My Bed is a Blackhole

by Hadley Wickham

  ‘Hey,’ I said to get her attention and Abby’s face snapped up to look at mine. She looked lost, the kind of look you get when you actually have something serious to discuss with a friend for the first time. It’s that moment of cautious apprehension, when you actually show vulnerability for the first time. Her face made me panic and I tried to turn the situation back on her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, and Abby gave me a measured look before she moved down her side of the booth and sat directly in front of me.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ she said. My stomach dropped and my throat tightened in response and anticipation of the invisible threat. My mind immediately ran through a thousand different scenarios, each more terrible than the last and I struggled to say anything. Yet Abby didn’t wait for any response, she’d clearly rehearsed whatever she needed to say.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if I should… but you’re my friend and if I were in your position, I would want you to do the same for me,’ Abby began.

  Fuck, what position was I in?

  ‘Okay…’ I managed to croak out. Would you believe me if I said I was fine? That Abby’s completely serious tone hadn’t scared me shitless. Of course you wouldn’t, because it would be a lie. Then again, you should be used to me lying. So I’m absolutely fine. Abby appeared to have stopped breathing. She was sitting with her elbows out on the table and was clicking her left shoulder in and out of its socket but she suddenly stopped moving altogether and looked at me. I knew it was bad when she started with my name.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I wish you didn’t have to find out like this, a part of me thinks I shouldn’t be the one to tell you but I don’t want you to hear from anyone else…’

  I’d had a conversation similar to this once before, yet I think that you could have a hundred similar and never escape that tight knot which forms in your stomach pulling your heart and your lungs in with it.

  ‘Doug and Kira slept together.’

  Like I said, I’m absolutely fine.

  ***

  There’s nothing so hard as pretending you don’t care; for the first time in my life I didn’t know what normal was. What was normal in this situation? Actually, what was the situation? Because my heart feels like it’s breaking, and I didn’t even know it was there to break.

  I’d gone tense, my hands had locked into claws on the sides of my legs and I knew Abby was looking at me. She was expecting me to do something, what a normal person in this situation would do in this situation is cry, but I didn’t know how. Every single thing in my body had simply stopped. I knew I should say something, but if I tried to talk all I could imagine happening was the ragged chunk of meat that was my heart dropping from my mouth onto the table in front of me. I looked up at Abby and managed to give her a smile.

  ‘Oh…’

  Oops there goes my heart, for all of you to see.

  Abby just continued to stare at me. Her ventriloquist mouth kept opening and shutting in a way that would indicate words were being formed and pushed in my direction but I had absolutely no idea what they were. All I could really focus on was the noise inside my head; it was deafening. I realised I’d forgotten how to breathe.

  ‘Abby,’ I called her name and her mouth stopped moving. She looked up expectantly, waiting for me to break my consuming and painful silence.

  ‘It’s okay.’ A tight and nervous smile split my lips in half.

  Lie.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Lie.

  I realised what the noise inside my head was; a tidal hum that was making my glass world shake. Everything was being pushed to the edge of breaking. When it did, I couldn’t be here.

  ‘I just need to go to the bathroom.’

  Abby stared at me.

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ I refused to meet her gaze but nodded.

  ‘Of course, there’s no reason I should be upset.’

  Lie.

  I pretended that Abby believed me.

  Nobody was in the bathroom when I walked in though I don’t think I would’ve notice had it been otherwise. All I did was walk to the first cubicle and lock the door before I sat down on the grimy tiles with my back against it. I’d never had a panic attack before and I wasn’t even sure if I was having one now; it felt like the terrifying emptiness of the Blackhole was suddenly in my chest and despite all that room I still couldn’t breathe.

  Fuck.

  That was the only thing my mind seemed capable of thinking and I couldn’t help but feel it was appropriate. My chest was contracting in irregular bursts which made me suck in air loudly through my mouth. To anyone else it would sound like I was sobbing but I didn’t see the point in that. I didn’t see the point in anything at the moment. I couldn’t think and even my nails digging into the palms of my hands didn’t make me feel anything. The noise inside my head had become unbearable. If my chest was empty then the opposite was true for my mind, it seemed to becoming smaller as the thrum of my glass world became deafening.

  How in God’s name did I end up here?

  I knew exactly how. It wasn’t exactly difficult to figure out. It was the Blackhole. That hateful pit of nothing that was my everything. I’d become the Blackhole and I’d become so used at pretending to be normal I hadn’t even noticed. A tremendous and piercing crack reverberated through my skull as my glass world fell apart in a shower of silver glitter. I was left sitting on the floor, not knowing how to pick up the pieces.

  11

  It had been a week since my study session with Abby had resulted in the shattering of my little glass world. Not much had happened since. I had exiled myself to the Blackhole after managing to get up off the floor of the toilet cubicle. I can’t even remember the excuse I gave to Abby as I left the library and she knew I wasn’t okay. She’d rung me that night to tell me that Doug had been devastated I’d left without seeing him, yet she said it incredulously, like I’d done the right thing and he had no reason to expect me to act differently. In truth I’d almost ignored Abby’s call because Doug had been ringing me constantly. In the end I’d had to turn my phone on silent because it was irritating Peter.

