Frustration pulsed through my veins, thudded in my ears. Turning, I threw my forearms up against the wall, buried my head between them. Fuck, I didn’t know what to do. My brain wasn’t designed to cope with decisions, not without putting me through multiple rounds of mental torment and uncertainty first.
I could take tonight as a sign that the past was gone. Helen had moved on, forgotten me. As she should. It was what I’d wanted for her all those years ago. Or rather, what I’d given her whether I wanted it or not.
Fuck! I didn’t know that though.…and the what if would torture me. I could try again, I thought. Send more tickets. Keep sending tickets like a qualified fucking stalker. Write her a letter, perhaps. I needed her. My head wasn’t working right. I kept waking up with the dreaded heaviness in the pit of my stomach and I couldn’t figure out why. Life was good. Things were going well. But I was still breaking. Falling. Why? Why now? Helen would know. She always did. She’d always known what to say, when to say nothing at all, when to just…hold me. She’d tell me what to do.
I fucking missed her. I’d always missed her.
And I needed her…because I was a selfish son of a bitch.
“Hey, Aims?” The phone seemed to have made its way to my ear, Aimee’s number dialled and ringing, before my mind had even registered what was happening. “Can you get me Helen’s address? You know, the one where you sent the tickets?” The words rushed out and then I held my breath, praying she wouldn’t feed me some bullshit about GDPR, or me being an obsessive creep.
“Who the hell is this girl, H? I’ve never seen you this bothered about another human since, well, ever.”
Pointless conversation irritated me, but I’d learned it wasn’t polite to show that. “An old friend,” I said, hoping that was enough to satiate her curiosity. “So? Can you?”
“Sure, I’ll text it over. It’s public info anyway; listed on Companies House. She owns a business.”
She does? I wondered briefly what it could be, then felt my lips melt into a smile. I’d have bet my life she was involved with something creative. The arts, or fashion. I miss her.
“Cheers, Aims. See you soon.”
But not as soon as I’d see Helen again.
If she didn’t tell me to sling my hook…
Six
Helen
Looking out of the window, I imagined if my taste buds had feelings, they would mirror the drizzling weather. Miserable. My tongue rolled the broccoli around in my mouth and I was glad I didn’t have company when my lips started smacking together in an effort to assess the taste. “Ugh…” It tasted exactly like I’d suspected: green. Like earth and leaves, with just the right amount of bitterness after each bite to make me want to gag.
Sod that, I thought, shoving the rest to one side on the plate that rested on top of my knee. I’d tried it, like I’d promised Zac, even swallowed it. He couldn’t demand any more from me. Well, he could, but when it came back up again, he’d be receiving the contents in a Ziploc bag through his letterbox.
As quickly as I could, I forked a piece of chicken - breaded, of course - and bit into it to erase the taste of garden from my mouth. The rest of my meal was within my calorie budget for the day and consisted of food that didn’t make my tongue want to cry. I’d lost two pounds this week and remained utterly focused. The week had begun brilliantly, once I’d got the awkward ‘sorry for the drunk quitting-my-job email, but I’m still quitting my job,’ meeting out of the way with my boss. Motivation like I hadn’t felt in years, if ever, blossomed in my chest. My mind felt like it could burst with ideas and plans for the future, and my body, finally, felt raring to go again.
Yep, focused. That was me. It hadn’t changed when I saw on Twitter that Hugo had landed back in the UK for his tour. That didn’t bother me at all. That wasn’t why I’d bought almost every buy-one-get-one-free deal the supermarket had on multipack chocolate that afternoon, or two twenty-four packs of cheese and onion crisps. That was simply because it’d been so long since I’d been on my diet, that I’d forgotten my head was back in a healthy place. I mean…I did buy broccoli, too.
I’d stayed focused even when Hugo’s face popped up on my DVR, reminding me that it was set to record the Ricky Byrne show, as it did every Saturday, only next week’s star guest happened to be my ex-best friend. My throat only tightened because I’d been tired from working so hard, trying to tie up all my loose ends before my notice was up. I only ordered the takeaway because I’d worked extra late that day and really was too exhausted to cook…and I hadn’t eaten it all. I was still focused.