It's Not You, It's Them

by Portia MacIntosh

  I puff air out of my cheeks as I walk up the stairs, still absolutely roasting thanks to my wedding dress from hell. Hopefully my hot flush won’t last long in this icy house.

  Finally, in Mark’s room, I start looking around for something to inspire me. I was hoping to find a poster of someone he had a crush on as a teenager so I could do my best to role play as her, or maybe an item of his clothing that I can give sexy new context to. A Leeds United shirt would be the obvious choice, had he not already seen me in one every night since we got here.

  I open up his wardrobes and begin snooping around. It’s full of everything I’d expect to find, really: Leeds United branded clothing, band T-shirts from his teens, old school shirts signed by all of his friends. I grab the sleeve of one and read a few of the messages; Mark was very popular at school. I look at the next one, examining the large, red lettering written across the back in marker. ‘Bea’s property for ever’ it reads. Ha. It would certainly do it for me, seducing him in that, but perhaps I need to rethink that one.

  I get down on my hands and knees, getting very much into the spirit of the occasion, and begin scouring the floor for inspiration. That’s when I find what I’m looking for, on the floor, stuffed at the back of the wardrobe – Mark has obviously been hanging on to this since he was a kid. It’s a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume consisting of a green jumpsuit, and a blue bandana with two eyeholes and a shell backpack to complete the look.

  OK, hear me out on this one… Obviously, by no stretch of the imagination/spandex am I going to get into this jumpsuit, but what I can do is slip on a set of slinky underwear, before completing the look with the bandana and the shell, making me a sort of Twenty-Something Horny Turtle. Not only will it remind Mark that sex is supposed to be a laugh, but it’ll catch him off guard – and it will remind him I was paying attention during the quiz.

  I’m just about the leave the room when I hear Val and Bea chatting outside the door. Thinking on my feet, I remember what Mark said about how he used to climb out of his window when he wanted to sneak out: out of the window, onto the study roof, and then jump to the ground.

  As I pull open his window, cold air surges in and hits me like a punch. There’s no way I’m jumping out of there, no matter how much I don’t want to get caught in here. One thing I definitely don’t want is for Bea to know what I’m up to, so I toss the costume out, letting it land on the patio, right in front of the study doors. I can make my excuses, dash downstairs and then grab it. It might be a little cold and wet, but it will have chance to dry out and warm up again.

  Bea walks into the room just as I’m closing the window.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks, eyeballing me cautiously.

  ‘I was just so warm,’ I half-lie. Well, I was really warm before. I’m certainly not warm now that I’ve felt the cold air from outside. ‘I was just getting some air.’

  ‘Why are you getting air in here specifically?’ she asks, leaving me no room to wiggle my way out of this one.

  ‘Well...’ I pause, summoning my writer’s brain to provide me with some kind of logical excuse. ‘I thought I’d better come get checked out by you – our resident doctor.’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asks, sounding entirely put out.

  ‘Well, I’m so warm,’ I tell her again.

  ‘That it?’

  ‘And I’m really tired,’ I continue. ‘My head is all over the place, too. I just can’t concentrate.’

  I’ve always found that, when telling a lie, it’s more convincing if you stick to the truth as closely as possible; that way you’re more likely to get away with it.

  ‘Sit down for a second – you’re making me nervous over by that window,’ Bea snaps. I decide not to comment on her shitty bedside manner, as I’m sure it’s only me who brings it out of her.

  ‘Would you say these hot flashes spread over your upper body?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, although I’m not even sure what she means.

  ‘Are you having sex less than usual?’ she continues. Wow, that question seems out of nowhere – and it’s not exactly pertinent to my entirely fictional medical condition, is it?

  ‘No,’ I reply, a little too quickly.

  ‘So that’s a yes,’ she replies. Ergh, she’s so smug. ‘What about dryness?’ she continues.

  ‘Do you know what?’ I start as I jump to my feet with energy. ‘I feel absolutely fine now. Must have just been a temporary thing – completely passed now. Thanks for the advice.’

  ‘I think you…’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine,’ I insist as I head for the door. ‘If I feel anything, you’ll be the second to know.’

