Pretending: The brilliant new adult novel from Holly Bourne. Why be yourself when you can be perfect?

by Holly Bourne

  Maybe some girls would find that possible?

  Although, I bet those girls wouldn’t have behaved like a complete frigid nutter in the first place … Girls like Gretel.

  That’s the thought that sets off the crying. A few tears seep down my cheek, sinking into Simon’s dirty pillowcase. I sniff and wipe my face, staring at the blackness of the ceiling. Simon stirs and I sniff louder as I play out a fantasy in my head. The fantasy that he will wake up to see I’m upset, and it will create an outpouring of love from him. He’ll sit up, turn the light on and say ‘Hey, hey, what’s going on?’ and I’ll say ‘I’m sorry I made it weird.’ He’ll tuck my hair back and say ‘I’m sorry I made it weird too.’ We’ll laugh about how awkward it was. Then he’ll tuck my hair back again, because, let’s face it, you can never have too much of that, and he’ll say, ‘I’m really sorry, April, I didn’t mean to freak out. I’m so glad you confided in me about what happened, and, now I’ve had some time to digest it, it’s nothing. I really, really, like you, and I’m so excited that we met.’ That’s all the talking we will need. We’ll collapse into one another and kissing will turn into mind-blowing sex – the sort that will totally erase the painful misfire we just shared.

  This fantasy calms me for a moment. I turn over and watch Simon’s contented face, bathed in the artificial orange from the streetlight outside, the rise and fall of his breath. My fantasy triggers a deep stirring of love for him. This perfect man in my imagination.

  A minute, it lasts. Before the truth builds itself around me. The truth that I’ve ruined it with this man, and he has ruined it with me. What sort of person is capable of falling asleep when the woman whose body you were just inside of is clearly very upset? In one final attempt to wake him and see if he can be the man I want and need him to be, I snuffle. To no avail. He stays solidly unconscious. And that’s when my anger at him flips into anger at myself in my predictable trauma response. The shame and self-blame bombard themselves through my body, filling me with loathing.

  I’ve fucked it up, I’ve fucked it up, I’ve fucked it up.

  Like I always fuck it up, like I always fuck it up, like I always fuck it up.

  Because I’m too fucked up, too fucked up, too fucked up.

  The tears gain momentum. My chest starts heaving with the effort of controlling the sobs. The saltwater soaks my hair, drips off the edges of my face. Eventually, the sobs are too huge to contain. I tiptoe politely to Simon’s en suite so I can get on with the serious business of totally falling apart. At first, I try clinging to the toilet to cry, but he’s left skid marks all over the rim and just the sight makes me gag. I put the loo seat down and huddle on the bath mat.

  He didn’t even clean the skid marks off the loo before I came round. That is how little you mean to men who mean things to you. You’re not worth the effort of scraping shit off a toilet for.

  I end up foetal, forehead on the floor, my lungs heaving as I free-fall into despair. At some point, I hear Simon’s flatmate let himself in. I bite my lip and whimper silently as I listen to his getting-ready-for-bed noises. I hear him make something in their kitchen, the sound of the TV coming on low, some late-night comedy show with canned laughter, the scrape of food being eaten off a plate. I imagine how Simon will tell this faceless man what happened. I picture his shock. The words he will use. ‘A bit too damaged, unfortunately’. ‘Better off without that.’ ‘Oh well, plenty more fish in the sea.’ The sound of a light being switched off. The kitchen extractor fan runs itself to a stop. The flat falls quiet again.

  I’m aware of how very alone I feel.

  All my loneliest moments in life involve a man asleep when he knows it’s likely I’m crying.

  I have only two options: a) to be the weirdo who disappeared in the night, or b) to be the weirdo who is still there in the morning. I pick b), as a stupid part of me is still determined to make this work somehow. I cannot handle the humiliation of being so very wrong about him. We may very well wake up sober, and be able to talk about it. I surely didn’t imagine the closeness between us? We don’t even have to go into it, I don’t even particularly want to go into it, but just talking, like we were so good at earlier this evening, could get us on the right path again.

