by Laura Steven
Pushing past them with my head tucked to my chest, I can’t look them in the eye.
As I’m mounting my bike, limbs trembling as I clamber over the seat, I hear snatches of their conversation from the doorway.
“. . . sorry we didn’t come by sooner, but what with all the rumors . . .”
“. . . it’s been such a scandal in the community . . .”
“. . . we didn’t know if you’d want to see us, that’s all,” says the woman who tsked at me.
Mrs Dutta’s airy voice dismisses them. “All hearsay, I can assure you. Nothing but spiteful lies.”
The magnitude of what I’ve done hits me all over again. One careless text has shaken Ajita’s entire world – her family, her community, her life.
Whether it was true or not, this was not something she was ready for. This should’ve been on her terms. I stole that from her. And I will never forgive myself.
5.36 p.m.
I don’t go straight home. Instead I pedal slowly around town in a strange sort of haze, completely immune to what’s going on around me. I move on autopilot, only aware of my surroundings in some kind of subconscious way.
I must cycle carefully because I don’t get hit by a truck or anything [which I suppose would’ve been nice in a poetic way, being killed in the same manner as my parents, just as I’m a hundred percent sure I’ve disappointed them as much as I possibly can in the short time I’ve spent on this planet], but there’s no active thought process behind the cars I swerve to miss, or the pedestrians in the cycle lane I ding my bell at.
“Do you really think our community has been blind to your antics, Izzy? ”
The noise of the street – engines and brake pads, laughter and gusts of wind and the beep of traffic lights – is just a vaguely muffled din. All I hear is Mrs Dutta’s voice echoing vividly through my head.
“It’s your life to ruin. Just don’t involve my daughter.”
My eyes sting from exhaust fumes and tears.
“This? This is inexcusable.”
Is it really? Am I really beyond redemption? Surely people do worse things than I do every damn day, and yet they don’t feel like this – like a complete and utter scumbag who doesn’t deserve the air she breathes. Do they? Do they just do a really good job of hiding it?
A horn blares behind me, but I barely register it.
Once when I was having a low self-esteem moment – just a standard teenage drama about my lopsided boobs, even before they were on display to the world – Ajita said to me, “Izzy, it is not okay that people who wave the Confederate flag feel good about themselves and you do not.” Is that still true? Or have I crossed into a realm so deplorable that even they would feel ashamed?
I think I’ve stopped cycling, but I can’t be sure.
If this was happening to someone else, I’d insist they maintain their pride and self-respect. So you sent a nude, and had sex with a couple guys, and kissed your best friend even though you did not wish to let him enter you. So what? You behaved like a standard teenager. It’s not your fault that the whole of America is inexplicably interested in your exploits just because one of your conquests was a senator’s son. It’s not your fault you were not in love with your best friend, and he couldn’t handle it. It’s not your fault this is happening to you.
Even the things that are your fault. The Ajita thing. You messed up. Badly. You didn’t think before you spoke. You’re not the first person to do that, nor will you be the last. In fact, someone else is doing it right now, right this very second. Forgive yourself.
But somehow those rules don’t seem to apply to my situation. Me? I’m a scumbag. A complete and utter scumbag. All self-worth I once possessed has evaporated, and right this second, right here in the middle of a busy road in the middle of town, all I want – all I deserve – is for a sinkhole to open up beneath me and swallow me whole.
Of course, the universe doesn’t work like that. Nobody who wants to disappear actually does. It’s always the people like my parents, the people who have everything to live for, who get hit by drunk drivers and are eradicated forever.
The thought of my parents jolts me painfully back to the present. I’m sitting stationary at a green traffic light, cars behind me tooting angrily, some jerkwad leaning out of the window and yelling about how much of a dick I am. Yeah, dude. I know. Believe me, I know.
I start pedaling again, unsure where I’m even going. The mall’s nearby. Maybe I could go for a cinnabon. The idea seems so absurd, so ridiculously normal, that I almost laugh. Almost.
Instead I round a corner, and the first thing I see as I turn into the street is a stab in the gut.
Ajita and Danny. Together. Without me.
She throws her head back and laughs at something he said. They carry coffee cups, and I know what’s inside them without having to guess: peppermint hot chocolate for Ajita, Earl Grey tea for Danny. He’s grinning. His hair is clean for once, and there’s color in his cheeks like there wasn’t last time I saw him.
And then I realize: they’re better off without me. Their worlds are better without me in them.
7.48 p.m.
Betty’s out again. Ping-pong tournament. You know when Forrest Gump gets back from Vietnam and is suddenly phenomenal at ping-pong? That was Betty after she lost her daughter and son-in-law. Unspeakable trauma, but on the plus side she became very talented at the most pointless sport in the history of pointless sports. [No offense to ping-pong players. But really. What is the point?]
Feeling as hollow and empty as, well, a ping-pong ball, I open up my laptop and boot up Final Draft to start editing my screenplay. I’ve read the opening pages so many times that I’ve lost all concept of whether or not they even make sense, but the judges emailed me a ton of feedback with the shortlist announcement, so at least I have some semblance of direction for the revisions. I’m grateful for the distraction, to be honest. It’s keeping my tiny pea brain occupied when the rest of my world is falling apart.
