by Juno Dawson
Sasha is curled into a knot of arms and legs in an armchair. ‘It ain’t the drugs. It’s you.’
‘Exactly.’
They’re right. I know they’re right, but it’s an exhausting thought. It means admitting I haven’t even started. There’s no dope in my body any more, but what if that’s not – never was – the issue?
Sasha smiles cruelly. ‘How stylishly broken we all are.’
Dr Ahmed steps in. ‘Sasha. It’s not your turn. Brady?’ she says. ‘You done?’
‘Sure.’
‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ Sasha continues. ‘That we have such time and privilege to sit around having a cry-wank about our issues. Just using tears as lube.’
‘Sasha, that’s enough!’
‘Gross!’ Kendall adds.
I stifle a giggle behind my hand. C’mon, the lube thing was funny.
‘But it’s true. Most people don’t have the time to get fucked up all day because they gotta go to work and make ends. Or if they do, they end up covered in piss and shit in a doorway, sleeping under cardboard boxes.’
Dr Ahmed opens her mouth to speak, but Goldstein holds up a hand. ‘Sasha. If you can stay calm, I think this is a valid discussion.’
Now she’s being taken seriously, she shrinks a little. ‘I’m just sayin’. It’s bullshit that we can all sit in a mansion talking about our adorable flaws because we got money.’
‘You don’t got money,’ Ruby chips in.
‘That was uncalled for,’ says Guy next to her.
Sasha laughs and tugs up her sleeves to reveal her collage of scars. ‘Well, aren’t I the lucky one?’
Brady speaks again. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Sasha. Inequality sucks. But to be real, I don’t think depression or anxiety or bipolar or OCD or whatever else we’ve got going on . . . I don’t think those things give two shits about how much money we have.’
Goldstein grins. ‘And there we hit the nail on the head.’
I don’t think it’s that simple. It never is. OK, maybe I am fucked up. Maybe what I was doing back in London was fucked up. I don’t think sticking on a label, calling it a sickness, diagnosing me, is going to help.
It’s not going to fix me.
It’s not going to fix what I did.
It won’t bring Antonella back.
STEP 5: I ACCEPT I AM NOT A BAD PERSON
I remember the day I first met Antonella. It was Second Form at St Agnes. On the first day back after the summer vacation, we had a year-group assembly. That August, we’d been on our final holiday as a family to Antigua. I know now it was a last-ditch attempt to hold the marriage together. It didn’t work.
I was excited to be back at school. After four weeks of palm trees, glorious sunshine and white sands I was dying to see Nevada and Genie. We excitedly caught up on boyband gossip. Luka from Stand As 1 was seeing some skanky backing dancer and we plotted her violent death. We were twelve.
St Agnes is a little Hogwarts, tucked away in the heart of Kensington – not far from the Natural History Museum and the V&A. It’s the same sort of red-brick building on a much smaller scale, hidden from prying eyes by a high wall topped with spikes. A private garden called The Green and a busy road separate St Agnes ladies from the gentlemen of St Barnabas.
Assembly was held in the chapel, and it smelled of church – a lingering scent of myrrh and crusty Bibles wafting through the pews and stone columns.
‘Ladies . . .’ said Ms Grafton. Over the summer she’d had a haircut, but the bob didn’t suit her – too much like a Lego woman. ‘Today we welcome a new girl to St Agnes. I just know you’ll all do your very best to make her feel welcome. It’s never easy starting somewhere new, is it? Come on up, Antonella.’
The new girl was gorgeous. Not in a generic, pretty Insta-Girl way, more like a renaissance painting in the Louvre or an Italian screen siren. Her black hair was dead straight and parted in the middle – in stark defiance of the rest of us, who were still very much into big, tonged waves. Her eyebrows were seemingly un-tweezed – unthinkable – but she looked straight out of Vogue. She was much hipper than us, and I knew at once I wanted to be her friend.
Despite Grafton’s words about how hard it is starting a new school, she didn’t look like she had a single fuck to give. She joined Grafton on the stage, her uniform new and immaculate. ‘Hello,’ she smiled and gave a coy wave, her hand twitching at her hip. She was coolly confident without being a dick. ‘I’m Antonella Hemmings. I just moved here from Zurich. My dad is an ambassador.’
