for you.’
I beam at her. ‘Can’t argue with that.’
‘Quite.’ She pats my hair with a sense of finality.
Her words echo dimly in my mind: Do yourself the honour of really believing that someone like Elliot could like you.
But that’s impossible. I know it’s impossible.
I wonder if Hennie just wants it to be true for my own sake, or if she’s making a genuine observation. A warm sensation pools within me when I recall her words – something about the way he looks at me?
Even still, I’m keen to cast the theory out of my mind today. What’s the point in entertaining it? It will inevitably end in one of two ways: heartbreak or humiliation. Or – perhaps even more likely – both.
I’d rather bypass that altogether, honestly. Whatever is happening between us is purely transactional. That’s all.
I shoot her another grateful smile anyway.
‘Right.’ She throws herself back down on her bed with a dramatic hair toss. ‘Good. Next thing to discuss: how am I to go on with a hangover like this?’