Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  ‘What is it about me that you find so irresistible? I have manly upper arms and sturdy thighs and terrible posture and those are only the problems that I have on the outside.’

  ‘You really don’t see yourself, do you?’ He looked down and released a heavy breath, exasperated. His tongue poked out to moisten his lips and I got the sudden urge to kiss those newly moistened lips. He sighed and opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything I leaned across and pressed my mouth, painfully, to his.

  I kissed him, sloppily, angrily. He tasted of the bitter beer he’d been drinking, mingled with the full wine flavour plastered all over my tongue.

  He fought against me, pushing me back with his hands.

  I pulled away. His lips were red from the force I’d used.

  He stared at me; he looked upset, angry even.

  ‘I had to do it just once. You won’t be back now that you’ve seen the real me.’ I leaned forward, the momentum making me sway dangerously close to the edge. I thought I might fall, that this might be my final night, that I might have had my last taste of wine, my last taste of him, of anyone.

  I felt a horrible pulling feeling in both of my shoulders and before I knew what was happening, I was being dragged backwards and placed, not too gently, on the balcony floor.

  Theo knelt down beside me and took my face in his hands.

  ‘I’m fed up of you making decisions on my behalf, Effie; they aren’t yours to make. And stop telling me that I’m like every other guy who’s ever been a dick to you – it’s insulting. Now, I’m taking you home before you fling yourself to your death.’ He pulled me up to standing. A tear fell down onto my chin; I wasn’t even aware I was crying. The rush of blood to my head made me feel dizzy.

  ‘You act like you’re this great guy, but you’re not,’ I slurred. ‘You seem like it right now and you’ll fool me for a little while, like all the others have, and then, somewhere down the line, you’ll end up getting bored of me or deciding that you like someone else better and I’ll see that you’re just like the rest of them.’

  Theo’s jaw was pulled taut, his eyes hard and boring into me from several paces away.

  ‘Firstly, that’s a very sexist generalisation. Secondly, thank you for telling me that I’m not just a fickle cheater, but that I’d try and manipulate you into a relationship before I revealed that about myself. It’s all very flattering.’ He scoffed and shook his head in frustration.

  ‘It’s true.’ I raised my voice to an almost shout and curtains began to twitch around the windows. ‘You’re gonna end up being just another rung on the ladder of disappointment that I climb on my way to spinsterhood and I dunno if I can be bothered with it anymore. I might swear off men, become a lesbian, but then I’d probably have the same luck with women.’

  ‘Stop it, Effie.’

  ‘There must be a reason why you’re on your own. You’re single-handedly the hottest person I’ve ever met, you’re funny and intelligent and kind.’ His eyes seemed to redden with anger as his jaw flexed, but still I kept pushing. ‘I know why I’m single. I mean, just look at the state of me. But shouldn’t you be married by now, or at the very least engaged? Everyone else seems to be, so, if you’re such a great guy, why aren’t you?’ I took a step forward, the quick motion making the blood rush back to my head. There was a cutting remark sitting on the tip of my tongue, but as I went to say it, the edges of my vision began to turn fuzzy and before I could warn him, my legs buckled, I hit the floor hard and everything went black.

  I woke to the smooth forward motion of Theo’s car and the sound of country music on the radio.

  ‘Why are you listening to Dolly Parton?’ I asked, my voice slurred and slow.

  He sighed from the driver’s seat, clearly annoyed that I’d woken.

  ‘Because I like her music,’ he said with an angry twang in his voice.

  ‘Don’t you listen to anything that was recorded this century?’

  I saw his jaw muscles tighten and release as he flexed his bruised jaw, but he didn’t respond.

  ‘I’m sorry I kissed you and made a fool of myself and almost threw myself off a skyscraper.’ I looked over at him; his knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel.

  ‘I don’t blame you for being angry with her, Effie. She did a shitty thing and she’s not a nice person and I don’t blame you for getting drunk either. But you can’t answer shitty behaviour by being even shittier. The next time you kiss me, if you ever do, you’d better mean it. I don’t do this often and I wouldn’t be putting up with all this shit if I didn’t really like you. So, stop thinking that I’m too good for you or that I’m only hanging around with you because I have some sort of Prince Charming complex. I like you – is that so hard to understand?’

