SEVENTEEN
I imagined telling Dylan the truth a hundred different ways on that train ride home, explaining what the other part of my job included. But he’d been so happy, so eager to share everything about his life with me, like a tap had been turned on. And I couldn’t resist. I wanted to collect those missing years, layer them up, and memorize them until it was almost like I had been there, too.
I walked the line, telling Dylan about my dating history, my friendship with Tola. He was right, there’s something about people who were there at the beginning, who can see what you overcame and where you’ve come from and tell you how proud they are to see how you’ve grown. It was freeing.
I’d texted Tola and Eric on the journey home, and they celebrated that we’d talked about marriage, that I seemed to be doing a good job. I didn’t tell them we’d had it all out—I couldn’t quite bear to let them think I was taking advantage of a friend. Smoothing out Dylan’s love life when he was a near stranger who pissed me off was one thing; manipulating him when he was my friend again felt impossible. I visualized helping him plan a huge, fancy proposal, being there to take the photos, and congratulating them at the engagement party. Standing at their wedding, one of the inner circle. How awful.
“So, five things, Aly, go,” Dylan said on the train home, drowsily tracing circles on the table between us.
“Playing in the arcade, eating fish and chips, seeing that seagull dive-bomb you”—I ticked them off on my fingers and laughed as he threw a balled-up receipt at me—“the smell of the sea, and . . . getting to laugh with you again, I guess. If we’re gonna be all mushy about it.” I twitched my nose in distaste. Still playing the part. You, I wanted to say. You’re all five today, for making this happen, for being honest, for loving me once. But you’re also absolutely destroying me.
I threw the receipt back. “Your top five?”
He smiled at me so tenderly that I wanted to be sick. “All of it. Every damn part. Perfect day.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Even the seagull attack.”
“Made you laugh. Worth it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, Charm Boy. You realize that shit doesn’t work on me.”
He laughed. “You keep telling yourself that . . . Nerd Girl.”
“Nerds will inherit the earth one day, Dylan, we’re the ones quietly doing all the research. Don’t forget it.” I stuck out my tongue and he laughed again, so easy, so relaxed.
Oh god, there was no way out of this without hurting someone. Tricking Dylan, disappointing Nicki, potentially ruining Eric and Ben before they even got started. And Mama . . . she’d be trapped in the same toxic cycle forever.
But she was the adult, right? She was the one who should have her shit together right now. What had started as sleights of hand and subtle psychology was now too big. I was messing with people’s lives.
We settled into a quiet rhythm as the train rattled through the countryside, and I looked out into the approaching darkness.
I couldn’t leave this all unfixed. I’d made this mess and couldn’t just walk out halfway through cleanup. What is it they say about heart surgery looking like murder if you stopped in the middle?
I would tell my mother that I couldn’t get the money.
That I’d picked Dylan over her. I’d jump straight off the train from the seaside onto the one that would take me to my mum’s. I had to do it now. She wouldn’t want me to hurt Dylan; she loved him, too.
The train crawled along, infused with memories, and whilst there was a new wonder at this friendship, renewed and new all at once, there was also a slight fear: The idea that I’d once been loved by him, however briefly, was intoxicating. I kept imagining another life, and I knew if I allowed myself to stay in that alternate world, I might never come back.
When the train pulled into the station, I tried to back away, explaining I needed to catch another train to my mother’s. I didn’t escape the hug I’d been trying to avoid. He wrapped his arms around me, cocooning me on that platform, and I tried not to breathe him in. Tried to pretend that nothing had changed.
“Say hi to your mama for me,” he whispered as he let go. “Tell her I miss those lethal margaritas.”
I nodded, lips pressed together, and then bolted across the concourse, eager to end this torture. I was going to make it right. Even if it let my mother down.
I sat on the same train we’d always taken, and remembered Dylan’s words from earlier. Wondering why we’d never bumped into each other, even though both our parents still lived in the same place. He said he never really came home. Not properly.