  At around 3 a.m. I crawl back into Simon’s bed and attempt to lose consciousness. I play back my favourite memories of what we’ve shared so far. Our first date, our first kiss, his smell, his …

  I wake with a start.

  My head throbs from too much wine and too much crying. My mouth festers with dryness. Simon is awake, sitting upright in bed. I swear he grimaces when he realises I’ve stirred. Any hope I harboured dies with the grimace. My gut kicks into the familiar feeling of impending break-up – the slurry in my stomach, the wobble of my top lip, the resigned inevitability of it.

  ‘Morning,’ I say.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Did you sleep OK?’

  ‘Yes, you?’

  I nod my lie and notice him not leaning down to kiss me.

  ‘Do you want breakfast?’ he asks. ‘There’s this place around the corner. They do good avo on toast. You like that, don’t you?’

  He wants to end this over breakfast so he feels less like a bad guy. I cannot do this. I cannot have someone say kind things to me again over sourdough when they are also telling me they never want to see me again. No amount of avo on toast can take the sting out of rejection.

  ‘It’s OK.’ I put my hand up. ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘It will be nice.’

  I shake my head. ‘Simon, can we just talk about what happened last night already? You don’t have to buy my breakfast.’

  Even in my anguish, there’s a part of me that enjoys watching a man’s inner turmoil when it becomes obvious he’s going to have to talk about his emotions. Simon’s eyes widen, like he’s a vegetarian that’s accidentally bitten into a meat pasty. I leave him in the silence he needs and brace myself for impact.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he says, finally, without making eye contact. ‘I’m still not sure what happened.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t ask me what happened, did you?’ I point out. ‘You didn’t talk to me about it at all. You just went to sleep.’

  He takes the hit, hesitates, and then recovers. ‘Yes, sorry about that. I was just shocked, and you see, I’m so stressed with work. I could’ve handled it better, I admit.’

  I wait for the ‘but’. I arrange my face into battle mode.

  ‘But …’

  Here it comes.

  ‘The thing is, I’m not really looking for anything serious at the moment. And—’

  I cut him off. ‘Don’t lie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You are. Just not with me. At least own it, Simon.’

  He runs his hand through his hair, and that’s the moment I notice his receding hairline. The widening space above his forehead. He’s got a year or two, max, before those two patches merge and then he’ll have to start shaving it off. ‘I don’t understand why you’re being like this.’

  ‘I just think we’re both old enough for the truth.’ I sigh and shake my head.

  ‘We’re not exactly old …’

  ‘We’re in our thirties.’

  ‘That’s not old.’ He looks genuinely offended that I’ve suggested such a notion. I shake my head again and wish there was a betting website where I could put my life savings on the odds that he’s referred to himself as Peter Pan, proudly, in the last year.

  ‘Look, anyway, let’s just get on with it.’ It’s rather incredible that I’m not crying. In fact, I sound quite chill and disconnected and sassy and all the things I’m sure would’ve kept this relationship going if I’d been able to summon them last night instead of being triggered. Simon seems equally as thrown at my character transformation. Doubt settles in just above his eyebrows. He’s going to follow through though because he’s still not making eye contact.

  ‘I really like you,’ he starts. It’s how th
is always starts. ‘You’re pretty and you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re kind.’ I nod. All of those things are true. They don’t seem to make me lovable though – too unchill and broken for that. I wait again for the second ‘but’. The ‘but’ that’s been the butt of all my misery my entire adult life. ‘But, to tell you the truth, I’ve not been feeling it …’ he trails off.

  I close my eyes. I count to three. I take deep breaths. I let the rejection, once again, soak through me.

  He can’t handle the pain he’s caused me. Simon thinks he is a nice guy. Maybe he even is, to women who aren’t me. He’s started scrambling around for modifiers to make himself feel better. ‘You’re great, you’re so great. Last night was just … well … Again, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me.’

  I manage to look up at him. ‘For fuck’s sake, stop lying.’

  He jerks back, his demeanour switching into defensive-mode right away. ‘I’m not!’

  ‘You are, and it’s boring. Just tell the truth. God.’

