that word,’ I said, reaching for my tea.
‘He was part of a scene that’s just not for you – believe me, I’ve been there.’
‘It’s knackering, you know, pretending to be someone you’re not all the time.’ I looked down into the rim of my mug and could see the faint brown mark from all the drinks that had gone before it. I ran my fingernail over it in a faint attempt to remove the stain.
‘You’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to think about your own life. And now you can do whatever it is that you want to do… like shag that gym instructor you always fancied.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ I said, quietly.
‘Yet,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to yet.’
As she left the room I knew I had no choice but to trust her. Trust her optimism. Trust that she knew what she was talking about. I pulled a box towards me and began to pull the clothes out. I stopped at a dress I had bought for a job interview. It was creased. I carried on pulling out endless streams of coats, jackets, tops, shorts – any mundane action to stop me from thinking. I reached right to the bottom of the damp box and that’s when I felt it. A black jumper that had accidently been packed up in the frenzy. It belonged to him. I ran my fingers down the leather elbow pads and across a loose thread in the sleeve. A small fault within a ream of beautiful fabric, just like our relationship. In our short time together, he had created the loose threads and I had begun to pull them and before we knew it all we had was a tangled ball of wool. Using the black hair tie from around my wrist I pulled my hair up and pushed it loosely away from my face.
‘Don’t think,’ I said to myself out loud. ‘Just fold your clothes.’
Chapter Three – How to Get Lost in Reality
It was hot – the kind of heat that London isn’t prepared for – when train tracks melt and people begin bulk-buying ice at the supermarket. Grassy public parks become a carpet for Prosecco bottles, factor twenty-five and supermarket plastic-bag picnic hampers. During the light evenings, a sense of heady weightlessness fills the air. Problems disperse and are exchanged for gin and tonics, despite the fact that city girls become forced to unleash their pale legs, hidden for ten months of the year beneath 100-denier tights. These heated times are unusual in Britain and must be relished during every single hour. Summers are precious to us; they’re unpredictable but always ever so fleeting.
By summer I had weathered the storm and woken up on the last day of the last week of the last month of the last year that I was ever going to feel so shitty about myself again. Up to that point the feeling of emptiness was indescribable but a weekend spent hiding under a duvet, my computer conveniently open on his social media, had led to an intervention from a higher power.
According to my friends I was spiralling and I needed to get back to the real world: a distraction from the dull ache that had resided in my chest every day since Charlie and I had split. I wanted to scream, open a window and shout loudly into the world, a vast release or a call to the gods to do something, something bigger than me; bigger than us. Instead I brushed my teeth and made my first steps back to reality; the joyous purgatory between a dream and a slap in the face.
Since my break-up from Charlie, I had tried a number of tactics when it came to trying to give myself a reboot. First, I’d sampled staying in; reverting to the familiar by putting myself under house arrest and refusing to leave unless the house literally caught fire around me. I had stocked up on food, wine, toilet paper and bin liners. I’d tried box sets, starting the novel I’d always wanted to write, and spring cleaning my entire wardrobe by first piling the contents of my wardrobe high onto my bed, followed shortly by a deep sense of regret midway through. In the end, I just threw away half my possessions. All in all, it had been good for feng shui, bad for home economics.
And, of course, I’d tried going out. What’s more fun than dressing up and dancing to music playing so loud that it drowns out your own thoughts and engulfs you in a different sound – the sound of fun and guilt-free solitude, Amber had asked me. True, there’s nothing quite like feeling the beat of your own heart, moving freely in a dimly lit room full of strangers, bodies in unison with the distant odour of sweet sweat lingering in the air. I’d tried more sedate nights, too – restaurants with old friends, not in one of our regular haunts, somewhere new, with no memories or sentimentality attached. Here, we indulged in two of the most delectable things human beings can do together: gossip and eat. And still, I missed him.
But it wasn’t until I’d divulged in an evening of speed dating, a collective group of people given three minutes to sell themselves without appearing desperate, that I even considered the idea of a rebound. Not always the answer, I admit, but a strong case can be made for forcing myself to see how life could be a little different. Perhaps not with the person I thought I would be with, perhaps not even someone I would want anything to develop with beyond this one event, but nevertheless, a surefire way to thrust myself, quite literally, out there into a new beginning and leave the pain of the past behind me. And I’m not just talking about sex, I’m talking about something a little scarier: chemistry. An addictive feeling that can exist with or without being naked. A bond between two people that can unfortunately neither be forced or faked. But in order to see it, I had to test myself. Give someone else a chance. Everything starts from somewhere and how would I know if I didn’t at least try. In this instance, however, I did run the risk of rebounding with the wrong person. A person who made me miss the person I was hiding from even more than before. It’s a risk – a toss up between getting too attached to something that’s meant only to be fleeting, or if things do permeate, commit to something different from where you thought you once would be. A new chance, but in my book a risk worth taking if the alternative lies within the safety of the past.
In order to move on, sometimes you need to get moving. Having lived in a busy city, it may be time to escape to a leafy suburb complete with riverside walks and the need for waterproof clothing. The main importance of this activity is getting away from what I’ve been used to, playing opposites enabling my mind to wander into another energy setting. There is nothing more reassuring to me than seeing the sun set above a skyline I’m not used to, knowing that when the sun rises, hopefully, new possibilities will arise too. Parks also offer enough escapism to imagine, just for a second, that I am in the countryside: another world where trees, fresh air and open space collide. Looking around, I can see the beneficiaries firsthand, couples strolling hand in hand, joggers, readers and dog walkers. There is no better feeling than when the warm sun beams down on your face as you walk down a rickety path through the giant trees.
But it’s always a comfort to know that an immeasurable sea of people inhabit the earth at precisely the same time as me. The people of my zeitgeist, comrades and fellow friends at arms. I mentioned the need to move forward, but of course this is not truly possible without the honest reverberation of human connection: or my friends. Those rare friends who sacrifice their precious time to sit and listen to the repeat realisation over and over again as if it’s their first time of hearing it; all seeking a common destination of happiness as we pass the ball of encouragement back and forth between us. Under such honest tuition, there is no need to self-monitor. Advice comes in waves, and we may listen. This familiar buffer against the self-harm we often do to ourselves is the only outside eye we have. I take pleasure in carefully observing the fellow wildlife of others, comparing myself to what we deem is the norm. And when I feel the void, I know that I can always rely on the guidance of others in the bourgeoisie of our social climate. They wouldn’t dare let me date if I’m not ready to move on, or let me befriend a new person who isn’t exactly a support. They love me. They care. I should listen.
