Bad Girl

by Sarah Michelle Lynch

  “And then I went to London, to doss about, to try to hold down jobs, but I had this massive, gigantic chip on my shoulder and couldn’t get on anywhere. Things got worse when Adam and Theo started hanging out in London with some people I was connected with. We’d cross paths and I would behave like a slut to convince him I didn’t care… I couldn’t care less. I almost self-destructed before one of our mutual friends told me that Adam wasn’t sleeping with anyone and people thought he was gay. I started to wonder if it were true and it made me feel a little better. I even decided to go for the bar just because I decided that I didn’t want to be lesser than myself anymore and I needed to aim higher. A couple of years passed and then we heard he was with this woman, Susan… someone we didn’t know, a colleague of his at a new job. It fucked with my head. It really fucked me up, I can’t explain it, but it fucked me up. And when you and I met, I was on a shagging spree, I admit. I was in a terrible twister of self-destruction but slowly but surely, I changed. You know I’ve changed because of you, don’t you?”

  I watch him push his fingers into his tear ducts, shocked and upset. I’m too frightened to touch him in case I end up rejected.

  “I realised this past week I never got over the way he looked so ashamed and I carried that shame around with me for years until probably, around about a year into our time in Australia, when it got a bit better and I shook it off. Now if I reacted tonight, it’s because I can’t hide the way I feel when I’m around him again – like a teenager riven with fear and self-loathing and all these notions of him being one of the good guys and feeling so besotted and then having the rug ripped right from under me. He means something to me, but he can never be my future because of what he did. But somehow, if I’m to move on, I have to know why he did that to me… why he broke me.”

  “I want to kill him, to break his fucking back,” Cole complains.

  I shake my head side to side. “The thing is, deep down, I know he is good. Lily told me. His wife was a fucking psycho but he did everything to try and make her happy. Maybe he wasn’t into me that much, in which case I just wish he hadn’t made it seem otherwise, but if that’s not the case then I fear, and I really believe actually, that there was something else going on between the lads that I had no idea of. Because recently, just at Christmas, Saskia told me there’s a secret the guys have… something they’ve all sworn never to reveal to anyone. Working like we do, we have a feel for people, you understand? We can’t help it. It’s our job to see people and to spot lies and whatever. And I have this god-awful feeling that there’s this gap here somewhere… something I don’t know about. Part of me thinks it has something to do with my mother’s parties… how we’d all get trashed and off our faces. How Tom got into drugs because of them… Paul got into older women… and Adam was scarred for life, maybe, by what he saw… which is why he’s only ever been with me and Susan. And both times, it was disastrous. I just… I have to know, Cole. I have to know. I always thought that love should feel like pain, but Lily told me she thought that too and then realised no, it shouldn’t. And all the time I was out there with you and there was no drama and we were just happy, do you know what? I didn’t trust it, because that’s not what I was shown when I was growing up, I was shown that life is hard, it’s crap… it’s ticking all the checkboxes every day, day in, day out… and then, you know what? Drinking and shagging to forget and rolling into the next day, never knowing any different. And then, you, Cole. You. You turned it all around for me. You did. And now I know what happiness is. Because of you. And I shouldn’t give him a second thought, I shouldn’t.” I start to blub and he comes towards me, holding me. I press my face to his chest but continue talking, “I shouldn’t think about him, I shouldn’t be terrified of bumping into him, but it cuts me to the quick and I can’t explain it except to say, I just have to get to a place where I can draw a line and then farewell, that’s all I know. And I don’t know how I’ll make that happen, but I have to, because it’s not fair on you to bring my shit to your doorstep. It all has to be taken care of and sewn up. I just need it done and the unfinished business no more. That’s all I know.”

  He holds me as I cry, and then eventually as I quieten, he takes off his jacket and kicks off his shoes.

  “I understand,” he says, “I understand.”

  He holds out his hand and walks me upstairs, undressing me slowly and tenderly. He kisses every inch of my body meticulously and thoroughly, then he moves inside me, never once taking his eyes off mine. I know what he’s saying with every movement of his body and every plunge of his desperate love inside of me.

  And I know that if I fuck it up now, it’s all my fault, because he laid his cards on the table and he’s loved me through all my sickness and irreverence and stupidity. He will always love me and I know that.

  “July,” I whisper, as he’s stroking my hair afterward. “July. I’ll come.”

  “Take your time,” he says, “I’m going nowhere. I know what I have in my arms and I’m going nowhere. You’re my special girl, you always will be. Special only to me, because I’m the one who really knows you. I’m the one who really cares.”

  I cry my eyes out in his arms until I’m so exhausted, he’s stroking my forehead and helping me slip into sleep, blissfully relieved of all my worries and cares.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I live the next two weeks like I’m wrapped in clingfilm and can’t get out. I hold onto my hurt and my agony like it’s suffocating me and there’s no space to grieve. Then finally, at work one day, Polly comes into my office in her stupid, loud dress and asks, “Chloe, are you okay?”