  I close the door behind me quickly. That was a close one, but I think I got away with it.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Meat Loaf said he’d do anything for love, apart from a handful of things that all seemed pretty admirable – for example, he’d never lie to his lady. He’d be up for doing almost anything in the name of love, from getting married to going to hell, but I can’t help but think I’m going to one up him tonight. Tonight, for love, I am going to seduce my fiancé dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.

  I know what you’re thinking: that this doesn’t sound sexy at all. But trust me, Mark is going to take one look at me in this outfit and he’s going to laugh, and then he’s going to pounce on me, and then everything is going to be OK. I realise that sounds like I’m giving a lot of credit to a blue bandana and green plastic turtle shell, but teamed with this black lacy underwear, it’s going to go down a treat. And if that fails, I’ll go down a treat – either way, it’s a guaranteed result.

  Since nearly getting caught out by the good doctor, the day has been fairly uneventful. Everyone has been up to their usual tricks – which I feel qualified to say, having spent five days here – whether that’s Millie creeping off with her phone or Ste telling me the borrowed MC Hammer chic harem pants I was wearing would look better on his bedroom floor. I’ve noticed Bea and Valerie having their little hush-hush tête-á-têtes, but other than a few little sniggers that could’ve possibly been aimed in my direction, it hasn’t been so bad. It is very much business as usual in the Wright family house, but I did make it through dinner without anyone actively trying to make me cry, so maybe I’m making some progress.

  Everyone has gone off to bed now. Mark went to get a drink of water, so I dashed to the bedroom, slipped off my clothes, popped on my outfit and positioned myself as seductively as possible on the broken bed, something that is surprisingly hard with a shell on your back – for future reference, getting down on all fours is the best way to go about it. Actually, it’s the only way to go about it.

  Now I’m just waiting, hovering above the broken bed on my hands and knees, trying to remember the theme tune to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because I can’t seem to recall it for the life of me, and I remember it being so memorable…

  ‘Oh, my God,’ Mark says slowly as he walks back into the room. ‘Roxie, what are you doing?’

  With my mind deep in thought, for a split second I forget where I am and what I’m doing. As I remember, I snap into character.

  ‘Cowabunga, dude,’ I say in my sex voice.

  ‘Roxie, put some clothes on,’ he insists, quickly closing the door behind him.

  ‘Come on, get in bed, relax. Maybe if you can get me to relax, you can bring me out of my shell.’

  My puns are amazing, my outfit is amazing… but Mark’s face isn’t doing much to convince me that he agrees.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I ask.

  ‘You,’ he replies. ‘You’re being all…’

  Mark’s voice trails off as something catches his attention.

  ‘What is this?’ he asks, pulling a magazine out from under the duvet.

  That’s when I remember finding the copy of Young ‘n’ Hung among Mark’s dad’s things earlier, before hurriedly hiding it in the bed when Valerie walked in.

  ‘You brought porn to my
parents’ house?’ he asks angrily. ‘Of course you did.’

  ‘Wait, I didn’t,’ I protest honestly. ‘I found that in here.’

  ‘You expect me to believe this belongs to one of my parents?’ he laughs, but it’s not an amused laugh, it’s an angry one.

  ‘It was behind your dad’s books.’

  ‘Roxie, stop lying. You’re sex-obsessed at the moment; I can’t figure out what you’re playing at,’ he replies, sounding annoyed at me.

  ‘I’m not sex mad,’ I protest. ‘I’m trying to fix us.’

  ‘We’re not broken,’ he says, his angry tone increasing in volume with each word.

  ‘We are,’ I tell him sadly. ‘Because that’s the first time you’ve ever raised your voice to me.’

  Mark goes to open his mouth, as if he’s going to say something to me, when suddenly the room plunges into darkness. It’s pitch black; in fact, I can’t see a thing. Normally, I think I’d freak out, but anything is better than seeing that look that was all over his face before the lights went out.

  ‘Shit, must be a power cut,’ he replies. ‘Wait here, I’ll go help my mum sort torches.’

  ‘OK,’ I call after him – I imagine, because I can’t see him to see if he’s left the room or not.

