by Cat Clarke
My life could now be neatly divided by a single point in time: before or after I found out my boyfriend was a girl.
*
How could you not know? How was it possible for a girl to be clueless enough to go out with a boy for months and not realize he was actually a she?
As I walked away from Alex’s house, I half-expected him (HER) to come after me. But he (SHE) didn’t. The streets were thronging with people on their way to the street party. Everyone was smiling, laughing, shouting, singing. I walked as fast as I could, head down to hide my tears.
There are things in life that you are so absolutely sure about that you don’t have to give them any thought. The sun will rise each day. The ground is solid under your feet. Your boyfriend is a boy. And then one day you wake up and there’s perpetual darkness and the ground has turned into quicksand and your boyfriend is a girl.
Alex was a girl.
I was feeling too many feelings at once; my brain didn’t know which one to settle on. Shock. Disbelief. Confusion. Embarrassment. Grief. Anger. Back to shock again.
At the bus stop a woman with a baby strapped to her chest asked if I was OK and the baby made a grab for my scarf with its chubby little hands. I said I was fine, thank you. The woman smiled at me kindly before getting on her bus. What would she have done if I’d told her that I wasn’t fine at all, and the reason why? Would she still have smiled at me kindly or would she have looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet?
The bus was almost empty – most people were heading into town, not away from it. I sat and stared up at the CCTV screen as it scrolled through the different views of the bus and its passengers. I found it hard to feel anything when I saw the girl with the red coat and purple scarf. She certainly looked normal enough. You couldn’t even tell that she’d been crying. You couldn’t tell that her life had been been ruined – twice in the space of twenty-four hours. You couldn’t tell that she’d genuinely thought it would be a good idea to go round to her boyfriend’s house to beg him to give her another chance.
*
Mum still thought I was staying at Astrid’s – I’d been so sure I’d be able to convince Alex to take me back. I had it all planned out – this big speech about how we were meant to be together and how we could overcome any problems as long as we talked about them and that all couples go through rough patches and that wasn’t a good enough reason for us to break up. I’d gone over it again and again in my mind, discarding the obvious clichés, but keeping some because clichés are clichés for a reason, aren’t they? So the plan was that I’d give this big, heartfelt speech and I’d try really, really hard not to cry because I didn’t want Alex to take me back just because he felt sorry for me. Then he would take me in his arms and say sorry and reassure me that nothing like this would ever happen again. He would introduce me to his parents and they would think I was charming and everything you would want your son’s girlfriend to be. Then Alex and I would get the bus to Astrid’s house and Alex would lead me upstairs and undress me slowly (after being all considerate and checking that this was really what I wanted) and we would have sex and it wouldn’t be awkward or painful. I truly believed all these things were possible if I could only find the right words to say.
Alex texted just before I got off the bus. A single word: Sorry. I deleted the message.
If I hadn’t gone round to Alex’s I would never have found out. I would have lived every day still thinking my boyfriend had suddenly dumped me out of the blue.
I hadn’t told Alex I knew where he lived, because the way I found out was a little dodgy, I suppose. I found an envelope addressed to him in his bag. It’s not like I was snooping or anything – I would never do something like that. It was when we met up on Christmas Eve. He’d just arrived and gone up to the counter to order and I had this sneezing fit. I’ve always been embarrassed about sneezing so I always try to do it completely silently. Mum’s always telling me off about it; she’s probably just jealous because when she sneezes it sounds like a cross between a goose and an elephant. So I sneezed four times in a row and realized I was in desperate need of a tissue. I checked my bag but I’d run out. I didn’t even think twice about looking in Alex’s bag. There wasn’t much inside – a pair of gloves, a copy of Empire magazine and a red envelope. There was a paper napkin right at the bottom, which I used to blow my nose. I barely even glanced at the envelope – it was clearly a Christmas card – but the address lodged itself in my brain, probably because the house number was 19 and that’s always been my favourite number. And me being the idiot I am, I saw that as yet another sign that Alex and I would be together forever.