I launch my email browser to retrieve the feedback, and the “unread messages (308)” aggressively reminds me of just how many people know about my scumbag tendencies. Sorting through them is too daunting, so I just search for the producer’s name. Frown. It still says “unread (1)”. I wasn’t expecting to hear from them for another week.
Hi Izzy,
Hope you’re well. I’m just dropping you a brief email with a quick competition update.
After much consideration and discussion, the judges have made the difficult decision to withdraw your entry from the Script Factor shortlist. The recent press coverage following some indiscretions in your personal life will likely attract some unfavorable attention to the competition, which is of great concern to us. We’ve worked very hard over the years to build a certain kind of reputation in the industry, which is why we’re so highly thought of today (and thus why reaching the later stages of the competition is still something to be very proud of !). As a result, any threat to that reputation is taken very seriously indeed.
Particularly due to the sexual nature of your screenplay, we’ve been forced to re-evaluate your position, and regretfully we’ve taken the decision to remove you from the running.
I understand this is disappointing, but we hope you continue to persevere in the screenwriting world. You have a lot of potential and the judges saw something in your work that we don’t often come across.
We’d like to invite you to re-enter the competition in a couple of years’ time – once the controversy surrounding your personal life has settled down (which we’re sure it will), we’ll be more than happy to welcome you back to Script Factor.
All the very best,
Tom
9.02 p.m.
Every time I feel like I can finally catch my breath, like I might actually survive this, something even worse steals the air from my lungs.
Oh my God. Losing everything and knowing it’s all my fault is excruciating.
9.06 p.m.
When thi
s all first kicked off I had the fleeting thought that the competition producers might find out about the scandal. But I dismissed it as standard-issue Izzy melodrama. They wouldn’t possibly see the nudes, and if they did, it’d be them that should be embarrassed. I distinctly remember thinking that. That they should be mortified to be caught looking at a teen girl’s nudes.
And yet now the embarrassment and downright shame is enough to drown me.
How the hell do I tell Mrs Crannon? She’ll be devastated. I can’t stop fixating on that fifty-dollar bill. I know the money is such an insignificant thing, compared to everything else, but I’ve been raised to appreciate its value. I’ve been ruled by it. Fifty dollars to me is the whole world. I agonize over that unbelievable show of love and support and confidence in me – in honor of Mrs Crannon’s wonderful father. Her dead father.
I’ve let them both down. But not nearly as much as I’ve let Betty down. After everything she’s done for me, everything she’s given up, every last sacrifice she’s made. Every extra shift she’s picked up, every painkiller she’s swallowed, every chance at retirement she’s turned down. Every time she’s put my needs before her own. She’s worked and worked and worked so I can afford to stay in education, so I can afford to write screenplays in my spare time, so I can have shoes and toothpaste and running water. So I didn’t have to live with the Wells when my parents died. So I could keep being me against all the odds.
I owe her the world and this is how I repay her.
9.14 p.m.
My phone bleeps. At first my heart leaps, hoping it’s Ajita finally returning my messages, but instead a text from a number I don’t recognize flashes on the screen.
Kill yourself, slut.
I hit delete as soon as I see it, but it’s too late. The words are already burned into my brain.
9.16 p.m.
I’ve got something special, Tom said. They’d be happy to welcome me back. I should persevere, despite the fact I’m the lowest form of scumbag imaginable.
My conversation with Ajita about how maybe People Like Me don’t belong in Hollywood feels like an eternity ago. I was right. People Like Me don’t belong. Unless you’re perfect and classy and perfect and eloquent and perfect and poised and perfect and rich, you don’t belong. This email confirms that.
Look at Vaughan. He’s done everything I’ve done. He drank beer, had sex, sent a nude picture. And he just got an offer from Stanford. Why is his life worth more than mine, just because he’s rich and male?
My heart hurts. Imagine being deemed so lowly and awful that not even your talent and hard work are enough to keep you afloat in the career you want more than anything. Imagine one lapse in judgment stealing everything from you.
One moment can change everything. In the time it takes to send a nude, or in the time it takes to crack a joke about your best friend’s sexuality, or in the time it takes for your car to be crushed by a drunk driver, your whole life can come crashing down around you.
One moment can change everything, and that’s the most terrifying thought in the world.
How do we even function knowing that? Knowing how tenuous our existence is, how fragile our happiness? It’s debilitating when you really think about it. And now that I’ve thought this thought, I can’t ever unthink it.
9.21 p.m.
I used to believe I could handle everything by myself; that I didn’t need help from anyone. The last few weeks have shown me how completely and utterly wrong that is. I do need people. I need my friends and my Betty. I need them so much. The irony is that I’ve learned this too late, and I’m already losing everyone.
I can finally admit that I need help, but nobody has the energy left to give it.
I feel so fucking alone.
9.27 p.m.
As I toss and turn in my bed, agonizing over every second of the last few weeks, my mistakes gnaw at me from the inside. All I want is a time machine.
