Page 104 of Under Your Spell

‘The work I do now,’ Mum says, and her mouth lifts in a smile, ‘this is my dream job. This is my life’s work. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. It just took me a while to figure it all out. Sometimes you have to take a risk, follow a fork in the road you didn’t see coming, to end up where you belong.’

I blink. Oh God, I am having too many epiphanies at once. I feel like someone just downloaded a software update into my brain.

‘You really didn’t want to be a singer?’ I ask, the words rough.

‘Nope,’ Mum says firmly. ‘And I’ll tell you something else: the last people I’d ever let make a decision for me would be those shitty little men with their cameras.’ She pauses here, measuring her words. ‘I know what happened to you as a teenager was extremely painful, darling, and if I could have protected you from that I would have done, but you can’t let other people – people who have so little claim on your life – have control over you and your happiness. You can’t let them make decisions for you.’

‘You’re talking about Theo,’ I say flatly. ‘But you sound like Sam. That’s just what he would say to keep me with him, that we couldn’t let the press stop us from living our lives.’

‘The difference is that Sam was trying to manipulate you and get what he wanted,’ she says. ‘The words are right, but he used them to control you. You can’t let the press stop you from living your life, not a life that could be filled with joy and love. I know it’s hard to stop yourself from caring what they say and do,’ – she pauses here to look me in the eye and make sure she has my full attention, that I’m really listening – ‘believe me, I really do know that, but at some point you have to let go of trying to control what other people think of you if it means you’re standing in the way of your own happiness.’

I let the words sink in, feel them loosen the knot inside me just a little. They’re not magic words that fix the problem, but they help; they give me room to breathe, to consider another way.

‘And,’ my mum says, almost casually, but she’s not fooling me, ‘I think rather than Sam’s words you should focus on Theo’s actions. He drew the press away, got straight on to his lawyers and threatened everyone with legal proceedings. He was like a man possessed doing whatever needed to be done to get those pictures taken down. That’s not like Sam, who was a sneaky little bastard. Or your father for that matter, who has all the depth of a cheese sandwich. Ripp’s a careless man, Clemmie, not a bad one. He doesn’t intend to let anyone down; he simply doesn’t think.’

She gives me another beady look. ‘This isn’t history repeating itself. Just because they share an occupation doesn’t mean they are the same. Theo isn’t anything like either of them, and for what it’s worth, I think he’s shown you that.’

I chew on my lip. ‘I just don’t know if I’m ready to put myself in the position to test that theory,’ I admit. ‘It feels like I would be making myself so… vulnerable.’

Mum laughs then, squeezes my hand. ‘Darling, I have bad news for you. Falling in love is always about making yourself vulnerable. Even when it’s not with a rock star.’

‘Uggggggggh.’ I drop my head into my hands. ‘Why is it so hard?’

‘I don’t know,’ Mum says. ‘But I think that’s why God invented therapists.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Another week passes before the event of the year: Lil-Fest.

It’s been one more week of radio silence from Theo. After my conversation with Mum, I’ve started to wonder if maybe he’s waiting for me to reach out to him. After all, he said he didn’t want to be selfish, to push me into anything. Is it possible that he wants me to be the one to choose?

Once the thought occurs to me, it feels obvious. For weeks I’ve been assuming that Theo’s lack of communication meant he didn’t want to be with me, that he was trying to let me know it was over, but if I ignore the very loud voice of my own insecurities, if I stop comparing him to people who are nothing like him, I know that doesn’t ring true.

Theo has been clear with me from the start. Before we were anything, even when I was calling him by the wrong name, Theo told me his intentions. Theo hasn’t faltered. He told me that he wants me. Over and over and over again. He told me with words and he showed me a hundred different ways. I know that he cares about me like I know what day of the week it is.

I just need to decide what I want.

When I see Ingrid, I fill her in on what my mum said and then we sit in thoughtful silence for a long time. It is a softer silence than usual. Not a silence like a scalpel, but a silence like a deep breath.

‘I think I’m scared of not being good enough,’ I say finally. ‘Of failing at things, coming up short, disappointing people. Even people I haven’t met. Even anonymous commenters on the internet. But especially people I love.’

‘What do you think will happen if you’re not good enough?’ Ingrid asks.

‘They’ll leave.’ The answer is swift, unwavering.

Ingrid’s head dips, and I get that buzz from doing a good job at therapy, even while realizing that this is exactly part of the problem.

‘Theo left,’ I say, pressing at the tender bruise on my heart. ‘He did it for noble reasons, I know. Logically, I understand. But he left. And it hurt.’

‘That sounds like something you should tell him,’ Ingrid says. ‘I think it sounds like something he would want to hear.’

Those words have been rolling around in my head. Would Theo want to hear that? Maybe. Theo has always seemed interested in what goes on in my head. (Actually, that’s an understatement, because he once told me he wanted to ‘crawl inside my brain and read it like a book’, which I informed him was somehow both sweet and psychotic at the same time.)

All this leaves me with plenty to agonize over, but for today I try to push everything else to one side. Today is about Lil.

Lil-Fest started on Lil’s sixteenth birthday and it has only grown in scale and production value with every passing year. We hold it in the meadow at the back of the mums’ house on the last weekend in August and as such it has always marked the bittersweet end of summer.

The first Lil-Fest was Lil and a few of her friends playing a set on a ‘stage’ which was actually a chalk outline on the grass, while we coated ourselves in body glitter and drank slightly warm cheap cider.