I wondered if I’d have been happier never knowing the truth. It took me about three seconds to decide that of course I would have been happier. Every girl gets her heart broken by a stupid, inconsiderate boy; it’s a rite of passage. I’m not saying I would have got over it quickly but maybe I’d have felt better in a few months and by then maybe Astrid’s boyfriend would have introduced me to one of his friends and I’d have realized that Alex wasn’t The One after all. But all because I couldn’t stop sneezing on Christmas Eve, things panned out very differently. This was not a rite of passage – this was a living nightmare.
The High Street was pretty deserted. I stood there shivering, trying to work out whether I should still go to Astrid’s. On the one hand it would give me time to think – it might help me to process what had happened. But the thought of going back there was too much to bear. I’d been round there after dinner the night before, getting things ready. I wanted to make sure everything was perfect, so I’d gone to the supermarket and bought all the food and put it in the fridge. I’d gone through the cabinet in the dining room and found a huge silver candelabra. I’d even set the table, with crisp white napkins. I wanted everything to be ready so I wasn’t stressing about it when Alex arrived. I went up to Astrid’s room to see if I could see the fireworks on Calton Hill. I didn’t think anything of it when Alex didn’t reply to my texts. I wasn’t one of those girls who expected their boyfriends to keep in constant contact. Astrid got all pouty whenever Justin took more than five minutes to reply to a text. She’d start stressing about where he was and who he was with and whether he’d found someone else, and I’d have to reassure her that everything was fine and he was probably just busy. I almost felt sorry for her; I was so smug in the certain knowledge that I didn’t have to worry about my boyfriend because he was perfect in every way.
I’d been walking home from Astrid’s house when I got the text. I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry. I actually stopped on the street and laughed out loud. That’s how sure I was about the relationship. It was only after the next message that I started to realize that maybe things weren’t OK. I had no trouble understanding the words in the message but it was hard to get my head around how they could possibly relate to me and Alex. Then when he wouldn’t reply to my messages and he wouldn’t answer the phone I knew something had gone terribly wrong. My mind started racing trying to work out what had happened. Maybe he hadn’t liked his Christmas presents after all or I’d just been too full-on somehow? Or maybe he hadn’t been joking about Edward and he didn’t believe that I would never ever like someone like that in a million years. I kept on coming back to the sex issue though. There was no doubt that I’d been the one pushing for us to do it. I thought Alex was being respectful of my feelings and wanted to make sure I wasn’t rushing into something I wasn’t ready for. I thought I had the perfect boyfriend and all the girls at school who moaned about sex-crazed boys just hadn’t found the right one yet. Either that or Alex just wasn’t like other boys. I was right about that, at least.
The timing of Alex’s texts had me convinced that he didn’t want to sleep with me. Clearly he was so repulsed at the thought of my naked body that he’d rather break up with me than risk being exposed to it. I’ve never felt particularly self-conscious about my body. Astrid’s always going on about her weight even though she’s loads skinnier than me. Stella�
��s the same. It’s not like I think I have an amazing body, it’s just that it seems to me that there are more important things to worry about. Sure, I wouldn’t mind my tummy being a little flatter and my boobs being a little smaller, but there’s something about seeing your so-called best friends bending over to see how much daylight they can see between the tops of their thighs that really makes it hard to care. But after Alex’s messages I began to wonder if there was something horribly wrong with my body – something I hadn’t noticed before or something that boys would find disgusting but no one had bothered to tell me.
I’d managed to get home from Astrid’s and say goodnight to Mum and even brush my teeth before I started crying. I was proud of myself for that. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the suddenness of it. One minute you have a boyfriend and you’re happier than you’ve ever been and the world is a wonderful place to live in, and the next … you have nothing. It was a cruel magician’s trick: now you see it … now you don’t. Now you’re happy, now you’re not. There should at least be some warning signs, shouldn’t there? I should have at least had some inkling that things weren’t as good as I thought they were. But the last time we’d seen each other was Christmas Eve and I’d seen how much he liked the recording I’d done for him. He was genuinely touched. You can’t fake that kind of thing, can you? Not unless you’re a pathological liar. Or a sociopath.