That explained the cool – she must have been to some awesome places, collecting all the best bits from each culture as she went.
‘Alexandria?’ Grafton addressed me. ‘As you’re Head of Year, you’ll be in charge of showing her around.’
‘Of course,’ I said, still so keen to please, so eager for empty praise. Antonella came and sat between Nevada and I. ‘Hi, I’m Lexi. Welcome to St Agnes.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘God, sorry you’re lumbered with me. I swear I won’t follow you around like a lost sheep.’
I grinned back. ‘You say that now . . . this place is a labyrinth.’
‘I’ll get the hang of it. I like your earrings. Are they Tiffany?’
And just like that, we were best friends.
The rain has eased off. In fact, from the terrace, I can see black clouds carrying it out to sea like a sky armada. And yes, it smells of Basic.
Kendall and I have a cigarette while Saif, Guy and Brady throw a rugby ball around on the wet grass. At the other end of the lawn, Sasha sits by herself in an old swing tied to a sturdy oak. I think she’s probably doing it to psych me out, but I swear she’s staring at me. She isn’t even swinging, just watching.
With a war cry, Saif tackles Brady and they both slide through the mud. ‘Dude, I look like I shit myself!’ Brady shouts. Saif can hardly breathe for laughing. Mud really does cake his arse. It’s still a lovely bum. I crease up again inside, remembering the shame-a-thon in his room. I stub out my cigarette.
‘You like him, don’t you?’ Kendall says. ‘Brady.’
I give her a withering look. High school gossip is not my fave. ‘Really?’
‘Lexi, what else are we going to talk about? How many days clean are we?’
‘Valid. What do you want me to say? That he’s gorgeous? He is. That he’s lovely? He’s that too. Oh, but wait . . . what’s that? He’s a recovering sex addict and I have a boyfriend.’
Her eyes widen. ‘You have a BF? You never said, you shady bitch.’
‘I do. God, give me another fag if we’re gonna have a big bloody chat. Yes, I have a boyfriend. His name is Kurt. I’m sure if you could read Goldstein’s notes he’d tell you it’s not massively healthy. I don’t know.’ I take a deep drag. Then another.
‘Don’t know what?’
‘This. Being here. It’s like my life got snapped off into a right angle. It was all heading one way. I thought I knew everything. Now I’m not so sure. Of anything. It’s not like I planned on being here.’
‘I hear that. Where do you think you were headed? The doctor told me I was going to die if I didn’t eat. At one point I was just over six stone. I didn’t care.’
‘Do you care now?’
She finishes her cigarette. ‘I’m happier than I was. I don’t want to die. I just don’t wanna eat. And don’t change the subject. This is about you.’
I scratch my ratty hair. It needs a wash. ‘I don’t think I’d have died. It really wasn’t as dramatic as it looked and I’m not a moron. This is going to sound insipid, but I didn’t really see a future. Just Kurt. He was it.’
‘OK, that’s a little depressing.’
She’s right. It is. ‘I didn’t realise how high I was. I was ten feet off the floor. Like a ghost . . . disconnected from everything, walking through walls.’ I wave my cigarette around, brushing off the unease. ‘Hey, will you do me a favour? Don’t tell Brady I have a boyfriend. I know nothing can happen . . . but
I don’t know what’s going on with either of them right now.’
Kendall’s eyes blaze with scandal. ‘I knew you liked him!’
When people say you’re ‘out of it’ they mean it. I was. I’d checked out of life in London and now everything feels . . . well: I feel. Heroin is an anaesthetic, after all. I was pleasingly numb. Now, it’s all tangible and I feel both the goods and the bads again. This Kurt and Brady stuff is somehow like a migraine and indigestion at the same time. Great.
It bothers me all the way into therapy the next morning. I pace around Goldstein’s office like I have haemorrhoids and can’t sit down.
‘Like, it can’t be that easy,’ I tell him. ‘I was miserable so I did a ton of heroin to numb the pain? As if. You can’t walk down Oxford Street without seeing at least two hundred utterly miserable people and they aren’t shooting up.’
Goldstein takes off his glasses and wipes the lenses with his tie. ‘Addiction is never so simple. Are you going to sit?’
‘No. I need the cardio. I mean, Sasha was right. What have I got to be miserable about? My life is . . .’
