Page 91 of What It's Like in Words
I looked back, and the platform was empty apart from a man with a red beanie who gave me a look that knew how this ended:London Underground apologizes for the delay to your journey. This is because of a person on the tracks at King’s Cross.
The train was now two minutes away.
I edged closer and held out my arm. The man mumbled something, and I thought about grabbing him, but he was a big man. If he decided to jump, he could grab my hand and pull me with him.
The train was one minute away.
I told him that everything would be okay. He looked at me like he knew that it wouldn’t be. His brown eyes were stained red.Oh god.I heard the train, a low rumble that would become a rip. Please, I said,pleasejust move away from the edge. My heart was racing. He laughed again. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Our eyes connected.
Just then, two members of staff arrived with the man in the red beanie and they maneuvered him against the wall as the train arrived.
MY HEART WAS STILLhammering when I arrived at Whitechapel. I called him, and he answered the same way as he had before. I told him about the man on the platform, and he said: Do you just want to go home, then?
What? No, I want to see you.
Okay.
I said that I would be there in ten minutes. I wanted to call Ruth and tell her about the man, because she would understand. I even considered going back the warehouse, but that old switch had been activated and I couldn’t go anywhere else.
HE GREETED ME WEARINGthe gray T-shirt that Karen gave him last Christmas. I wanted him to hold me, to erase what had happened with Ruth, to erase what had happened on the tube platform, but he continued throwing items into boxes. I took off my coat, and he laughed at my T-shirt: Congratulations, very woke. His room smelled the same. Damp. Coffee. Aftershave. I never returned after we broke up because there was never anything to collect.
I asked him why he was moving, and he replied that last month he had found his flatmate staring into the cutlery drawer in the middle of the night. I said that we wouldn’t be neighbors anymore. No borrowing that cup of sugar.
Or having that quick shag?
Well…
He arched an eyebrow. There’s no time forthat, Enola.
I sat on his desk chair, swiveling counterclockwise. I wanted to talk about our relationship, but his body language suggested that it wasn’t the right time. I skated my fingers over his laptop: he would pack that last.
And what were you and Ruth up to? he asked with his head in a box.
What you feel isn’t love.
Nothing, I said, explaining that she was preparing for a team-building day for her new job. He said that he hated those. I asked when he had done one, and he said that it was for a marketing job but it was stupid because he was a freelancer. I smiled at the thought of him working in a team. He continued derisively: We had to draw road maps as a metaphor for where we wanted the company to go.
I said that we did that in primary school once but for a differentreason. Dad told me that people would die on my roads. He once told me about this insane accident where someone’s head came clean off!
He turned over his shoulder and grinned. Is that why you’re so jumpy? You thought that drunk man’s head was going to come clean off?
That’s not funny.
He sighed. Yes, I’m sorry. I’m an insensitive prick.
No,I’msorry. I didn’t mean that.
His phone vibrated on the desk, and he opened and closed his fist to indicate that he wanted me to pass it, so I did, and as he read, his face darkened. Fuck, he breathed, before dropping the phone on the bed. I asked if he was okay, but he erupted. No. Enola, I’m notfucking okay.I’ve edited this chapter a thousand times and he’s still not happy.
Simon?
He’s insisting on opening with one of Charlie’s columns, like a prologue. If I had known that getting an agent meant changing everything, I’d have self-published. Fuck. I want a fucking cigarette.
He sat down on the bed and lifted his hands to his forehead. I hesitated and then sat next to him. I circled his back and told him that he should trust his instincts but that he should trust Simon’s too. He said that he wasn’t looking for advice and left the room. My hand dropped onto the bed, warm from where he had been sitting.
I felt a pain as familiar as the joy I’d felt in the bath yesterday. It was like pressing on an old bruise: how hard it was to make him happy. And there would always be something, a prize that he wasn’t shortlisted for or a book cover that he didn’t like. I remembered Ruth’s words when we broke up:Sometimes the good bits of people aren’t the rule, they’re the exception.But I had argued that it was different. And so it had to be. He was the ruleandthe exception. The flaws that made him short-tempered made him brilliant. Just then his phone lit up. I didn’t mean to look.
B, please can we talk. I miss you… x