“What does that mean?” I’d asked, and he’d sighed.
“Once a month I drive and park outside my dad’s. I save up all these things I want to tell him. How well I’m doing at work, some amazing meal I thought he’d like, beating my personal best on Sunday mornings. And I stand outside, looking at the front door for about twenty minutes. And then I drive home.”
“Why?”
“Because however I imagine it’s going to be in my head, it’s not.” He’d shrugged. “He’ll say something, I’ll get pissed off, we’ll argue, and it’ll be worse than if I never went. I used to wish we had what you and your mama have. But that’s not how it works for everyone.”
What did me and my mama have? I trudged along my old road, wondering. Codependency, resentment, love, guilt? Loving her more than anything, but fearing becoming her even more?
I paused outside the house, feeling a wave of grief. I conjured the image of my grandmother sitting under the magnolia tree, our old cat Banana winding around her legs. I thought of the birthday parties and bouncy castles in the back garden and waiting on this front wall for Dylan hundreds of times. Riding our bikes, walking down to the cinema, sneaking out to a party.
All of those memories would be gone.
I could visualize Mama’s face, trying to hide her disappointment as I apologized. The desperation as she’d start looking at one-bedroom flats to stay near her friends, or moving all the way out of town with no support system. How she’d try to pretend she was happy about it, because she didn’t want me to feel bad. God, I was already exhausted.
I put my key in the lock and could smell food cooking in the kitchen, the warmth permeating down the hall. She was playing music loudly, and I could hear her singing along, laughing. Maybe I didn’t have to tell her today? Maybe I could just let her be happy for a little longer? Then tomorrow I could go to the bank about a loan.
I heard Mama’s laugh again as I rounded the corner. She stood sprinkling salt into a pan as my father put his arms around her waist, kissing her neck. I had seen them like this before, of course, but weirdly, never when they were married. It was only after he’d left that he started showing her affection, acting like he loved her. That had been before my grandmother lived with us. Before we promised ourselves we deserved better than men who would use us up and throw us away. And yet, here he was again.
I snapped, walking through to turn off the radio, watching as Mama jumped.
“Alyssa—” She went to make excuses, pulling her dressing gown around her. I just looked as the emotions chased each other across her face. Shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, denial. Hope? She looked so stupidly happy and I hated her for it.
“I can’t tell who’s more stupid, you or me,” I told her.
“Alyssa, don’t talk to your mother like that.” He tried to step in, but I laughed in his face.
“You don’t get to talk to me.” I turned back to Mama, meeting her eyes. “It’s definitely me, it’s definitely me who’s the idiot. Because I am out there compromising myself, doing everything I can to get the money to pay this man so you can keep your home. So that you can keep your independence and your history and your connection to your family. And you still choose him!”
“Alyssa—” Mama was horrified, her eyes wide, but I saw the anger there, too.
“You know he never loved you, never loved us, right? It’s a power thing. The same way it was about coming back around when he divorced you. Now he’s taking your home, and you do this?”
I couldn’t bear to look at her. What was I fighting for? I had been picking up the pieces he left behind for years, and she still kept going back for more. Still letting me fix everything, like I was the adult.
“Alyssa, what your mother and I have . . .” he started again, and I looked at him.
“Where does your wife think you are?” I asked, disgusted. “Are your kids waiting for you at home, desperate for your attention, like I was when you were out fucking someone else?”
“That’s not fair, Alyssa.”
I threw up my hands. “You’re an adult. Your actions have consequences, deal with it.”
On the edge of frustrated tears, angrier than I had ever been in my life, I turned to my mother.
“Do you know what I had to do to try and get that money? Money you were going to give him? The people I was willing to hurt, because I wanted you to be happy? No, you don’t, because you didn’t ask. You just wanted me to fix it. The way I always have.”