‘Perfect in every way?’
I stop pacing. ‘No.’ I gesture with my arms, reminding him where we both are.
‘Then what? Sickness – and I would stake my entire career on addiction being a sickness – doesn’t care where you come from, Lexi. So your family is rich? So what? Do you think that makes you immune?’
I cross my arms, shielding myself from his words. ‘I don’t feel sick.’
‘The first thing an addiction tells you is that you’re not addicted. It sounds like your own voice, but it isn’t. It’s the addiction and it’s how it takes control. You’ve been telling yourself there isn’t a problem for how long now? Two years? Longer?’
I shrug.
‘What’s striking, Lexi, is how few emotions you seem able to identify or even recall. You can’t tell me the last time you were happy . . . sad . . . excited. I think you used drugs so you didn’t have to feel things.’
‘That’s not true. Love is an emotion. I loved . . . love . . . Kurt.’
‘You allowed yourself one outlet, but that relationship is harmful. By persisting with it you harmed yourself and furthered your addiction.’
‘Love hurts.’ I think of Mummy and Daddy, and the ways they knew how to wound and scar each other better than anyone else ever could.
‘No. I don’t believe that. Love worth having shouldn’t hurt, not ever.’
‘Are you married?’ I ask, feeling bold.
‘Not any more. My own addiction problems saw to that.’
‘What?’ Now I do come and sit down on the sofa. This shit just got a lot more interesting.
‘Oh yes. Much of my twenties and thirties were a spin cycle of drinking and sobriety. My wife did all she could until I comprehensively broke her down. She stayed with me for fifteen years, a good ten years more than most would have. When she left me, she says now, she did so because she couldn’t bear the thought of witnessing my inevitable death.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Did you have kids?’
‘Yes. A little girl. Well, she’s not so little any more. I see her sporadically. I . . . we felt . . . it was better for me to be away when she was young. I was still drinking. She has a stepfather she loves very much.’
That’s gotta sting. ‘Is that why you’re out here in the middle of nowhere? In case you relapse?’
‘No. Not really. I was a doctor before. I realised in time, with the experiences I’d had, I was more use here than I was in dermatology.’
I laugh politely, humouring him. Now he says it, it makes sense. He always seemed to be on my level, never above me, talking down. We’re all junkies on this island.
‘As much as I admire how you steered the conversation away from yourself, let’s get back to you, shall we?’
I grin. ‘If we must.’
‘Let’s talk about anger. Anger isn’t an emotion,’ he says. ‘It’s a reaction to stimuli. When we first met, Lexi, all I got was anger. How about now?’
‘I’m not angry now.’ I take a couple of seconds to realise that this is true and it feels quite nice. ‘Now I don’t know how to feel. I feel . . . nothing. And everything. Like I’m back at the beginning, or something.’ Restore factory settings. Without London, without Kurt, without context, I’m nothing. I feel like one of those naked, bedraggled Barbie dolls you find in 50p boxes outside charity shops.
‘What makes you happy . . . other than drugs or Kurt?’
Well, there go the top two options. Brady, as close as he was yesterday, fills my head. I push the image aside and hope Goldstein isn’t psychic. I don’t trust my feelings for Brady any more than I trust my feelings for heroin. I’m bored and I’m lonely. It figures I’d fixate on the hottest guy in close proximity. ‘I like being with the horses.’ That is not a lie.
‘Good!’ Goldstein actually claps, just once. ‘There’s actually a wealth of research to suggest simply being in nature is good for one’s state of mind. I encourage it.’
I nod.
‘Lexi,’ he says. ‘Beyond anger, you seem to have a strong sense of guilt. To welcome it, almost. And I don’t see the point in you feeling guilty for your upbringing. You still deserve to be well, you still deserve to be happy.’
I look into his eyes. There it is. It slithers in my gut like a serpent in tar. I am. I am guilty. I don’t deserve good things.
Because, and I think I’ve always known this, I’m no good.
I spend the afternoon at the stables as has become my new regime. Feeble spring sunshine is giving it like thirty per cent, but still trying to break through. I busy myself, helping Elaine with Patty and an injured mare called Tia before turning my attention to Storm. ‘Do you want to see my bruise?’ Elaine says. She rolls up her trouser leg to reveal an almost perfect hoof print. It’s a painful purple and yellow.