I’d texted Astrid even though she’d said she probably wouldn’t be using her phone in France. I got a reply straightaway; there was a lot of swearing and saying what she’d do to him if she got the chance. Of course she had to mention that she’d thought there was something dodgy about Alex, even though she’d never said anything of the sort before. She asked if I was alright. I said I thought I’d be OK, even though that was a lie. She seemed to think I needed to do some grand gesture to show Alex he hadn’t won, that I shouldn’t let him get away with treating me like this. She said I should go round to his house and dump all his stuff on the doorstep, preferably when it was raining or snowing. I told her I’d think about it. I’d never told Astrid that I hadn’t been to Alex’s house; she would have thought that was weird.
I thought I would never stop crying – that the inside of my body would start drying up and I’d end up desiccated like a coconut. I sat cross-legged on the bed with the things Alex had given me: the skull and crossbones beanie, the tiny panda from the Kinder Surprise, the shell necklace. A stranger might think they didn’t amount to much, but they meant everything to me. Along with the gig ticket from when we first met and the ticket for Mary King’s Close and a sachet of sugar from the day we first kissed, and lots of other little things I seem to have been collecting without even really thinking about it. Perhaps my subconscious mind knew this wasn’t going to last and I should probably have some mementoes to prove to myself that it had actually happened – that it hadn’t been some sort of crazy dream cooked up in the mind of a lonely girl.
Of course I wasn’t going to dump those precious things on Alex’s doorstep. I should have known Astrid would suggest something ridiculous like that. But it did give me the idea to go round there. I needed to see him again – for him to look me in the eye and tell me he didn’t want me. And that’s where the silly fantasy of him realizing the error of his ways came in. That didn’t work out so well, did it?
chapter twenty-seven
I opened the front door as quietly and carefully as I could. Mum had said she wasn’t going to stay up till midnight. She’s never liked Hogmanay – she’s allergic to all that expectation and forced merriment. But the light was on in the living room and I could hear the TV. I tried to tiptoe past the living room door but it swung open before I knew what was happening. Mum was brandishing a poker. Her glasses were askew on her head and she looked terrified.
Mum realized I wasn’t a burglar/murderer and lowered her weapon. She was breathing hard. ‘Oh my goodness, you nearly gave me a heart attack! What on earth are you doing here?’
I took the poker and put it back in its stand next to the fire, buying me some time to compose myself. I planned to play it exactly as I had the night before; Mum would be none the wiser and I could cry myself to sleep safe in the knowledge that she would never know how stupid her daughter is. That was the plan, anyway. It all went a bit wrong when Mum said, ‘Actually, love, I’m just glad you’re home. I was feeling … well, I was feeling rather lonely, I suppose.’ She sat down on the sofa next to a worn copy of Death on the Nile; she only reads Agatha Christie when she’s feeling down. There was a bottle of apple and blackcurrant cordial in an ice bucket on the coffee table, sitting next to one of Mum’s best cut-crystal glasses. A bowl of pistachio nuts sat on the arm of the sofa. I don’t know what it was but something about that scene made me feel sad to the core. I burst into tears.
Mum jumped up from the sofa and put her arms around me. She didn’t ask me what was the matter – not right away. She stroked my hair and made soothing noises. I felt like a little girl again, running crying to mummy because I’d scraped my knee on the patio. I cried so hard I started coughing; Mum told me to sit down while she rushed to the kitchen to get me a glass of water. The crying abated a little in the few seconds Mum was out of the room, but it resumed full force as soon as she was back.
I sipped the water and the coughing stopped. My gaze drifted towards the TV; a studio with a big screen showing a countdown, interspersed with crowd scenes from London and Edinburgh.