  All alone in the dark, I feel my other senses heighten. It’s going to sound crazy, but the silence is deafening. Living in the noisy city centre has left me not only able to tolerate quite a bit of noise – I actually expect it now. Being here, in the absolute silence, creeps me out. My ears are trying to find background noise that isn’t there. My body feels super-sensitive, too, like there’s a draft coming from somewhere that’s creeping around my body, which suddenly feels very naked. I wiggle free from my shell and untie my bandana, but with no light to see any clothing lying around, I’ll just have to stay in my underwear for now.

  God, everything is such a mess. I was just trying to get us back to how we were before we arrived here, and I think I’ve pushed him further away. I know it sounds crazy, to think that there’s a problem with our sex life after five days, but it’s not the sex, it’s the bigger issue it represents. We arrived in the Dales the perfect couple, two halves of the same whole (as cheesy as that sounds), but now I don’t just feel like we’re divided, I feel we’re a thousand-piece jigsaw struggling to hold ourselves together.

  I blink, checking my eyes. I’m sure I just saw a flash of light coming from the hallway. That’s the thing about this weird Franken-cottage; where the two have been merged together there are lots of long hallways, making them seem almost corridor-like. I see the flash again. Either Mark’s rejection hit me so hard I detached a retina, or someone is out there.

  ‘Mark?’ I call out, but I don’t get a reply.

  The light flickers for a third time.

  I slowly make my way out of the study, feeling my way along the wall as I walk through the hallway. I feel like a sitting duck in that room, but I can’t sit there alone for a second longer. The flicker of light happens again, illuminating the hallway long enough for me to catch a glimpse of something that freaks me out. The scream has only just left my lips when I realise it’s nothing to be scared of really, but to go from pitch black to a glimmer of the twins standing there in the hallway, silently holding hands in their matching nightdresses as they stare at me… this is just way too much like The Shining for me to keep my cool.

  Of course, it’s only a matter of seconds before torchlight appears from all angles, everyone running to my aid, only to find me, in my not so classy underwear, alone with the twins.

  ‘Oh, my God,’ I hear Mark exclaim. ‘I know I’ve just done handing them out, but everyone turn their torches off for a second while Roxie finds some clothes or goes somewhere more private.’

  All the lights are shut off, apart from one.

  ‘You, too, Ste, buddy,’ I remind him. He reluctantly follows suit.

  Mark feels for my arm in the dark, before finding my hand and placing a torch in it.

  ‘I’ll meet you in the study,’ he says quietly.

  Thankfully, everyone gives me enough time to make my way back to my room, where I grab a T-shirt from the floor.

  Not knowing what else to do, I take a seat at the desk and open my laptop. How have things gone so badly wrong so quickly? And why do I feel like a sex-mad pervert? I’m no more sex-obsessed than your average twenty-something, but Mark is treating me like I’m manic. The way he looked at me before, I almost expected him to chuck a bucket of cold water over me.

  I start clicking around frantically as I realise the internet isn’t working – of course it isn’t, the power is out. Not only does this mean my only contact with the outside world has finally been cut off, too, but that I have a finite amount of battery left on my laptop – and an article still to write.

  ‘Everyone is back in bed,’ Mark tells me. ‘Dad had a word with the power company. His mobile died as they were talking, but the blackout is courtesy of the snow, basically. They’re hopefully going to have it fixed within twenty-four hours.’

  ‘That’s good,’ I reply sheepishly. ‘I still have an article to write.’

  ‘Do you know what you’re writing about yet?’ he asks as he gets into bed. I don’t think he cares, though. I think he’s just making small talk.

  ‘I’m not sure. I’ve been working on a few. That reminds me: I can cross Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles role-play off the list on one of them.’

  I giggle softly, trying to build a bridge and dispel some of the awkwardness.

  ‘This was for an article?’ he asks, anger creeping back into his voice. We’re using our torches to illuminate our faces as we’re talking, but this only makes him look scarier than I’ve ever seen him look before. Mark so very rarely loses his cool, but he looks on the verge of it right now. ‘You know I don’t mind this stuff usually, but I swear, if you’re writing a piece on how much weird sex stuff you can get away with in my parents’ house...’

