Page 34 of What It's Like in Words
How was the meeting with Louise? Let me know if you need to talk x
Ruth wasn’t here, but she could still read my thoughts.
I put the phone down.
The other night I was beautiful and special, and now I was a nightmare. Why was I ruining this? And why, when he left a room, did it still feel like I might never see him again? My eyes were burning; I squeezed them shut and—
MUM IS GATHERING UPeverything that belongs to Dad. Books. Glasses. Blue cord slippers. Louise is chasing her, grabbing things that fall from her arms.Go to your room, Enola, she shouts.
Come on, Louise says. Come with me, darling girl.
Don’t you dare talk to her, don’t you dare say anything to her—
OH MY GOD.Icouldn’t breathe. My fingers were tingling, and my head felt light. I stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the shower, and crouched under the cool water. I counted and breathed and pinched my arm until the room stopped dappling, then I went back to bed and waited for him.
I must have drifted off, because the next thing felt like a dream. He was leaning in the doorframe, tall and perfect. I told him that I had a panic attack, and he told me not to be silly. He walked to the bed, climbed inside the netting, and folded me into his arms. He handed me an ice-cold bottle of water. I told him that I was so sorry for being a psycho. Are you angry? Do you forgive me?
No, Enola, I’m not angry.
Do you hate me?
I asked him to please say the words. No, Enola, he said with a sigh. I don’t hate you. I told him that I didn’t know why, but that the bites had made me crazy, but he said that he didn’t want to rehash everything. His eyes drifted as he realized I was naked.
Honey…
He kissed me, and his tongue was rum. I didn’t want this. I wanted him to hold me and tell me that everything was going to be okay, but he lowered himself between my thighs. I tried to relax, because he rarely went down on me, but he was drunk and his movements were unpredictable. Eventually he ran out of energy and moved back up my body, flaccid.
You’re really not into this, are you?
I… I am, I just—
Yeah, don’t worry about it.
He zipped up his shorts and slept on the sofa to give me the space that I didn’t want.
DAY 7
He had been distant at breakfast. I had asked if he was all right, and he’d said he was fine in a tone that warned me not to ask again. The day continued like that: me determined to make our last day special and him determined not to make it “a thing.” We read our books separately, and when he wanted lunch, he went inside and made his own. He laughed at a text message, and I asked him what was funny, and he said: Nothing. When the sun started to go down, he got himself a beer (Oh, did you want one?) and sat on the white wall to watch the sunset alone.
I still felt unsettled from my meeting with Louise, and my bites were still vexatious, but I had a stronger objective than my own sanity: to prove that I was stillbeautifulandfunnyandcuteandsexy.I put on my raciest underwear, an uncomfortable pink-and-orange set from Victoria’s Secret, and some lip gloss to match, then went into the kitchen, cracked a beer, and draped myself against the cabinet ofdog ornaments like a mermaid. Then I shouted for him. He didn’t answer, so I shouted again. He called back,What?
Do you want another beer?
There was a pause during which, I imagined, he finished his current beer. Then he shouted back:Yeah!
Come and get it, then!
What?
I have it here.
Can you just bring it?
I hadn’t thought this through. If you offered someone something, normally you would bring it to them. And now he would be pissed off because he’d finished his beer. I held my ground until I heard his feet, and my pulse increased. He appeared from the patio and—
I had watched this scene many times, the woman in lingerie holding a pie or a drink or a feather duster as the man returns from work; his eyes then ping like a cartoon dog’s and he carries her to the bedroom. But this didn’t happen.
He looked at me, bemused, or worse than that, amused, like he was mentally drafting the scene as a chapter in his book or preparing the anecdote for Steph so that she could tell him, once again, how crap his taste in women was.