The crying reduced to a sniffle and then Mum asked me what was wrong.
I had to tell someone. It was too much for me to deal with on my own. Astrid wasn’t in the country, I barely spoke to Stella anymore and there was no one else. Alex was the person I confided in.
I spewed out the words before I lost my nerve. ‘Alex is … Alex is a girl.’
The countdown on the TV hit zero at the exact same time. Cheering and fireworks exploding. People shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR and singing Auld Lang Syne and kissing total strangers. Mum hit the mute button on the remote control. The crowd scenes seemed a lot more sinister in silence.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not quite sure what you …?’ Mum didn’t look horrified – not yet. I might as well have said ‘Alex is a robot’ or ‘Alex is an alien’. Either of those might have been easier for me to explain.
She didn’t believe me at first. She kept saying that she didn’t understand and looking at me suspiciously. I told her the whole story about how Alex and I met and that it never even occurred to me for one second that he wasn’t what he seemed to be. Mum didn’t seem to think it was possible; I couldn’t really blame her for that. At least she didn’t tell me off about meeting some stranger off the internet – that was something to be grateful for at least. She didn’t even say anything about me lying about spending the night with Astrid.
After a few minutes Mum shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. It doesn’t make any sense! Why would someone do something like that?’
Good question. I didn’t know the answer so I just shrugged. I thought I’d feel better now that I’d shared the burden, but I just felt utterly exhausted. My gaze wandered towards the TV where some old eighties band was playing a song I recognized from a car advert.
Mum put her hand on my arm so I had to look away from the TV. I recognized the look on her face straightaway. It’s the one she puts on when she’s about to say something she knows I’m not going to like – usually when she wants me to do an extra hour of piano practice because she once read that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be truly accomplished at something.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Darling?’ She stretched the word a little, like she was testing an elastic band to see when it will snap. And that’s when I knew what she was about to say would upset or annoy me much more than the usual nagging. ‘Are you …? Are you a … lesbian?’ She half-whispered the word and winced at the same time.
I felt a rush of heat to my face and my heart started beating really fast and I felt anger like I’ve never felt be
fore. How could she even think such a thing, let alone say it? I should have known that telling her was a really bad move. I should have known that she wouldn’t understand – she’s never understood me my whole life so why should this be any different? I looked down and noticed my hand was gripping the arm of the sofa so hard that my knuckles were white. I was angry with Mum for being so unbelievably stupid and totally missing the point, as always, but more than that, and much more powerful, I was angry with Alex. She put me in this situation. She did this to me.
That was the moment that it all became clear. The boy I had fallen in love with did not exist. He was a character created by some seriously messed-up girl in order to trick me into liking her. And now my mother thought I was a lesbian because she couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to be fooled like that. It turned my stomach.
‘What?’ The disbelief in my voice couldn’t have been more obvious, but my mother didn’t seem to notice.
Her hand squeezed mine. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of, you know … I even … I suppose you’d say “experimented” when I was in college.’ She laughed awkwardly and I wanted to punch her in the face. I’ve never wanted to punch a person before.
I shook off her hand. ‘Jesus Christ, Mum! What the hell are you talking about? I told you what happened. Why are you always so quick to think the worst of me?’
‘Oh stop being so over-dramatic. That’s not true and you know it. It’s just that this is very difficult to understand. Surely you can see things from my point of view?’
Rage. That’s what I was feeling, pure and simple. I jumped up from the sofa and turned on her. ‘See things from your point of view? How about you see things from my point of view for a change?! I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I must have been mad to think you’d actually support me instead of being your usual judgemental self. I can’t believe you’re being like this!’ I was practically spitting the words at her. I took a deep, steadying breath. ‘How many more times do you want me to say it before you get it into your stupid head? I. Thought. Alex. Was. A. Boy. I’m not gay and if you say it one more time I swear I’ll–’