  ‘Look, stop making me into a villain! As I said, I’ve not been totally feeling it, but I thought there was enough there to see where it went. And, well, last night … I’m just not sure I’m the right guy to take on something like that, April, OK? I’m not evil for wanting a normal sex life rather than …’

  The word ‘normal’ hits harder than a bullet. It explodes on impact. He doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s made it clear: I’m the problem, not him. He crosses his arms. He can’t physically look at me. Bottom lip stuck out. All ‘look what you made me do’.

  I stand. I can’t, I just can’t any more. I will cry I will cry I will cry, but I won’t give Simon the satisfaction of seeing that. ‘Goodbye Simon,’ I say, putting my sandals on with as much dignity as it’s possible to muster.

  ‘We can still get breakfast,’ he tells the floorboards hollowly.

  As I stuff my belongings back into my handbag. I can practically hear him whinging to his mate.

  She was acting like I was such a jerk, but I was the one offering to take her out to breakfast! I was the one trying to be mature about the whole thing! Nightmare! She’s just taking whatever happened out on me which is so unfair. I’m not a bad guy. I was just being honest.

  Or even worse, he won’t mention me at all. I’m not significant enough.

  I bend over, my heart feels like it’s going to tumble out of my mouth. I’m thirsty, and hurting, humiliated, and done.

  He doesn’t follow me to the door. He just sits with his face in his hands, concocting a way, I’m sure, to make himself the victim in all this.

  ‘Have a great life!’ I shout over my shoulder as I leave, wincing as I say it, because it sounds like a line in a really crap movie. I wait for the lift, playing out one last desperate fantasy. Imagining him chasing me out, catching the lift before the doors close, telling me it’s all a big mistake, that he will do anything to have me back. I want him to want me, even though, if I give myself time, I know that I don’t want him. Not really. Not the real him I wasn’t given the time to get to know.

  The doors slide open. I step inside. They slide shut, without any chases and dramatic revelations. I pull out my phone, seeing if there’s a message from Simon, telling me to wait.

  Instead I have five messages from Megan:

  Megan: You’ve not come home. IS TONIGHT THE NIGHT?

  Megan: What’s sex like? I’ve forgotten.

  Megan: I’ve eaten your leftover lasagne. Sorry, but not really. If you didn’t want me to, you should’ve come home tonight and stopped me. You know what I’m like.

  Megan: Yes, I’m totally victim blaming you right now.

  Megan: I’ve eaten your Gü pudding too …

  Even she isn’t able to make me smile. I blink and blink and blink. The lift doors ding open and I’m spat out onto the dirty, littered streets of London on a Saturday morning. I lean against the wall of Simon’s new-build beside a couple of pigeons pecking at a patch of splattered vomit, and watch the buses lurch past, joggers jog, and cyclists cycle, and wait a moment or two before I reply. These are my last moments of showing the outside world I’m capable of having a relationship. Right now, only Simon and I know we’ve disintegrated. My friends and colleagues still believe that April might have the ability to meet a nice man and get past date five. Their doubts about me are fading. They’re thinking ‘how nice’. As soon as I message Megan to reveal the ending, that veneer will collapse. The narrative will revert back to April trope. I’m going to have to go through the painful and humiliating process of telling everyone I told about Simon that, no, actually, it didn’t work out. I’ll have to endure the re-explaining of what happened, the ‘well he doesn’t deserve you anyway’ lies when, secretly, they’re thinking, ‘hmm, I do wonder if there’s something not quite right about that one’ before they get on with their own business and their own lives and their own relationships that they seem to find so, so much easier than I do.

  April: On my way home. It’s over. Before it even began. Not good.

  No one asks if I’m all right as I weep silently along the District line, staring out at the blackness. Two tourists, armed with cameras and stinking of sun cream, notice the tears and discuss my predicament in a hushed language I don’t understand. But they decide to do nothing.

  The moment I get signal, my phone vibrates with replies.

  Megan: Fuck

  Megan: I’m so sorry hon.

  Megan: I’m here. I’ve just run out to get replacement Gü. Multiple Gü.

  Megan: You WILL get through this.