  I opened my mouth to answer but what came out were not words, just vomit.

  I threw up into my lap in an attempt to spare Theo’s car, but there was so much of the burgundy spew that it rolled down the sides of my legs and began seeping into the seat beneath me.

  I apologised as he groaned and I promptly passed out again.

  Chapter Twelve

  Please God, let it all have been a dream.

  My eyelids peeled back like sandpaper as they opened to a blurred, abstract image of my room. I lifted the covers and saw that I was in my underwear; hopefully I’d not been with Theo when I’d decided to strip off, otherwise I may well have given what must have been the least sexy striptease of all time. Oh God, my head!

  My mouth was dry, so very dry. I unattached my tongue from the roof of my mouth and tried to moisten it. Turning to the side, I found a blister pack of paracetamol and a pint glass of water. I had no idea how they’d got there.

  I put two pills onto my dry tongue and downed the whole glass, instantly regretting it and feeling a horrible churning in my stomach.

  I had never been one of the lucky ones who forgot portions of their drunken nights. No, I always remembered everything. Everything I did. Everything I said … eventually.

  Oh God! I’m dying. This is it, this is how I go.

  I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head, pushing the quilt into my mouth and biting down hard in an attempt to fight the memories of my outburst with Kate, of how all those people had looked at me, of Theo and how I’d … Oh my God! I kissed him and then threw up in his car!

  It was early and I was sure that everyone else would still be in bed, so I tentatively made my way to the shower. I passed the top of the stairs and recalled how Theo had carried me to bed, Joy leading the way and apologising the whole time.

  My body trembled all over. Whether that was from the anxiety of what I’d done or from the near alcohol poisoning that I seemed to have inflicted upon myself, I don’t know.

  I showered – washing the vomit and shame from my hair – got out of the shower, promptly threw up on my feet, showered again and returned to my room. When I shuffled back to bed, I found Elliot curled up on my pillow. I smiled and lay down as if he wasn’t there, nestling my head into his soft fur and hoping he’d stay put, but Elliot didn’t like me to be comfortable and so he slid out from under me and lay down on my chest, purring loudly while his claws pulsed. His claws stung but I didn’t stop him; if anything the pain kept my mind off what I’d done.

  For years I’d imagined how good it would feel to tell Kate what I really thought of her, but now that it had actually happened, I felt nothing but regret and an overwhelming sense of humiliation.

  I’d done a good job of hiding my life from those I’d gone to school with, rarely updating my profiles and only adding highly doctored and painstakingly selected photographs, but I had shattered that illusion last night. Eloise ‘Fucking’ Kempshore and Marcus couldn’t have been the only ones there who knew me, but I hadn’t stuck around to find the others.

  A memory of my feet dangling over a vast drop and Theo’s disappointed face looking back at me caused me to smack myself hard on the forehead and groan sadly at Elliot’s aloof face.<
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  ‘Stop looking at me like that!’ I said to him. His yellow eyes stared down hard into mine.

  ‘I thought you liked everyone looking at you; you certainly put on a show for them all last night,’ he silently replied.

  ‘Shut up!’ I shoved him from the bed and he landed with a thump on all fours. He lingered for a few seconds, staring into my eyes with a wisdom far beyond his species and for a disconcerting moment, I thought I saw him shake his head in shame before sauntering from the room.

  I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and saw that there were no messages, no calls, not even a junk email.

  I flung it into the mountain of clothes and rolled over, pulling the covers over my head and eventually falling back into an uncomfortable sleep.

  It was one in the afternoon when I woke again and, this time, I felt much better. The moisture had returned to my eyes and my head felt less like a battered piñata.

  I hauled myself up and got undressed. Everything hurt. Why did everything hurt so much?

  I looked down at my side where a light purple bruise bloomed on my hip and a graze sat, crusted with blood, on my elbow.

