Not That Kind of Ever After, page 9
I look inside at all their glorious faces and my “I’m going to be a grown-up and have a serious face” dissolves instantly. They’re a funny old bunch.
They met at university—some amateur rugby thing if my memory serves me, and they look exactly as you’d imagine. They all have the same frame—all broad shoulders and thick tree-trunk legs—but they’ve all styled it out pretty differently at least so you can just about tell them apart.
Behind Dom, chilling on the sofa and stuffing their faces with stuffed crust, are Dave, Dean, and Donald—no, I’m not kidding. Dave is the only one not to throw some sort of comment my way but that’s pretty normal. I don’t think I’ve heard him speak once since I’ve known them all and I’m a delight. Dean’s got a cold by the looks of things; his nose is as red as the Peroni that he’s pouring in his mouth but it’s not stopping him from being in the heart of the action. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Donald without a smile across his delightfully adorable face.
Sam looks like he’s about a bite away from sleeping, draped over the beanbag—and yes I said beanbag. These are nineties babies who never grew up. It wouldn’t surprise me if they own a blow-up armchair among their other blow-up items I’m sure they also own. He still manages a “Bella-ma-nella” before shutting his eyes all over again.
Stu is the only sensible one. He is also the only one with a plate for his pizza and a glass for his beer rather than the rounds of bottles by everyone else’s feet. He’s got his headphones on, working away while the others are all watching some large sports event on the big screen they share. He nods my way but turns his eyes back to his laptop pretty quickly.
The room’s dark, and not just because of the lack of light at this time of night in the autumn months. The walls are painted gray, the sofas are all black, and the table’s a rich brown. It’s their own personal bat cave.
“How can we help my dearest Bellatrix,” Dom says. “You want pizza?”
Trick question. I always want pizza. But I am a strong, confident woman who came here to tell them to take their dirty little habits out of the house.
“Ah man—that shit is strong!”
Keno’s at the door behind me, another almost permanent visitor—or tenant I guess, who actually knows? He must have just wandered down from the stairs as there’s no way he followed me through the front door. He’s got his eyes half-shut and he looks like he’s power napping standing up. Jesus, that would be a fantastic superpower.
“Yeah, I was just—” Then I stop, looking back up the stairs. “Did you just come from my flat?” I ask.
“Our own real-life Sherlock over here,” he says, rubbing my head affectionately as he walks past me. He’s the leanest of the group and he’s still at least two of me wide so “walking past me” actually involves waiting for me to move and shuffling around.
“But no one’s in?”
“The new German lot are.”
Hans and Gertie. Of course. Totally forgot about them.
“They nice?” asks Dom, mostly to Keno, which I’m glad of, given I’ve barely met them.
“They’re generous,” Keno replies, smiling. He’s riding a magical unicorn by the looks of it, high as a Mary Poppins kite.
“Wait—is that smell of weed coming from my place?” I ask, sounding more like my mother than I’d care to admit.
“It’s good stuff, man,” Keno replies, missing the chair he was aiming for and landing on the floor. The various voices pipe up around me in “Waaaay!” and “Oi oi” in response. Dom wanders over once he’s stopped laughing to help the thick fella back to his wobbly sea legs.
“Alright, Dopey, grab some pizza before you hurt yourself,” Dom says, pushing him toward the sofa. Keno doesn’t need telling twice and I watch him sway toward the food like a zombie finding brains. “So Bella, to what do we owe the pleasure?” Dom tries again.
“Just…” I look around them. Gone are the days when I used to do this: hang out with my flatmates as a regular occurrence. This used to be me. This used to have been both of us—Ellie and me.
In fact, it was always Ellie and me and whoever it was who took the other two rooms. Over the eight years we’d had several winning combos, but Marta and George were swapped for Ronald and Minty when Marta found a boyfriend and George wanted his own bachelor pad. Ronald was switched for Katie when he moved in with his boyfriend and Minty eventually turned to Simon, which was a huge improvement in conversation, fun, and above all, cleanliness. Katie left after a little spat with Simon over dishes, which made the kitchen feel like no-man’s-land for a while, and in came Annie to make up the perfect dream team.
We used to always have movie nights on Mondays. We always used to do two-for-Tuesdays at Domino’s—even Annie. But then life happened and schedules filled and now it’s a Monday and I have two stoners living with me who I don’t know and the people I do are having fun without me.
Holy shit, I’m suddenly feeling sorry for myself.
“Nah, I was just saying hi,” I say eventually. “Have a good night, guys!” I call out to the room around me but Dom wanders out to stop me.
“Hey hey, it’s been ages! You never hang out with us anymore.”
“Well, that should change.”
“Sure you don’t want to come in?” he asks, but I’m already mentally preparing myself for the pity party I’m overdue.
“No—I have leftover curry from last week. Need to eat it before it gets bad.”
“Fair enough,” says Dom. He turns to the room. “Saturday then? We’re all heading out. It’s Dave’s last night in London.”
“Last night?”
“He’s got himself a big-boy job out in Australia for the next year, don’t you, Dave?”
