Pretending, page 33
His words are almost too painful to hear because they’re confirming what I was too scared to believe: the feeling that it was actually me he liked, not Gretel. That the real bits were pulling us together, rather than my lies. Those moments our barriers were lowered. But it hurts because, after what I’ve done, he should leave. If he has any sense he should leave. For his own sake, I want him to leave. I have revealed myself to be the crazy one they are all so frightened of. Yet, when I reach out and put my hand on his knee, Joshua, the idiot he may well be, doesn’t flinch. Instead he reaches out and puts his hand on my wet knee.
I make myself look at him, and dare myself to hope. “I know it sounds mental considering everything, but I really don’t lie,” I tell him. “I didn’t before this name thing, and I certainly won’t anymore. You are the first person I’ve ever not been honest with, ironically, considering you hate it so much.”
“Lying really scares me,” he says. “Like, after last time, I can’t handle it. After my ex, I need to know someone. Really know them.”
We look down at one another’s hands on one another’s knees and I color in the bits of him I just learned, about his ex, about how he’s been hurt, and he colors in the bits of me. Both of us hiding the broken bits and making up stories in our heads of how the other will respond to them, assuming the worst. And our heads push together, until they’re almost touching, and I can’t stop weeping, and he looks pretty close to crying too.
I open my mouth and words spill, unfiltered, from it, into the side of his face. “I’m sorry I’ve put up so many walls but, as I said, something...really bad happened to me,” I tell him, terrified of how he’ll take it but forcing myself to tell it anyway. “It wasn’t my fault, but it’s left me a mess. And men haven’t been very good at dealing with it in the past.” He opens his mouth, but I won’t let him interrupt me. “I...don’t trust men,” I tell him. “That may feel terribly unfair if you believe you’re a good man who has never done anything bad. But please don’t judge me for that. It makes sense if you know what I’ve been through. I’m...complicated, you see. I’ve had some things happen to me that shouldn’t have happened.” Tears run more freely now, and I wipe my face with the back of my hand. He sits up, watches me cry. He doesn’t comfort me, just lets me continue. “I don’t want to tell you all the horrible things that have happened to me, not right now. But, if this had continued, I’d have had to let it out eventually and you’d have ended it then. And that’s why I’m cagey and tried to be someone different, because I don’t trust you to still be here when I’m myself.”
There it is. All out there. I wait for him to drop his hand. I wait for the judgment to cave in on his face. I wait for him to look uncomfortable. I wait for him to be Simon. And the countless others before him, who see my trauma like a contaminant. As a shame they have to decide whether or not they can be arsed to deal with. I’m almost too scared to look at him, because I will not be able to stand it to see one more face fall at the revelation of the complicated reality that is April. But I decide to take one last leap of faith and force eye contact.
We look at one another. We hold one another’s knees.
And Joshua’s face...it doesn’t fall. In fact, it looks like things are clicking into place for him.
“I’m really sorry you’ve been through something like that,” he says eventually. “Thank you for telling me.” He lets out a long breath and really looks at me. “But you can’t lie, not anymore. I need to be with someone who is themself.” Then, his hand, it squeezes me in reassurance. A reassuring squeeze. My very first. A squeeze to say it’s OK. It takes everything I have not to burst into tears or run away because I simply cannot trust it. “It makes me sad that you don’t trust people enough to be yourself,” Joshua says.
“It sounds like you don’t trust people much either.” I think of what he’s been through and how it must’ve hurt. How hard it must be for him to take any of this in right now, after I’ve so hugely pushed his buttons. I give him a reassuring squeeze back.
“I’m trying to. I’ve got good reasons not to.”
“I’m trying to too. And I’ve got good reasons too.”
“Is it a stupid thing to try to do?” Joshua asks.
“Trust people?” I ask. “Well, my therapist claims it’s worth striving for.” I let go of him and point both fingers to my tear-stained, mascara-smeared face. “Yes, I have a therapist,” I announce. “Welcome to April.”
His hand on my knee squeezes tighter. “I want to trust you April.”
“Right back at you.”
We sit in the rain. We don’t kiss. All that’s gone on can’t magically melt away just because we’ve had one honest conversation. I’m still at war with myself, unsure if I’m on the cusp of yet another bout of hurt, rejection, and reducing of myself. Yet I’m struggling to let go of his knee.