  I must have hurt myself more than I realised when I’d passed out on the balcony.

  How I hoped that Marcus Roe hadn’t seen Theo carrying me out. Why was I always so drunk when Marcus was around? Why was I always so drunk, full stop? You’d think I’d have learned by now that wine led to a hangover day of doing nothing but regretting my life decisions. But I’d grown so used to hangovers by this point that I more often woke with one than without one. My entire life was one giant hangover.

  I pulled on an old grey sweatshirt that Dad had bought me from some godforsaken steam railway I’d been dragged to and a pair of ripped blue jeans. I slid my thick-sock-covered feet, which still ached from their unfamiliar night in heels, into a pair of clunky boots and pulled a black beanie over the tangled mess that sat atop my head.

  I slid my phone into my pocket – it was still void of any kind of correspondence – and gritted my teeth before descending the stairs.

  I didn’t make eye contact as I entered the kitchen where Joy sat reading the paper and my dad stroked Elliot while eating a cheese sandwich. Elliot waited patiently for the grated chunks of cheese to fall, catching and swallowing them before they had time to reach his lap.

  ‘Can I borrow the car? I’ve people to apologise to,’ I said, opening the fridge, taking out a carton of apple juice and pushing it under my arm.

  ‘I should think so,’ Joy said scornfully without looking up from her paper. ‘I wasn’t proud of you last night, dear, neither of us were. Isn’t that right, William?’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ he replied without looking up from his sandwich.

  ‘Join the club,’ I said, snatching the keys from the hook beside the door and turning to leave.

  ‘That Theo is a wonderful boy,’ Joy shouted. I stopped but didn’t turn around. ‘He brought you home and put you to bed last night. He even sat with you for a while to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit.’ I didn’t remember that part. I must have fallen asleep the moment he placed me down. ‘And you did nothing but complain, as usual, telling him that he was carrying you too fast and then stripping off in front of him like a woman no better than she should be.’

  Oh God, so I hadn’t been alone when I’d cast off my clothing. At least I’d left the underwear on.

  ‘If you want him to stick around, Effie, you’d better start showing him some kindness.’

  I didn’t reply. I just added her words to the pile of other disappointments that sat across my shoulders and left the room.

  I pulled up outside Theo’s building and sat in the car for twenty minutes before going in.

  I told the doorman – I remembered Theo calling him Ben before – which apartment I wanted and he rang ahead to see if Theo would accept my visit.

  My stomach flipped with a mixture of worry and the hangover that I was quietly nursing. As soon as Ben lowered the phone, he ushered me into the lift and turned his key in the lock. The doors slid closed and the upwards motion made me feel like throwing up again, but the super sweet apple juice had calmed my stomach and the worst of it was over now.

  When the doors slid open, I stepped into the hallway and took a deep breath. Theo hadn’t come to meet me, but I could hear the sound of a video game being played from the next room. I wandered through and found him battling some sort of undead samurai warrior from the comfort of his sofa.

  ‘Um, hi.’ My voice was quiet and barely crested above the cries of pain as the game heroine died. He placed the controller down on the table and turned his head, his eyes not meeting mine. ‘I wanted to … um, to apologise for last night.’

  He stood, hands in pockets, and walked over to me. His eyes were hard, hurt; his lips pressed into a line. He looked tired. Light grey circles hung around his eyes.

  ‘I’m so, so, incredibly sorry,’ I said as I desperately tried to meet his gaze. ‘I’m sorry that I get like that and say terrible things and embarrass myself.’ I took a breath and tried to steady myself. ‘I knew that Kate and I were finished. But the truth of it is that, even though I knew, I’m still a little bit heartbroken about it. I loved her like my sister and now we’re nothing. That just got a little much for me last night.’ I took a breath and felt a tear roll to the end of my nose. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and dabbed it away. ‘I remember what you said about me thinking you’re too good for me – you got that exactly right. I don’t want to let myself get my hopes up if you’re going to figure out that this isn’t just a phase for me, this is who I am. I mess things up, I ruin everything and I drink too much. That’s just how I was made.’