Dave looks a bit embarrassed by the whole thing and shrugs.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say.
“Well, I hope so,” Dom replies. He turns to the crowd behind him. Someone’s thrown pizza to someone else and it’s missed. I can see molten cheese now dripping off a nearby pillow. “Say goodbye, guys.”
“Bye, Bells!”
“Bon voyage!”
Come the usual echoes as I trudge back up to the lofty heights of my own self-pity.
13
I try to be cool. I do. But there’s no cool way of telling someone to waft their baccy into the cool September night and not to hot-box our flat.
I awkwardly knock on their door, the last room on the upstairs corridor, which has a trail of breadcrumbs leading toward it in the form of a pungent odor. Oh how I wish Annie was around. She’s usually a no-bullshit kind of girl. I once saw her crush a spider that was freaking the shit out of Simon and me with her pinkie finger. It was so badass I thought someone should make a Netflix show about the incident.
But Annie isn’t here. It’s just me. And technically I’m in the right as this is a nonsmoking flat.
But I’m still feeling mega awkward as I knock.
“Enter!” calls out Gertie.
So I do.
Jesus motherfuckingchrist. They have turned Ellie’s room—they have turned Ellie’s sweetheart wonderland—into a sex den. The walls are filled with erotica, the colors are no longer sweet duck eggs and pale pastels but deep reds. I’m pretty sure the contraption in the corner is a sex swing but I don’t want to look like I’m staring at it.
“Bella! Won’t you come join us?” Hans asks.
He’s properly naked. Like completely fucking naked, except he’s lying down in a slightly “paint me like one of your French girls” way that actually makes it look less weird and more beautifully artistic. Gertie’s got clothes on, just about. She’s wrapped in a flowing dress that’s more or less see-through at the bits that shouldn’t be see-through and bizarrely opaque everywhere else.
Oh please Lord, give me strength.
“I’m … actually alright, thank you, Hans. But that’s a lovely offer,” I add, because I’m trying to act cool. I’m not, I’m tense as shit, but I can’t sound that way. I have to sound and act like this is a totally normal thing to walk in on and then when I leave I can call Ellie and she will cringe with me.
“We have plenty to go around,” Gertie adds, holding out a doobie.
Just for a second I’m suddenly a little tempted. It’s not like I’m doing anything else, I feel awkward enough to need a stress reliever and I haven’t smoked weed since my uni days. But I also don’t want to be a strange part of their foreplay. I wonder if they were this exposed while Keno was up here.
I have to be strong. I have to do the right thing. But the air—oh man, it’s so thick I can feel it on my skin. Here goes.
Just stay cool, I tell myself.
“Erm … it’s like … totally cool or whatever that you’re smoking or whatever but do you mind like erm … like maybe doing the smoking bit outside? Only, it’s pretty strong and like … asthma exists—not mine, I’m like totally fine with it but like—Simon has an asthma … well, just has asthma really and like it’s cool and stuff but if you could possibly take it outside that would be like … cool.”
“Of course, how rude.” Hans says, genuinely affected by my words. There’s somehow not an ounce of offense or sarcasm in his voice and—I mean, I just heard my own words back at me and even I would be sarcastic to that. Both of them look genuinely apologetic.
“Consider it done, little petal,” Gertie says, and despite it being an ever so slightly condescending thing to say I take it as the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. At that moment I do feel like a “little petal.”
I mean, I’m standing in a small room filled with secondhand smoke, so maybe that has just a little something to do with it.
“Cool, like … I totally appreciate it,” I say, trying not to count how many times I’ve just said the word “cool.”
At least the deed is done.
As I walk out a sad realization takes over me; it’s a Monday. There’s no one in. All I’m going to do is reheat days’ old curry, watch a David Attenborough documentary, and contemplate things like when I stopped being the “fun one” everyone wanted to hang out with and began being the fun police.
So I quickly turn back around and reach out for Gertie’s extended hand. I take a long, hard toke and I feel the wonderful rush of tobacco tickling my throat. Keno is right, it is the strongest I’ve ever had for sure. Gertie seems genuinely amused by this turn of events and Hans rolls over to reach for his drink on the side table, revealing a bottom as perfectly stoic as his face.
Even I know this is weird now.
Returning to my high horse, I thank them both and shuffle out of the room, wanting simultaneously to die inside and to eat everything in Annie’s cupboards.
14
I dared not look at my phone until 11 p.m. Partly because that’s how long it took me to finish surveying the death-defying animals of the Sahara Desert with my good friend Attenborough as my guide, but also because I was weirdly nervous and the weed didn’t help.
I can’t help but feel super nervous at the thought of strangers reading my work.
Ellie has read some of my writing before. When I first decided that writing was my passion she used to read everything and tell me exactly how she felt about it, which was always incredibly positive because Ellie is completely and utterly incapable of being anything but supportive. I think Marty might have read a poem or two by proxy of it being on Ellie’s desk when they both still lived at home—but he just shrugged so he doesn’t count. I guess my parents have read a few things I’ve sent them, and my English teachers too back when I was younger but other than that, no one ever reads anything.