“We should probably go in,” I say, sensing that this is as far as we can get right now. That we’ve reached our limit on the emotional window being open and need to digest and think and come to imperfect decisions based on our imperfect actions. “The speeches are before pudding, and I want to hear Mark’s speech. Chrissy’s really looking forward to it.”
“Yeah...um...sure.”
I take Joshua’s hand and lead him over the gravel and back into the dryness of the very lovely conservatory. I can’t believe he’s letting me take his hand and it’s awkward between us the moment we’re inside—shivering and dripping onto the parquet. I wince a smile at him, and he winces one back. Both of us chilled in the cringe aftermath that follows deep heart-to-hearts. I can hear the echoing applause of a speech ending. I wonder if we’ve missed it.
“We’ll distract everyone if we come in now all wet,” I whisper to Josh. “Should we just peer around the door?”
He nods and we make sodden footsteps toward the threshold of the dining hall. Waiters are lined up in the corridor, brandishing martini glasses filled with Eton mess, waiting for the speeches to finish. They eye us curiously, but don’t say anything. I peer in, watching everyone twisted in the direction of the top table. Chrissy’s dad is sitting down, looking flushed and relieved. Mark is fiddling with the mic, checking it’s still turned on. It feels a bit voyeuristic, watching through a gap in the door, but I don’t think anyone would appreciate us rocking in right now, with half my makeup cried off. Mark stands, puts his hands in his suit pocket. I watch Chrissy’s face. She’s beaming up at him, so much love gooing out of her. He’s so lucky that she loves him, I hope he knows it. I hope he tells her and makes this speech worth it.
“Hi, everyone, and thanks for coming,” Mark says, not removing any cards from his pocket. Not a good sign. “As you know, I’m not a man of many words but I just want to say...” I look at Chrissy’s poised face, smiling, joyful, patient, waiting. Mark coughs. “It’s great that you all came here today. It means the world to Chrissy and me to have you here.”
Then Mark is sitting down.
Sitting down.
Back on his chair. Like the speech is over. Which it must be. Chrissy’s face is on pause, as she computes whether that’s it or not. I see the exact moment she realizes that’s all she’s getting. There’s a millisecond where her features collapse, where the hope he may be different, just for once, on their wedding day, because it’s important to her, falls out of her stomach. She blinks. Smiles. Recovers. And stands herself as everyone claps half-heartedly, trying not to shrug at one another. Chrissy stands to repeat her thanks to everyone. My heart is breaking for her. It’s her wedding day. The one thing she wanted on the one day she needed it the most and he didn’t do it.
My anger and bitterness rush in, despite the damp, forgiving, hand holding mine. I want to drop it. I want to go and scream in Mark’s face. I want Chrissy to get what she deserves. Why do any of us bother? I find myself thinking. Really? What is the payoff for the disappointment?
Yet Joshua’s hand is still in mine in this doorway. I’ve cried on him, and told him my name isn’t Gretel, and revealed all my chaotic mess, and he is still here. He’s not run out of the door, or called me crazy, or assumed the worst. He’s just asked for an explanation and listened to what I had to say. We still need to talk, oh boy, do we need to talk, but the fact he’s still here is new. This is not what I’m used to.
And then... I feel his breath on my cheek.
“That was his speech?” Joshua whispers in my ear. “Seriously? Just that? On his wedding day? I thought you said she was looking forward to this bit?” He shakes his head, clearly as disgusted for her as I am. “Bloody hell. Your poor friend.”
I look down at our held hands, then up to his face.
Maybe you are different, I think.
I wait for Gretel’s reply. Her warning. Her snark.
I get nothing.
Maybe you are different, I think again, as I lean over to kiss Joshua’s cheek—which could be the making or the undoing of me. I will not know for some time. I may never know at all.
Maybe you are different.
And it begins.
Whatever it is. It begins.
One year later
I hate some men.
And you know what? I don’t think that’s over-the-top, considering what some men do. The ones who hurt and push, the ones who see you as decorations, the ones who are so sad and so messed up that they take and take and take and still feel empty. I hate that they refuse to admit that they hate women. I hate that they still blame it on us. I hate that so many of them seem so far beyond help, and all the damage they’re going to cause as a result of that. I hate the ones who laugh at our anger, who diminish our pain. Who want to keep their slimy hands tightly clutched on the reins of this world, riding the rest of us and whipping us like horses.
I hate the men that did the things to me that made me hate men. I think that’s appropriate. I believe only I am allowed to decide if forgiveness is something I’m willing to give them, and I choose not to. I will not turn the other cheek to the men who damaged me. I don’t owe them anything.
