Page 93 of What It's Like in Words
He nodded.
This was huge. If he was inviting me to meet Patrick, then he must be serious about us. But was this what heactuallywanted? I refused to put myself in another situation like when I met Steph. I needed him towantme there.
Do you want me to come?
He breathed in and out sharply. Enola, I’ve just told you that you can come if you want.
Yes, but doyou—
Enola, stop it!
He said that he would be there, Pat would be there, and if I wanted thenIcould be there too. Like a maths teacher trying to explain subtraction: if Abdul takes two and Martha takes three, how many bananas does Jonathan have? He said the party was at Baker Street and suggested we meet on the platform at Aldgate in an hour.
As we said goodbye and I left his flat for the last time, two feelings permeated: the first was happiness that he was inviting me to the party and the second was how much I wanted to kill him.
CHAPTER 32
I turn the clothes over on the radiator, then go back to the bedroom and check my phone. No new messages, no updates, just a smashed screen, and it’s gone half nine. I am out of time. What am I going to do? What would the women I admire do? That was redundant; they wouldn’t have met him on the tube platform last night.
Think about it, Laa. Think about how he makes you feel.
Okay, break it down. What have I learned? I love him; I keep going back to him; I’m a mess. ButamI a mess, or does he justtellme that I’m a mess? If I behaved in the same way and he called me adorable, would Ibeadorable? Is his voice just louder in my head than my own? Ruth is right: he is awful to me. But sometimes. Only sometimes. After every slap is a kiss in the sunlight. But is that just relativity? What if it was never real happiness? Just the absence of unhappiness? Like those seconds between period cramps when you’re elated about the respite.
I reach back for the indentation in my skull.
Ruth told me to stop thinking about him and start thinking about myself. And she’s right. He is two years out of thirty. That’s less than ten percent of me. He is not responsible for everything.
I feel angry now, but it’s a deeper anger, the way that arterial blood is darker red. I’m not whathetells me; I’m whatshemade me. It doesn’t take a therapist to understand why I am the way I am. Because he died and she left. Because she burned the photos. They say that if you want a different outcome, you have to make a differentchoice. So I’m going to do something that I’ve never done on a Thursday: I’m going to call my mother.
I don’t have to search for her; she is my first missed call from last night. A row of numbers that I never saved to my contacts but can recite from memory.
The fizzing sensation in my body is the same as before I told him that I loved him; before the words left my mouth, before the silence and thedon’t be silly. But I don’t know what else to do. Amy told me that I needed to learn how to end a story, and Diana told me that a problem with the ending is often a problem with the beginning.
I wait for her to answer, but she won’t. She’s probably making a crumble or painting a picture of Milton the turtle or—
“Hello?”
Shit. I wasn’t expecting Paul.
“Bonjour?”
Shit shit shit.
“Paul, it’s… Is my… Is Sarah there? My mum. Is my mum there? It’s Enola.” There is silence, then whispering. He is holding his hand over the phone. I imagine her face changing when he tells her who is calling. She puts down her wine and tries to think of an excuse but—
“Enola? Is everything all right?”
She sounds worried. That wasn’t the reaction I was expecting. I open my mouth, but the words catch.
“Enola, can you answer me, please? I tried to call you last night but you didn’t pick up. What’s wrong?”
Why is she worried? Mum is never worried. Inconvenienced, but never worried.
“Are you hurt?”
I regain my composure. “I’m fine, Mum.”
“Enola, what is it, what do you need?”