  ‘Who the hell keeps on ringing you?’

  ‘It’s some telemarketers.’

  ‘Well tell them to fuck off.’

  I didn’t want to talk to Doug. It wasn’t because I wanted to punish him or that I hated him, I just had no idea what I would say. He would ask me how I was and I honestly didn’t know the answer. I couldn’t lie anymore so the conversation would have ended before it had even started. I’d asked Abby to talk to him, to tell him that I knew and that I didn’t want to speak to him. I’d made her promise to do it civilly because right now Abby reviled Doug; I think she was just being a good friend. She was messaging me nearly every day but I resented those messages, all they reminded me of was that everything in my life had been turned upside down. Even Glen had text me on Monday. It was his text that made me realise I couldn’t go to uni for the rest of the semester, with the obvious exception of my exams. Glen’s text had established one thing, I was being pitied and the one thing I couldn’t handle was pity. There was something so grossly emotional about it, like condescension suddenly grew a conscience. To be honest though I was right; Doug sleeping with Kira actually didn’t matter, well at least not in the grand scheme of things. The only thing it had done was prove that there was something in my chest I hadn’t believed to still exist. I had no reason to be angry with Doug. He wasn’t my boyfriend and I had no one to blame but myself for the fact he didn’t know how I felt. In my defence though I don’t think I would’ve been capable of articulating something I didn’t know to exist until it was gone. I kept on pretending that our lives were perpetually on hold until my Blackhole had vanished. I was ignorant to time and despite my best efforts I hadn’t understood that time will always drag you forward, no matter how hard you try to stop it.
I couldn’t expect others to put their lives on hold just because mine was. The honest reason I couldn’t see Doug was because against my rational judgement, I was angry at him. Not just because his actions had forced me to realise something I had denied for so long but because, as my best friend, I thought I knew him. I thought he was the one person I actually understood and the one piece of reality I’d allowed to exist in my otherwise constructed world. When he did something so unexpected it not only shattered my glass illusion but threw me down the Blackhole without any light to show me the way out.

  In the past week my world had shrunk to exist only of my bed and my Blackhole. I rarely left my room, and had missed my appointment with Alison on the excuse I was sick. I’d come to the sickening realisation that the Blackhole wasn’t in my bed; it was a part of me and perhaps the only part of me. It was now the only place I felt safe, where I didn’t notice the gaping hole in my chest because everything around me was just as empty. I’d refused to let Abby come over and Doug had disregarded Abby’s message from me; he’d continued to call until I sent him a message asking him to stop and he’d complied. I sensed that Doug’s mentality was on fixing the problem, yet I had no idea how because it wasn’t my relationship with him that was broken; it was me, just me. Undoubtedly I didn’t know where I stood with Doug, he was still my best friend and that’s what made it so complicated. All I wanted to do was pretend it had never happened. I’d avoided so much for so long couldn’t this just fall in with everything else? Why couldn’t I let myself ignore it then? As hard as I tried to bury it in the Blackhole I just couldn’t forget it. I became angry and desperate, each time going further into the blackness until I couldn’t see anything but this one thing that I wanted to forget. I had considered asking Doug to forget it too. I’d though that perhaps the only reason I was remembering was because Doug kept on thinking about it and this memory needed both of us to forget for it to be truly gone. I couldn’t ask him though, I couldn’t ask anyone anything. Seeing my friends like this was out of the question because I needed time to fix my little glass world, right now if they saw me they’d see nothing but the Blackhole and it would terrify them.

  I was lying on my back in my bed and looked down the length of my body. I hadn’t showered in a week, I felt dirty and although I couldn’t smell myself I knew I must stink of stale sweat. My hair fell in a greasy lump beside me and I got goose-bumps every time my unshaven legs accidentally rubbed against each other. As much as I needed to clean myself I just couldn’t bring myself to get up, I honestly did not see the point in showering. It wasn’t like I needed too, all I did was lie here, and the one admirable thing about the Blackhole is that its ravenous greed made it the least judgemental thing in existence; all it needed was happiness, one of the few transcendental qualities everyone shared. If all it needed was happiness then why was it still here? I had none left to give. Time was something I was only vaguely aware of; I knew it was passing but at what rate I had no idea. I remembered my first exam was Tuesday, the second Friday and my final on the next Monday, but what unit they corresponded with I had no clue. Miranda’s voice was becoming more persistent as I watched the shadows on my wall change to mark the passing of the day. She was telling me to study and I was trying not to hear it. Perhaps I didn’t feel the urgency to study because I’d already resigned myself to failing, but honestly I just struggled to see the use of studying something which meant so little to me or whatever hope of a future I had.

  ***

  ‘Abby.’ My voice was barely audible over the boiling rabble of voices in the gym foyer.

  ‘Abby,’ I called again, louder and gave her a gentle tap on the shoulder which made her turn around and pull me in close by her side.

  ‘Hey, how are you?’

  Despite how terrible I looked and felt I couldn’t help but feel a small surge of warmth towards her. Perhaps I liked Abby more than I admitted; she was being so understanding about the whole Doug situation after all.