  I shakily reply ‘I love u xxx’ and focus on trying to ravel myself back in again. It is just a man. One man. I can handle this. I’ve been here before. Many, many times. I focus on my ribcage expanding and contracting, on my breath coming in and out, even if it is in short, sharp bursts of sadness. The carriage judders to a halt at South Kensington and I’m the first to get out when the doors slam open. I cannot handle the crowds of dawdling tourists, not today. I jump off and run to the steps, elbowing a stressed mother pushing a buggy towards the Natural History Museum exit. She shouts after me, and I find myself muttering ‘fuck off’ as I run past. I don’t even feel guilty. All I can think is that she deserves it, with her three children and her life all together, getting in my way when I’m falling apart and will probably never be able to have what she has – no matter how hard I try. I dodge down the side roads, to the little mews where Megan’s flat hides. I scrabble with my key, the tears really streaming now, and, when I’m through the door, Megan is there. Arms wide open, a chocolate Gü in each hand, looking just as upset as I feel. I fling myself into her and cry myself dry.

  Here are the red flags I ignored about Simon because I was so desperate for him to be the end of dating hell: yes, he did always message back but he never called me. Every time we arranged to see each other, I had to fit in around his diary, not the other way around. His parents are still together, but he mentioned during our third date, after three martinis, that ‘I really don’t think they love each other, or ever have’, which is bound to impact his view on healthy relationships. He rarely asked me any questions about myself and looked bored at the answers. He once referred to his ex as ‘a bit crazy’. He sneered when I mentioned my friend Chrissy and her battle with depression, saying it’s ‘a bad habit’. He admitted he only volunteered at the shelter that one time to meet women and thought it was funny.

  The main red flag? He said he was looking for a ‘partner in crime’ which everyone knows is shorthand for ‘a woman who isn’t real’.

  ‘I still don’t understand it,’ I tell Megan, lying on the sofa, exhausted and blotchy.

  ‘There’s nothing to understand. He’s just a dick.’ She’s curled her feet up under her and the gold from the sun hits her black hair, turning it grey.

  ‘Is he, though?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s not done anything wrong.’

  ‘He’s a man, of course he�
�s done something wrong.’

  ‘No, it’s me. There’s something wrong with me.’ My voice breaks and Megan leans over and gently strokes my leg and whispers the sorts of lies one has to whisper to someone in my state.

  ‘There, there. He isn’t worth it. You can do so much better.’

  I lurch up. ‘I don’t want to do better, that’s the point! I’m prepared to settle! I’m thirty fucking three. I’m not expecting fucking … fucking … Gaston to turn up at my door.’

  Her whole face quivers with laughter.

  ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Who ever wanted to date Gaston?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’m so confused,’ I say, huddling my legs up, my voice flat. ‘I thought it was going so well. I’m mental. I’m actually mental. There must be something seriously wrong with me.’

  ‘No,’ Megan replies firmly, continuing a steady pat of my leg. ‘There’s something seriously wrong with men. Men don’t deserve women. How many times do I have to tell you?’

  I pick up one of Megan’s scatter cushions and bury my face in it. ‘If only I’d just been more chilled out.’

  ‘You mean, if only you’d had sex you didn’t feel comfortable having, you’d have “won” a relationship?’

  ‘Yes,’ I mutter into the Laura Ashley.

  ‘And you really want to be with someone who doesn’t respect your sexual boundaries?’

  ‘But isn’t it fair enough to want sex in the doggy position? No wonder he freaked out. That’s pretty vanilla! I’m too weird and difficult and no man will ever want me because I’m a mental, high-maintenance FREAK!’ More tears arrive.

  Megan reaches over. ‘Not into the Laura Ashley,’ she says gently, which makes me laugh-cry. ‘Look, the right guy, well, not even the right guy, but a guy with any decency could’ve handled you not wanting to get hardcore doggy-styled the first time you slept with them. That’s quite extreme for a first time. You’re not a freak! I mean, if anything, it was just bad manners.’

  ‘And I can have sex from behind,’ I say. ‘I can even enjoy it. I just need to feel safe first. Not have it happen right away.’