  I stare at her like she has to be kidding me. Am I okay? Of course, I’m not okay.

  “I’ll be fine,” I tell her, pretending to push a pen around my notepad.

  “Well, you don’t seem fine,” she says, “you seem tired and poorly. And sad.”

  “I’ve got some stuff going on but I’ll pull through, just let me be,” I beg, keeping my head down.

  “Look, I can… do more. Just tell me what to do. I’ll do it.”

  I’m the junior here, she the senior, but I’m always the one doing and she’s always the one taking. For her to be talking like this, it must now be really obvious that I’m struggling to even get out of bed most days.

  I miss him unbearably and can’t sleep, can’t eat… this is madness, isn’t it? This is what love is… this madness… this self-immolation.

  “My work is what’s keeping me going, please, Polly. Just let it be. Okay?”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “I’ll tell you if I need help, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She leaves my office and a part of me feels bad. She’s leaning in, reaching out, trying to help… and I’m rejecting her. She’s trying and I’m failing, on multiple fronts, to keep myself together.

  The day he left Leeds to get his train to Heathrow, where he was staying in a hotel for a few hours before getting an early flight, I cracked. I literally cracked. I tried to stop him at the door of my house even as the taxi was there idling at the kerb, waiting to take him to the railway station. I begged, pleaded with him not to go, but he told me he had to – but that we’d be together again.

  I imploded.

  I went to work still, but I imploded.

  I’ve buried myself in cases and in paperwork and in nonsense ever since.

  I’ve cleaned my house top to bottom, I’ve scraped things I never want to scrape again. I’ve cooked and cooked meals enough to feed me for months, storing them all in the freezer until I couldn’t squeeze anymore in. Sleepless nights have made me productive and yet, I’m still this enormous bag of suffocating emotional mess – set to pop at any moment.

  It’s like this drug I’ve had and now it’s gone and I don’t know what to do with myself. I wasn’t this bad when I left Australia to come here, but perhaps that was because I hadn’t allowed myself to feel anything then. This time, it feels like I’m skidding along, destined t
o fall down a hidden sinkhole at any given moment.

  We text all the time and video chat and all of that, but my heart feels wrecked, like a part of it is missing or torn out. I don’t just yearn for him, I physically ache. I require him. I can’t live without him. He makes me happy. He makes me feel like me. Without him, I don’t know who I am or what my purpose is or what difference I’m even making to the world. I don’t have roots if he’s not here, I don’t have shelter or stability or life. I have nothing but paperwork and routine and this misguided notion that I was meant to come back to the UK to finish something off, get something done – make something right.

  I’m coping with an enormous feeling of failure. Like I failed – miserably – to protect him from my past and who I am. I had to tell him everything and now I worry, every day, every night, that he’s out there in Australia and someone beautiful is going to come along – someone uncomplicated who loves him from the off and isn’t fucking with his mind. He reassures me over the phone that he loves me, he’s waiting, he’ll be patient – but I have this urgent desire to get to him, to be back there in his arms… to cut off any possibility of something else going wrong.

  I’m exposed and I’m vulnerable because I made myself so, by telling him all my secrets. I did the thing I promised I never would and I got caught up in something I cannot now unentangle from. I told him things I’ve never told anyone and it hurts that it’s out there and I have no control over it. He could go and tell anyone about my pain and my past. I laid myself bare, I pulled back my skin and showed him what lies beneath, and even though that seemed to make him so happy – that I was fully unfurled to him, finally – it makes me breathless every time I think about what I’ve told him and how what happened with Adam affected me. Those were the most secret parts of my heart and he’s holding them in his hands in Australia, so very far away, and there’s nothing I can do.

  When lunchtime arrives, Polly taps on my door and brings in her packed lunch bag and a smile.

  “Do you want to grab a bite out of the office? It’s cold out but it is sunny.”

  I swallow hard. “Okay.”

  I pull my coat off the hat stand and grab my purse. “I’ll need to pick up lunch.”

  “It’s okay, I always bring more than I can eat. Do you like pastrami and cream cheese?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  We find a garden a couple of streets away from the office, just a small green space between council buildings. Taking a bench, she pours herself a cup of coffee from her thermos into a little plastic picnic cup.

  “If you don’t mind the lid?” she says, waiting with bated breath.

  “Sure.” Anything to make her happy.

  She pours some coffee into the thermos lid and I drink happily, thanking her when she hands me half her baguette sandwich, which is pretty sizeable actually. I munch down and realise I’ve missed the taste of food. The memory of all that I enjoyed while Cole was here almost pushes tears out of my eyes.

  “My grandmother always says that if you can imagine the very worst possible scenario and see a way around that, then what’s the problem? You can cope with anything if you can cope with the worst. There’s always a way, she always says.”

  “That’s nice, Polly.”

  She eats her food quietly and I wonder if she didn’t make this extra-large lunch today on purpose, because she’s noticed I’ve been skipping lunch in favour of extra cups of coffee.