  ‘Good, glad for this to be over and done with,’ I said and Abby nodded her head in agreement. She was clutching a rough pile of handwritten notes which had begun to turn to mush in her sweaty palms and I suddenly felt panicky. It had been the same for the previous two exams last week; I’d been perfectly calm until I’d seen Abby. She, Doug and Glen all thought I was the smart one and I’d realised too late that perhaps the best way to rebuild my little glass world was to fit in with that perception. How I rebuilt my glass world enough to function during the exam period was a mystery to me. I think it was the knowing that anything strange my friends did notice about me could be attributed to exam stress, but I’d also begun to care even less about what they thought of me. For my previous exams I’d only seen Abby, Lev and Bryce but today was the exam for health and wellbeing, the one unit I shared with Doug, and as if she sensed my tense attitude, Abby leaned over.

  ‘He’s not here yet,’ she whispered and I tried not to make it obvious when I leaned back to avoid her breath which smelled like red onion.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  In truth I didn’t know that. The foyer where they herded us before we were allowed into the exam venue was far too crowded to allow me to see anyone other than the three people in front of me. My comment meant to convey the fact that seeing Doug wasn’t a big deal; maybe if Abby believed that I would too. A sharp tap on my shoulder made me turn around, though the press of people made it hard to complete a full circle so I ended up with my shoulder pressed into Lev’s chest as he hugged me.

  ‘Hey, how are you feeling?’ he asked.

  ‘Nervous,’ I replied, not a complete lie though I wasn’t sure if it was the exam or the prospect of seeing Doug that made me feel this way.

  ‘You always say that and yet you always do amazingly well,’ Lev rebuffed and I couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘In what universe do I do amazingly well?’ I asked and he laughed.

  ‘You can shut up,’ he quipped. Bryce shoved his way between Lev and a chubby guy who was blocking him from the unofficial circle Lev, Abby and I had created.

  ‘Ready to smash it out?’ Bryce announced and Abby groaned.

  ‘How is it I’m halfway through this degree and I still couldn’t tell you the first thing about psychology?’

  I wasn’t in the mood to listen to Abby’s unbelievable claims; that she was so vastly unprepared she’d probably get a better mark not sitting the exam at all. Every semester she gave the same speech and every semester she always passed. I’d realised that the people who joke about failing are the ones who never do. Bryce had given Abby an attentive audience to her monologue which allowed Lev and I to politely ignore it. ‘You’re coming on Saturday night right?’ Another one of Lev’s parties obliged me to appear yet surprisingly I didn’t actually mind the commitment.

  ‘Yeah of course. I’ll need a party to make me forget the fact I’ve failed.’ Lev straightened himself up.

  ‘Good, I’ve got a mate that I want you to meet,’ he said. My eyes widened in disbelief at Lev’s sudden interest in my romantic life and although I’d never thought it possible, Abby actually stopped talking about herself when she heard him.

  ‘Oh, a “mate” hey?’ I hated the oily drip of her voice.

  ‘Yeah, his name’s Cody. I think I told you about him, he’s the one studying law.’

  I vaguely recalled Lev dribbling on about his friend earlier in the semester. I think the conversation had something to do with how all lawyers are arseholes… or something along those lines.

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know. Considering you only mentioned him when we were talking about how law students only talk about themselves… I’m not too sure he’ll be right for me,’ I trailed off.

  ‘She’s already got Abby to do that,’ Bryce snapped. We all looked at him and his face became sheepish, Abby’s mouth dropped open in mock offence but I couldn’t help a small smile creep across my face.

  ‘You
know I’m only kidding.’ Despite the fact we knew Bryce wasn’t, Lev and I still laughed. I was still laughing when I noticed Doug was standing behind Bryce and, aside from the sickening drop in my stomach, a part of me welled with smug satisfaction; I was glad he’d seen me happy without him.

  ‘Hey.’ Lev was the one who acknowledged Doug and Abby cast me a look which I pretended not to notice.

  ‘How are you feeling about the exam?’ Lev continued, and Doug met my eyes as he answered.

  ‘Yeah, not great. I haven’t studied that much.’

  I looked away. Doug’s gaze was penetrating; he was the one person who might possibly see through my shambolic act and I was now floundering. I had no idea what to do or what to say. What made it worse was neither did he.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s there,’ Abby broke the awkward silence that had settled between us. We all looked at her in confusion before realising she was referring to Lev’s invitation; she was assuring him that we’d both be at his party on Saturday.

  ‘You better,’ Lev replied. I felt Doug looking at me for explanation. In a sudden fleeting moment of bravery I found his eyes and for a split second I let him in. I let my eyes fill with all my hurt and pain and held his gaze to make sure he understood. Then as quickly as my eyes had flooded, they drained; the loud boom of an invigilator’s voice pulled the plug. As I pretended to listen to instructions I had heard at least a dozen times before, I couldn’t help but feel the sudden desperate desire to tell Doug that I was sorry. I was sorry I’d let him see how I truly felt; sorry that I’d pulled him in so that he could almost see the Blackhole; sorry that I’d let him think all that rage was directed at him and not at myself.