  ‘I’m not,’ I insist. Although that does sound like a great idea on paper, I wouldn’t do that. ‘The article inspired this misjudged advance but...’

  ‘I asked my dad if he had any magazines of any kind in his office, but he said he didn’t.’

  ‘Mark, honestly…’

  ‘Roxie, listen to me, OK? You know how you think Kath is too focused on work, to the point where it has an effect on her real life?’

  I nod.

  ‘And you know how you made me promise to tell you if you ever started turning into her...’ he continues.

  ‘You think I’m doing that now? That is not what is happening here,’ I reply defensively.

  ‘The line that you draw between what is work and what is real life is blurring.’ Mark fluffs up his pillows and lies back. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing for you and what you’re doing just so you can write about it.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ I insist, shutting off my torch and lying down next to him.

  ‘You’re always looking for articles in whatever you’re doing. You’re talking about how you don’t want to start a family because your job comes first…’

  ‘The second part is not unreasonable,’ I say, my voice suddenly gaining a little strength.

  ‘This, again,’ he says with a deep sigh. ‘Roxie, I can’t do this right now. Can we forget about it, please?’

  ‘OK,’ I reply. I don’t know if he means forget about having this argument or forget about getting married, but I know I’m too scared to ask, because I’m not sure I’ll like the answer.

  All I know is that we’re going to bed angry again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A little Stockholm syndrome would be lovely right about now, because this would all feel so much less awkward if I actually liked the people I was stuck with. It’s horrible, feeling so alone and isolated.

  Having woken up here, in my own personal ice-cold version of hell, for the fifth morning in a row, I’m struggling to remember ever not being here. It feels like I’ve alwa
ys been here, and like I’m always going to be here.

  It’s like life beyond Rippledale doesn’t exist any more; like the world has stopped everywhere else. Sadly, though, it hasn’t, which means I’ve still got an article to write – but God knows when I’ll be able to send it, with the power still being off.

  I open my laptop, ready to work because my battery life is ticking away before my eyes. As soon as I see that blank screen, writer’s block hits me again. I have all of these ideas in my head that I think might work well, and I know what I want to say, but as soon as the words reach my fingertips, something stops them coming out. I hover my fingers above the keys, willing what is in my head to find its way to the screen, but I just can’t write. I can’t explain it, but I can’t.

  I’m scared to write about Mark, after everything he said, but writing about what I know is usually where my talents lie, so… I know, I’ll write about Bea. Well, not Bea specifically, but an article on what to do if you find yourself dating someone who has a perfect ex.

  Let me start by saying that no one is perfect. People might seem perfect, but they’re probably not. There’s probably something wrong with them. They might seem like they have a flawless body, a ‘ten’ of a face, a wonderful job and their shit basically together, but they probably don’t… and even if they did, people are turned off by perfection. No one wants a partner they can’t measure up to. Hmm, not only am I waffling, but I’m implying that Mark isn’t perfect. Maybe I should take things a point at a time.

  Comparing yourself to your partner’s ex can be a dangerous game, because you’ll fabricate this list of qualities that you think are important, that make one person better than the other. You might think, for example, that your boyfriend’s ex is much skinnier than you, but that you have a more attractive face. In the grander scheme of things, what counts for more: being slim or being pretty? And maybe she has a better job than you, but maybe you’re better in bed (not sure how you’d know this for a fact, but never mind) – which quality counts for more? You’re not only pitting yourself against this person, but you’ll start judging your boyfriend by these standards, too, and suddenly, you’re playing a game of ‘Would You Rather’ with yourself. Would you rather have a boyfriend who is rich or great in bed? Would you rather have a boyfriend who had a hot body or a handsome face? Would you rather be with someone who looked at all your bad points and your good points and decided you were worth it, or someone who just loves you, just because? The last question is the one you want to ask yourself, and not only hypothetically. Does your boyfriend love you because you beat his ex on a few points, or does he just love you? Does my boyfriend love me because I beat Bea on a few points, or does he just love me? Given how perfect his ex is, and how I beat her on no points at all (unless we’re considering having a higher number of sexual partners a victory), Mark still loves me. Of course he loves me, and I love him, and that’s all that matters.