  “I’m content, you know, because I know this will probably be me,” she says, “working at Heptonstall’s,” she clarifies. “It’s fine for me. I know I’m not talented like you. I know my limits. The problem is, I don’t think you know yours. I think you’re working at a subpar firm and doing three people’s jobs because you feel like punishment must equal a good day’s work. Like punishment is what you deserve. Or maybe this just isn’t challenging enough, I don’t know.”

  I don’t even attempt to wipe the frown off my face in response. I’m sucker-punched by her insinuations, but also shocked that even Polly has me pegged.

  I tear a big bit off my sandwich and nod. “You’re right.”

  “What is happening?” she asks. “Isn’t there anything anyone can do? You’ve stopped trying. You don’t wear your hair down anymore. You look so tired. You don’t enjoy it anymore.”

  “I am tired.”

  “Why? You’re beautiful and clever. Why are you in this kind of state? Is it a man?”

  I wish I could say it is. “Yeah, it’s a man… oh, you know… they’re shits, aren’t they? Men are shit… blah blah blah…”

  Pity it’s much more complex. I feel a confrontation with Adam is inevitable and I have no idea what outcome I will find myself presented with.

  “I have a lot of very old friends,” I tell her, attempting some type of explanation, “and we all know one another very well, except there’s this thing… this secret some of us have been keeping. And I think it’s the reason why, basically, I’ve made the choices in life that I have and avoided going for what I really want.”

  “And what do you really want?” she asks, off the bat.

  “My boyfriend, Cole. He’s in Australia.”

  “And, what’s the issue? He won’t come here, or you won’t go there?”

  “I have unfinished business,” I explain.

  “So, deal with it, and after… go get him, right? Isn’t it that simple?”

  I look at Polly with a full complement of rings on her finger, a nice husband called Stu waiting for her at home every night and a miniature dachshund puppy called Tyson. She couldn’t possibly understand, but maybe she’s right.

  “It should be that simple, but I told myself I’d stick at it here for a year.”

  She shakes her head. “Come on, Chloe. A few more months here, or a lifetime of happiness with this man? Come on. Look, you’ve just backed yourself into a corner, that’s all. You can get yourself out.”

  “You think so?” I finally let a tear go and she squeezes my hand as I let more tears fall.

  “Of course. You really have to think about that thing I just said. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen right now? Today? What would be the worst thing?”

  I shake my head, wandering through a field of stuff in my mind that would be terrible – until coming to the very thing I could never, ever get over.

  “If something happened to Cole, like he was in an accident or something and I couldn’t get there or he died and I wasn’t there and I didn’t tell him this morning that I loved him before he left for work. That I let him die without one last kiss and cuddle. Without us having given things a proper chance. I’d regret it forever, I know I would.”

  She sighs deeply. “See, grandmothers are always right.”

  I lift my head to the skies. “I wish I still had mine, she was the only decent mother figure I had in my life.”

  “She’s still with you,” Polly murmurs, “and she’s cheering you on. Now, here, have this. You need it more.”

  She passes me a Mars bar and I dip it in my coffee – a very old, very disgusting but indulgent habit of mine.

  “Chloe,” she grimaces.

  “You said I needed it more.”

  She chuckles as she pulls out a fruit salad for herself.

  We sit back on our bench and let the sunshine rain down on our faces when it breaks through the clouds, making everything seem just a little warmer, though we are still in the depths of winter.

  “Good talk,” she says, when we get back to the office.

  I take a seat behind my desk and feel revived. If only I was as simple as Polly, perhaps my life would be easier, eh? I overcomplicate things, it’s what I’ve always done, and she’s right – I’m not exerting my full potential working here. I’m giving myself a sentence because that’s what, deep down, I think I deserve.

  I open my phone and text Paul: Hey, how are you? I think we should catch up x

  He mustn’t be busy or else he’s still attached to his phone, like alw
ays, because he replies instantly: Come round, tonight? We won’t be doing much x

  Send me the address, see you then x

  Chapter Sixteen

  I leave work at seven and drive straight across town and out of it, heading towards Adam’s place in Castleford. When I pull up outside I see a ‘For Sale’ sign and a car parked on the driveway – the same old Vauxhall he’s been dragging about for a few years now. He’s never been flashy or anything, Adam. That’s not who he is. I leave my vehicle, my stomach grumbling, and all I can hope is that they have food. Which I pretty much anticipate, given Adam’s usual eating habits.

  After banging on the door for a while and getting no answer, I call Paul on his phone.

  “Erm, I’m downstairs!”

  “Sorry, we’re working up in the attic. Just let yourself in, there’s a spare key under the flowerpot.”

  “Fine.”

  Nobody to welcome me in… charming!

  I look around and locate the flowerpot. It seems fairly secure around here, the front garden shaded by tall bushes on all sides, nobody peering at me to see me steal the key from beneath the flowerpot.

  I let myself in and it’s not lost on me whatsoever that a pair of guys living together need a spare key just in case they’re too legless to find theirs.

  Well, if I’m not being welcomed in, I’ll have a snoop around.