‘Oh god. Did Storm do that?’
‘Yes. And he wasn’t even trying. Oh Lexi, what am I going to do with him?’
He seems calm enough now, greedily eating out of a nosebag at the side of the paddock.
‘I’ve been trying.’
She doesn’t seem to hear me, her forehead creased. ‘I know an organisation that frees horses to be wild in the New Forest. Maybe that’d be the kindest thing to do. Just let him go.’
I look Storm in the eye and wonder if he can, on some horse level, understand. I place a hand on his flank. I can feel his heartbeat. ‘Don’t give up on him.’ The words catch in my throat, for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’m still on my period. ‘Let me try.’
‘Are you OK?’ Elaine asks.
I swallow whatever it is back. ‘Yes. I just think . . . the other day it felt like I was getting somewhere with him.’
Elaine rests her head against Storm’s and he permits the closeness. ‘It’s so funny, isn’t it? How animals make us more human.’
Storm’s eyes are black, lashes enviably long. I look deep into them. Silently, I make him a promise. I won’t give up on him if he won’t give up on me.
I wait for Elaine to head off to Patty’s stall before I give Storm a firm talking to.
‘You heard her, right? Is that what you want? To be sent away, to be wild? It’s cool if you do, I guess. Maybe I’m transferring or whatever, but I’m not ready to give up just yet, OK? So here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to mount you. I know. Shocker. Please don’t throw me.’
God, it’s like Buckaroo. I vault over the paddock fence and very gingerly start to tack him up. He takes the saddle and headstall with no fuss, but he won’t tolerate a bit in his mouth. He snorts, paces back and forth. I step well back, having no desire to get a bruise to match Elaine’s. He’ll take a carrot, but stubbornly refuses the bit again.
I must be mental, but I can mount him without a bit. I can attach the reins to his headstall. It’s practically suicide if he kicks off. I won’t be able to stop him, like getting in a car with no brakes.
&n
bsp; I steer him into the training pen. If I come off, at least I’m guaranteed a soft-ish landing.
‘Are you listening, Storm? I’m going to get on now. We don’t have to go anywhere or do anything. We just have to be. Does that sound like a plan? You ready?’
When he doesn’t kick off, I place a foot in the stirrup. I count to three and boost myself up, swinging my left leg over Storm. I land in the saddle.
Storm doesn’t like it. Not one bit. He reverses and threatens to rear, his head tossing back and forth.
I cling to the reins. Maybe I should just get off.
No. I’m not scared of him. He might look big and scary, but he’s just a horse. ‘Oi!’ I say. ‘Stop being a little cunt! I’m just sitting on you, you twat. I’m trying to help you!’ I rub his crest. ‘It’s just me. It’s just me.’
He calms down. He stops and tries to style his little tantrum out, looking moodily into the middle distance like Edward Cullen or something.
‘See? That’s not so hard, is it? Here we are. You and me.’ Tears suddenly sting my eyes and I don’t know why.
I play it down to Storm, but maybe it’s harder than it sounds. Perhaps the hardest thing of all is just being.
I remember Mummy’s ‘spiritual phase’ of three years ago. She hired some charlatan called Guru Rachel as her life coach. Rachel – a sinewy, blonde, yogic husk – kept repeating this ‘all life is suffering’ mantra, which I always thought was pretty bleak. I wonder if this is what she meant: just being alive is dying a minute at a time, and we have to make peace with that.
I don’t ride him, I don’t try to make him do anything. Birds, like a hundred birds, chatter as they dip and dive overhead. I strain to hear the sea over their racket. We just exist together, still. For now, that feels like progress.
Everyone loved Antonella Hemmings.
Not because she was cool, although she was, but because she was delightful and kind.
‘You girls did all this?’ I remember Grafton’s slack jaw. The hall, and St Agnes has a huge hall, was almost stacked to the ceiling with boxes. Most of them contained tinned goods, but some also held nappies, sanitary products, shampoo, soap, scarves and gloves. All were destined for refugee camps in Calais. Grafton smoothed back her dyed auburn beehive. ‘I can hardly believe my eyes. Lexi, Antonella, Nevada . . . this is just wonderful.’