I know. It’s dumb. I’m a writer—I should be sending my writing to everyone and forcing them to read it, but when I start thinking about who to send something to, I start panicking that maybe it’s not good enough or maybe they’ll be too harsh and critical and maybe I can’t handle that and suddenly I break.
So I don’t look at my phone. I need time to process what I’ve done: putting something I’ve worked on out there into the universe. I need time to prepare myself for the comments.
When the final closing scenes of the baby cub taking its first adorable little steps turns to darkness and the credits roll, I pick up my phone and turn it off silent. I’m ready.
I have a few texts to begin with. The parentals have popped out of the woodwork:
Mummy Marble-28 Sep 20:35
Free for dinner Friday?
28 Sep 23:15-Me
Are you cooking?
Mummy Marble-28 Sep 23:15
No
Father Marble-28 Sep 23:15
I am
28 Sep 23:16-Me
Then yes. Sounds delightful
They’re only in St. Albans. It’s a twenty-minute train from Kings Cross and given I work on the edge of Baker Street it’s not all that complicated to make it up to them.
Marty-28 Sep 21:55
There’s a new Attenborough on BBC iPlayer
Marty-28 Sep 21:55
It’s brutal
28 Sep 23:17-Me
Just finished it
28 Sep 23:17-Me
Fucking antelopes
28 Sep 23:17-Me
They’re such shits
Marty-28 Sep 23:18
For not wanting to be torn apart?
28 Sep 23:18-Me
They’re totally pointless and cheetah cubs are adorable
28 Sep 23:18-Me
They should sacrifice themselves
28 Sep 23:18-Me
Poor little Simba
Marty-28 Sep 23:19
Feeling broody are we?
Whatever.
I switch over. My finger hovers over the B-Reader app but—no. I can’t, not yet. I’m feeling a bit paranoid, but to be fair that might just be the weed. I head to Mirror Mirror.
Two of my previous conversations must have deleted me, for two new ones have appeared. I have a “hey” from one of them already. Urgh, so boring. I’m not in the mood to even reply “hey” back to them.
I click on my old friend.
Bella Marble
Does it begin with a B?
Mystery Man
It does not
Bella Marble
A C?
Mystery Man
Not close
Bella Marble
First half of the alphabet?
Mystery Man
You’re getting warmer Miss Marble
I smile at that. There’s something weirdly sexy about a last name in a text. It’s like Fifty Shades meets Pride and Prejudice. Plus I sound like that lovely old woman detective and that’s pretty ace too.
It’s time.
I’ve waited long enough.
I click on B-Reader and wait for it to load.
The app’s got a nicer interface than the website. It’s far less cluttered, one picture at a time scrolling around at the top. I look at the bottom, waiting for the little red number sign to appear in the corner to tell me how many notifications that I have. I almost can’t breathe I’m so nervous.
It takes a while to load apparently. I push my thumb down on the screen so the whole page reloads but still no little red number appears. Maybe that feature’s broken in the app.
I press on the “writers” tab anyway, going through to the portal. Yep—there it is. There is my chapter 1: all the relevant ticks are in place; it’s fully uploaded; I’ve agreed to the terms and conditions; I’ve named it properly and added the right genre. Weird.
I click on the page and the stats come up.
No views? Is it being serious?
I reload the page again but still nothing. No likes, no comments, no views at all. It’s been out for half a day. Not a single view in half a day? Where are all the B-Readers? What better things have they got in their lives that makes my chapter have zero views?!
I throw my phone down beside me, then realize how pointless and childish that is and pick it back up again. I read through the FAQs, searching for a reason for this catastrophe.
“New writers—be patient! We have hundreds of new writing samples going up every second. It takes some time for people to see it properly. It won’t be long until the views come in so don’t be put off by a slow start.”
Well fuck them.
I go through all the settings, trying to see if there’s something I missed somehow. Under “consents” there’s a little checkbox stating that my handle can be made public—that’s already checked so that shouldn’t be an option.
There’s one unticked under the “media” headline that asks permissions for third-party consents to use my handle. I tick that too. Anything to get my name out there. Anything to help people read it!
Then, having exhausted my options, I turn off my light in a strop. Then I switch it back on again to find my phone charger and plug it in, then turn it off again. My mind is still buzzing though. All I can think about is how much I want to just pull my writing from the site completely. Maybe I should.
No, that’s not what I want to do at all. What I actually want to do is wander over to the next room, tuck myself up next to Ellie, and have her tell me that it’s all going to be alright and that I just need to be more patient. That’s all. What I want is for her duck-egg pillows and her soothing affirmations to help send me to sleep.
But I can’t do that. Because she’s not there anymore.
So I pick up my phone one more time and I turn to my messages.
28 Sep 23:39-Me
I miss you xxx
There’s no other way I can put into words how it feels to be deprived of the other half of my soul.
I do.
I miss her.
So much.
My phone buzzes almost instantly. Like she was waiting for me. Like she knew I needed her.
