Page 37 of What It's Like in Words
He dropped foreplay like a cigarette, and as he fucked me, I saidI love you tooover and over in my head. I didn’t think about my pleasure because it wasn’t my pleasure I was addicted to.
AT BREAKFAST WE USEDup what was in the fridge, and I asked if he had meant what he said about the holiday being crap. He said that he was just angry and that there had been some really lovely bits. I asked him which bits, and he told me not to push. We packed, and I wondered if I would ever be back here. He said that he was ready to go home. I said that I was ready to go home but I wasn’t ready to leave. He said that didn’t make sense.
ON THE DRIVE,Istarted getting a headache. We didn’t have any painkillers, and he didn’t want to stop. He told me to drink more water. I watched from the window again as he swore at the roads, and I realized that the experience now had erased the experience then. I couldn’t remember what the roads and buildings used to look like.
IN THE CAR PARK, I struggled to lift my suitcase from the boot, and he made a joke about feminism. On the corner of the building a mirror was mounted like a satellite. I remembered seeing a giant spider there when I was eight. He told me to see if it reappeared while he met the man with the keys. I sat on my suitcase as the dust turned dark between my toes and waited for the world’s oldest spider.
IN THE TERMINAL, I wanted him to talk to me, but he put on his headphones and moved seats to stretch out. My head was really hurting now. I thought about our long layover in Nairobi and furled and unfurled my hands. He removed his headphones. Why do you keep doing that?
Sorry, I said. I’m just going to go to the toilet.
The bathroom was hot and small. Insects buzzed on the wrong side of the window, and the mirror wasn’t real glass. I examined themarks on my arm and put a hair band around my wrist. I snapped it, and the sting helped a little. I’d get an elastic band when I got home.
I stayed for a moment, trying to remember the version of myself that he liked, then came back out.
Do you fancy a drink at Wilton’s tomorrow?
He said that he was going to his dad’s for a bit.
You are? You didn’t tell me?
He asked me why that mattered. I told him that it didn’t and that I was happy for him. He frowned and said that he couldn’t wait to see the newest member of Karen’s china doll collection.
Our flight was announced on time, but he swore like it was hours behind schedule. He flung his bag over his shoulder and said:Finally,time to go home.
I paused. What did you say?
H-O-M-E, he repeated, mouth curled around the letters like a snake around a mouse.
CHAPTER 9
We stood outside Whitechapel tube station under the starless sky. Everything was cold and dark and loud. We were postponing the goodbye. Me, because I didn’t want to say it, but I wasn’t sure about him. I wanted to believe that he was feeling the same way, that he hated that we weren’t still on the beach, in each other’s arms, listening to the cicadas.
He looked at his phone and chuckled. He had been doing that all the way from the airport. I asked him what was funny, hoping that he would tell me something that we could laugh at together. He said that it was just Steph. I asked what she’d said, and he asked why I wanted to know. I told him that I didn’t really. He made an expression that I couldn’t decipher. I asked him if everything was okay, but he said that he was going to get pissed off if I kept asking.
He put his phone away, and I reached for his arm. At first he resisted, but then he unfolded it and handed it to me so that it sat in my palm like something I had picked up off a supermarket shelf. I asked if he was sure that he didn’t want to stay at mine, and he said that we had just spent the last week together.
Look, I know the last couple days were—
Let’s not do this now, Enola. I’m really tired. It’s been a long day.
I know, I had the same one, I thought.
I really do have to go, honey.
He was twisting his lips like I was holding him up. I hated that. I would rather he just leave instead of demonstrating that he wantedto. I told him that I wasn’t keeping him, and he shuffled forward and kissed me. I forced a smile and told him to have a brilliant time with Karen’s doll collection. Then we picked up our suitcases and he went one way and I went the other, the words “I love you” still unspoken.
OPENING THE DOOR,THEflat stirred as if someone had just run around the corner. Everything looked unfamiliar, like I had been away for years and years and nothing was mine anymore. I undressed and curled into bed. My muscles grew heavy and my brain peeled like an apple until I was at the beach house and—
HE IS WALKING TOWARDme. He wipes the tears from my cheeks. He opens his mouth but then changes his mind.
What? What were you going to say?
The sound of the train.
I scream at him to stop.
The train gets louder.
