Page 26 of What It's Like in Words
I’m just going to brush my teeth.
Okay but hurry up, yeah, I didn’t come all this way to stay indoors!
The mirror was steamed up from his shower. How could he have a hot shower? I could smell cigarette smoke in the steam. I brushed my teeth and remembered my mum’s face behind my own in a mirror. It wasn’t a specific memory but a feeling in the bottom of my stomach.
WHEN WE GOT BACKfrom the shops, I told him that I wanted to shower before the beach but what I really wanted was to call Ruth. I wasn’t sure if it was the stress of hiding my feelings or the feelings themselves, but the morning had felt endless.
I turned on the water and then crouched between the wall and the sink so that my voice wouldn’t carry. I’m working, Ruth answered in a whisper. Are you okay? My hands went to my face, and my eyes filled with tears. She told me to hang on. There were muffled voices, then footsteps, and then she spoke louder. She was in the break room. I could picture the lockers and the clock on the wall.
Roo, I’m so sorry for calling you.
Don’t be. Is everything okay?
I told her that I was at the beach house, and it was amazing, but that I felt sick or claustrophobic or something. I keep having these half memories. And it’s stupid because I only came to this beach, what? Four times in total? And it was nineteen years ago!
Ruth told me that it wasn’t stupid. She asked if I had told him how I was feeling. I said that I was afraid of ruining the holiday, because this was his first holiday with a girlfriend. She sighed and sounded, for a second, like Catherine. Enola, if explaining your pain ruins the holiday, then something is wrong.
Ruth already didn’t like him, so I told her that I was probably being paranoid.
She paused before replying: Okay, so, talk to him. You don’t have to tell him everything. You just need to let him know that being back there is hard—
I didn’t say it was hard.
Fine, nothardhard, just…
Strange.
Strange, then, she agreed. And, Enola, please,pleaseknow that telling him this isn’t ruining anything. It should make youbothfeel better.
Ruth said that she had to go back to work but to please text her with updates. Is the weather at least glorious?
Already thirty degrees. What’s it like there?
It’s sleeting.
We laughed and then said that we loved each other.
I turned off the shower and looked in the mirror. Nineteen years. That was the length of a whole person. When I was nineteen, I drove and had sex and knew to walk on the road instead of the pavement when navigating Oxford Circus. Every cell in my body had been replaced twice. I thought of my old therapist:You are not your pain; you are not your sadness.
I came out of the bathroom, and he was waiting to come in. Hestarted past, but I stopped him. My heart was pounding. Listen, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.
Okay… he said slowly.
I picked at a bump on my arm.
Just say it, Enola.
It’s just that when I was little, we left here very suddenly. And I guess I didn’t think I’d find it this strange being back…
Right, he said, clasping his hands. He had the same expression on his face as when I asked him to touch me in bed. Like he was waiting for a catch.
But it is. Strange, I mean.
He shifted his weight and asked what I meant by “strange.” I told him that everything looked different, and it was discombobulating. I wasn’t sure why I had chosen that word. His face changed, and he laughed. He said that he was relieved that I hadn’t said something worse and that I would feel “bobulated” after some time in the sun.
Just don’t focus on it. Leave for the beach in ten?
THE BEACH WAS QUIET. Seaweed that had been pushed up by the tide crisped and curled in the sun. I could see Turtle Rock in the ocean and, farther away, Whale Rock. There was another rock on the sand that we used to walk to after breakfast sometimes.