I’ve figured it out, why people just sometimes spontaneously combust: regret. It’s enough to set you alight.
Too much. This is all too much. And I’d do anything to make it stop.
9.30 p.m.
It’s now, in probably the darkest moment of my life, that my phone bleeps again.
I almost throw my phone at the wall because I’m so sure it’s more hate, so sure it’s another message telling me to end it all. But, just in the vague hope it’s Ajita, I look.
Another unknown number, but a different one.
Hey, Izzy! It’s Meg. From math class? I hope everything’s okay with you. I know you must be having a rough time, but I just want to say that I think you’re so strong and brave for the way you’re handling it all. Sorry it’s taken me so long to work up the courage to text you . . . I didn’t want to come on too strong! Anyway, I’m around next weekend if you wanna hang out at some point? Mx
Some of the tensed-up muscles in my chest relax. I’m not alone. I’m not.
With every scrap of resilience I have left, I force myself to bury the dark thoughts – thoughts about permanent ways in which I could make all of this stop – and keep breathing.
I dry my damn eyes, pull back the covers and climb into bed, knowing tomorrow can’t possibly be as bad as today.
Sunday 10 October
7.20 a.m.
I fall asleep cuddling the bottle of bleach Ajita gave me. After crying for roughly eight millennia I wake up with my standard raccoon eyes and scarecrow hair, but I wake up. And things feel a little brighter.
Pulling on a crumpled sweater and some jeans, I deliberately avoid my reflection in the mirror, knowing I probably look a bit Wicked Witch of the West. The apartment is silent. Betty must be out, or still in bed. I grab my phone and purse and head for the door.
I know where I need to go. Somewhere I haven’t been since I was thirteen; since Betty let me stay off school because of a paper cut.
Outside it smells of wet grass. The sun is weak and watery, but there’s no wind. The streets are that kind of Sunday morning quiet – barely any cars, barely any people, just the odd jogger and dog-walker. And pigeons. Lots and lots of pigeons.
My bike’s ancient gears clank and groan as I pedal almost robotically, staring two feet in front of the handlebars at all times. The odd thought flits into my mind, but I let each one fizzle out, not engaging with it on any real level. I feel tapped out, emotionally and physically, and it’s sort of nice just focusing on the slight ache in my legs as I crest a hill I haven’t mounted in so, so long.
The cemetery sits on the only hill in our town, which is generally as flat as the Netherlands. There’s a tiny church, which seems empty – I think it’s too early for morning mass – and one giant oak tree shading the oldest tombstones in the graveyard, most of which are covered in thick moss. They’ve all been tended to immaculately, though, and the grass is neatly trimmed. One fresh grave near the entrance is swarmed with bouquets of flowers and notes. It makes me sad to look at, so I turn away. I’ve got enough grief of my own without absorbing a stranger’s.
There’s a bench I used to come to a lot when I was eleven or twelve and I first got my bike. It was the first time I was really allowed to go out alone, without my grandma with me, and I used the opportunity to visit my parents a lot. I know I could’ve done it when I was younger, with Betty by my side, but I always got the sense she dealt with things by not thinking about them and just pushing through. Seeing the spot where her dead daughter was buried in the dirt would make it pretty hard to do that.
Overlooking my parents’ gravestones – modest and plain, side by side, the exact same death date – is a memorial bench, made of a dark stained wood. It’s not covered by the oak tree. Instead it sits with its back to a low stone wall, basking in the low autumn sun. Far enough from my parents that I don’t have to read their names and birth dates, but close enough that I can still feel their presence.
Everything looks exactly the same as I remember it; exactly as I pictured it would be. Except for one thing.
She doesn’t look up as I approach and prop my bike against the wall, nor when I perch next to her on the bench. If she’s surprised to see me here, she doesn’t show it.
“How you doing, kiddo?” she asks, cradling a Thermos of coffee in her hands. She’s wearing at least three silver rings on each finger, kooky old bat that she is.
“Concerned that my grandmother is wearing more rings than, I don’t know, Saturn. But other than that, fine.” [I know, it’s incredibly frustrating that I just had an epiphany about needing the people I love, and yet I’m cracking jokes and masking the hurt like I always do. Hey. Old habits die hard.]
The lie is not in the least bit convincing. She snorts. “Right. Sure. And I’m Harrison Ford.”
“I wish,” I say.
“Me too. Then I could have sex with myself.”
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, this would’ve given me a laughter-induced stomach ulcer. But not today.
I sneak a sideways glance at her face, on the hunt for signs of crying, but her cheeks are dry and her eyes aren’t red-rimmed. She just looks tired.
I sigh. Here goes. “I’m just . . . overwhelmed. So overwhelmed it’s hard to process everything.”
Preparing for her usual up-by-the-bootstraps, bravado-boosting pep talk, I square my shoulders. But it never comes.
After a long pause, she says in a small voice, “Me too.”
And then the unthinkable happens. She lays down her stick and her Thermos, and wraps her arms around me, kissing the side of my head. Then she tucks a lock of my hair behind my ears, and strokes my cheek with her thumb. She smells how she always smells: of whiskey and cocoa.