  I felt the tears falling thicker, faster and all I wanted to do was feel his arms around me. I stepped forward and laid my face against his chest as I let my tears soak into his Buffy the Vampire Slayer T-shirt. I breathed in his scent and waited for him to put his arms around me; he didn’t.

  After enough time had passed for me to smear snot all over him, he pulled away but didn’t meet my eye as he brushed the tears into the fabric of his shirt.

  He backed away another step, his eyes looking over my shoulder, at the ground, at his hands; anywhere but into mine. He turned abruptly and walked over to the fridge, took out two bottles of water and threw one to me. It bounced from the heels of my hands and struck my chin before falling to the floor with a sloshing thud. ‘Come on,’ he said, turning off the TV and grabbing his jacket from a hook on the wall, ‘we’re going out.’

  The receipt from a valet service sat on the dashboard and gently fluttered in the warm air that filtered in through the fans. I guess he’d wasted no time in getting the contents of my stomach cleaned from his car upholstery.

  I tried to push the fragmented image out of my brain, of Theo looking at me with disappointment, of the diffused light from the overhead street lamp that glistened in the viscous pool in my lap.

  I stared out of the window and watched the grey ugliness of buildings give way to open countryside that zoomed by in a blur of verdant green dappled with the russet hues of autumn. I had no idea where we were going, but I didn’t really care either.

  I felt like something had changed, like the Kate-shaped anger I’d been carrying for so long had finally fallen away and now all that was left was a hollowness where that anger had sat.

  Maybe I’d been hanging on and I hadn’t even known it.

  I’d been waiting for us to fix things, to be important to each other again, but last night had removed all chance of that. I felt lighter and heavier at the same time, freer, more numb. It didn’t feel good, but then it didn’t feel bad either.

  Theo and I didn’t speak for the duration of the journey. The only sound that could be heard was the anxious grinding of my teeth and the sultry sounds of Johnny Cash droning from the speakers.

  It was a depressing song that I’d heard before but I didn’t know the name of. The lyrics were about needles tearing
holes and crowns of thorns. It fitted the mood perfectly.

  We began to slow after a while and Theo pulled into a gravelled car park, stopping beside an out-of-order pay and display machine.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked, my throat scratchy from underuse and vomit trauma.

  He pulled two small sheets of paper from his pocket and handed me one. They were copies of the list. He pointed at mission number eight.

  ‘We’re getting lost?’ I asked, not really in the mood for a ramble; I wasn’t wearing my comfortable Docs.

  ‘We are,’ he answered, his voice devoid of friendliness. He took his water from the dashboard and climbed out, slamming the door a little too hard.

  Outside the car, the wind seemed to alternate between gusts of comfortable coolness and a biting bitter cold that cut straight through my clothes. I shivered and trotted after Theo, who was already nearing the line of trees at the edge of the crunching gravel. He didn’t wait or even check over his shoulder for me as he cut through the trees and ascended a hidden path.

  ‘Theo, wait!’ I called, but either he didn’t hear me or he ignored me.

  I stepped onto the path that was one smattering of rain away from being a muddy bog and climbed the dramatic, sudden incline of a concealed hill. My thighs burned with the exercise and my chest stung with the freezing air that turned my lungs to ice as it passed through.

  Theo was a good way ahead, his body silhouetted against the sky as he neared the end of the covering of trees. I mustered all of my strength and ran the last few metres until I too fell through the trees into the open space. My feet landed on springy grass that covered the range of hills that stretched out as far as I could see, chopping through the landscape all the way into the horizon. The furthest hills disappeared into the light fog that hung in the distance, the last ones nothing but ghostly spectres in the haze of the horizon. To either side sat a small town and the glint of cars passing along invisible roads sparkled like stars, the sound of their engines only a gentle whirring in the quiet. The fields that stretched out on both sides were blocks of colour, a cubist artwork made up of the changing colours of the season. Theo hadn’t stopped to take in the view; in fact he was so far in front that he would no longer be able to hear me if I called. His hands were shoved into his pockets, his shoulders hunched against the cold.