I watched the tears roll down my mother’s face as she stepped away from him, horrified at the look in my eyes. “I’m ashamed of you, and Yiayia would be, too. Keep your house, lose it, move back in with him. Do what the fuck you want, I don’t care anymore.”
I walked out the door, slammed it behind me, and made it three streets over before I burst into tears.
The problem, of course, was that there was only one person who would understand this. Dylan.
I couldn’t call him. I wanted to run to him and let him be that person for me again. I wanted to stop thinking about the fact that he’d loved me, that if I’d been a bit braver, it could be me sitting with him in a flat across town. It could be me who made dinner whilst he opened wine and asked for my opinion on his business. It could have been a whole life, one that didn’t end in me sitting with mascara running down my face on the train back to my dingy little flat alone.
Thank you for today. So many more than 5 things. A x
I left the text sitting unsent for a few moments, wondering whether it was okay. Whether it was safe. But it was better than calling.
Oh god, there was no need for the money anymore. There was no need to do any of this. I could stop all of it.
I pressed the call button, suddenly possessed.
When the call was answered, I didn’t even pause to listen.
“Dyl, it’s—”
“Alyssa!” Nicki yelled down the phone in extreme excitement, “it’s so good to hear from you!”
Did I call Nicki’s number?
I looked down at the phone in my hand, but it said his name. “Sorry to interrupt, Nicki, just calling about some changes to the presentation template. Is Dylan there?”
Sometimes I scared myself with how quickly and easily I could lie. My hands were starting to shake.
“Oh . . . he’s just taking a shower, darling, had a bit of a brutal workout, if you know what I mean?” She laughed, and I felt my stomach clench painfully. She adopted a whisper. “I just want to say thank you. Whatever you said to him, or whatever’s going on. He’s so much more positive about all the romance and marriage stuff. It’s like it doesn’t scare him anymore! He’s his old self again! And I’m going to get him some proper media training. Maybe Tola could recommend someone?”
I went on autopilot. “Yep, absolutely. Happy to help.”
“Okay, darling, well, I don’t want him doing more work tonight, and we’re about to have dinner. Dylan’s trying to put in a ‘no phones at the dinner table’ policy. Isn’t that cute?”
“Super cute. Speak soon,” I said vaguely, and listened as she hung up.
I jumped onto the train and found myself a seat, wondering what to do next. There seemed to be only one option. I reached into my bag for my brush and my makeup, shook out my hair from the elastic band, and put on lipstick, anticipating the juddering movement of the carriage like a Londoner with years of experience.
I hurried into my flat to change, downed a vodka with the dregs of orange juice left in the carton, and headed straight back out again.
I needed something for me. Something to remember how to feel good again. To remember what I was working toward. So I slipped into Zidario’s dimly lit entrance off a side street on Tottenham Court Road, and felt myself relax at a corner table in the dark basement room.
It wasn’t the most opulent of my favorite restaurants, but it was comfortable, the deep red plush carpets, and the brickwork walls, like sitting in a cave, cocooned away from the world. The waiter didn’t even blink when I asked for a table for one. I ordered a huge glass of malbec, a steak so rare it might try running off the plate, and some dauphinoise potatoes. Because today of all days, I damn well deserved potatoes cooked in cream and butter.
I got out my book and tried to settle into that meditative space. Self-care, self-love. Treat yo’self. I knew how to do this. But after reading the same line for the fifth time, and finding most of my wineglass drained before my food had arrived, I had to admit: this wasn’t working.
I didn’t feel better. I just kept looking around for something to distract me, to save me. I was looking for my friends. I wanted to tease Eric and joke when Tola called something old-school. I wanted to make up what people were saying across the room with Dylan and I wanted Ben to take the wine I ordered from my hand and replace it with something infinitely better that he’d tell me to sip and savor. I wanted to sit in a corner with Priya and laugh about the dumb things the guys said all day when they thought she had her music playing.
My feel-good system was broken. I didn’t feel anonymous and powerful and clever.
I just felt alone.