But I love some men. I love the men who try to be different. I love the men who listen more than they talk. I love the men brave enough to hear what we have to say. I love the men who then talk to other men about it, even though it goes against everything they have been taught not to do. I love the men who want to break the cycle. Who want to be different from their fathers, or their brothers, their friends or their colleagues. I love the men who can confront the uncomfortable truth that it is their fathers and brothers, friends and colleagues who are doing this to women. Who have to admit maybe women see a different side to them, one we are not lying about. I love the men who don’t need sisters and daughters and wives to make us human and not want us hurt. I love the men who cry.
I love a man.
I have managed to find a man who, for now, is worth loving. I love a man who has stopped and listened and tried to understand, even though he is a man so he can never truly understand. But he tries. The important thing is that he tries. I love a man who holds me when I cry and is there, but who is making me build myself back strong rather than letting me use him as my strength. I love a man who annoys me so much sometimes that I honestly, seriously, sometimes think I hate him too. I love a man who finds me equally annoying at times but who still chooses to love me anyway.
I love a man, and it has not solved all my problems. It has not made my entire life slot into place like I thought it would. It has not saved me from the huge amount of work I need to do to save myself from things that never should’ve happened to me. There is no “the end” we can hide behind after we found out that we loved each other. There are still two complicated human lives to lead and no guarantee that we’ll make it.
Some days are pure magic, some days are pure hell. Some days I feel like we’re soulmates who perfectly fit, other days I wonder what the fuck we are doing together when we’re so incompatible. Sometimes he gets it, sometimes I can’t even handle how badly he doesn’t.
Some days I believe the hard work is worth it, and other days I don’t.
I’m starting to realize this is what love is. I do not know if it’s worth it. If it makes me any happier. If the pain and frustration of blending a life with another life is worth the gooey moments. I don’t know if the good days will outweigh the bad days.
I don’t know anything.
Yet I keep loving him anyway.
And he keeps loving me.
I’m starting to realize that’s what love is.
* * *
Acknowledgments
I’d just like to start by quickly thanking all women, everywhere. Whenever I think about this book, and everything I read, everyone I spoke to, every painful secret that was whispered to me, I tear up when I realise the sheer strength of us. If your story is anything like April’s story then I wish you peace, I wish you recovery, I wish you love. I hope I did her story justice. This story was partly inspired by the years I spent, like April, helping victims of sexual violence, and, like April, there came a time when it became too much and I had to stop. So thank you to everyone out there who continues to work for these services. It’s such vital, important, brutally-hard work and you are all my superheroes.
There are so many women in particular I’d like to thank too. To Maddy, as always, my own official dream-maker and powerhouse—and to her amazing team. To Kimberley, my editor, for pushing me to make this book everything that it is. And to everyone at Hodder in general for not batting an eyelid when I sent over the opening line ‘I hate men’. For getting it and believing in it, and championing it, and me, and the work I do. It means the world that I have a publisher who lets me tell these stories—thank you. Also a special shout-out to Becca, your passion and work ethic is as impeccable as your hair. I also want to thank my US editor, April Osborn, and everyone else on the MIRA team for everything you’ve done to bring this story over the pond. I’m absolutely thrilled to have you.
To my female friends—Rachel, Lisa, Emily, Ruth, Lucy, Ellie, Harriet, Jess, Christi, Non, Lisa, Lexi, Sara, Emma, Louie, Lizzie, Becky, Tanya, Katie, and so many more. Thank you for pulling me through this book, for always picking up the phone, for the insight and wisdom you give me, for the turn-taking we share in reassuring one another that we’re not crazy. To the incredible women in my family—Mum, Eryn, Willow.
And, unlike April, I am proud to say that I don’t hate men, and this is because of the wonderful collection of men in my life who challenge toxic concepts every day. Thanks to my father, to Josh, to all the great men I worked with at Youthnet. And to W, in particular—goodest of all the good eggs.
Finally, to anyone who needs further advice and support after reading this book, please do contact RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) in America, which offers help to survivors 24 hours a day. You can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 800 656 4673, or the Online Hotline. And to anyone inspired to donate to these causes by this story—please do. They are chronically underfunded considering the huge scale of the issue of violence against women.
ISBN-13: 978148077159
Pretending
Copyright © 2020 by Holly Bourne
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Holly Bourne, Pretending
