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

by Holly Bourne

  ‘Exactly. That’s totally healthy considering what happened. Simon is just an insensitive, selfish, dick. If he really wanted a true relationship, which means liking someone for who they are, he wouldn’t have just freaked out and used it as an excuse. I mean I can’t believe you told him about … you know, and he just blanked it.’

  ‘I don’t blame him. I wish I could just blank it.’ I wipe under my eyes, and use the back of my hand to clear up the snot. ‘I keep torturing myself with this imaginary woman called Gretel,’ I say, more tears falling. ‘She’s based on this girl I worked with years ago, just after I graduated. I only knew her a few months, but every man in the office was obsessed with her. She was really confident and sexy and sure of herself. She had this cool fringe and managed to get Glastonbury tickets every year because she “knew someone”.’ I shake my head. ‘All the men in our office fell in love with her, and she kind of got off on the power she had … Now, whenever I’m feeling insecure, I always compare myself to this weird made-up version of her and feel crap. Gretel has sex from behind and loves it. She’s brilliant at sex. Nothing fazes Gretel. She’s easy-going and laughs all the time, and spends her life going on adventures. No man who dates her ever gets over her. She’s never needy or insecure or jealous and therefore she’s rewarded by the pick of all the men in the universe.’

  Megan crosses her arms. ‘She sounds like a right dick.’

  ‘Oh my God, she was a total dick. All the women in the office hated her.’

  ‘She’s also NOT REAL,’ Megan bellows, leaning into my hair. ‘There is literally no woman out there who doesn’t have insecurities about something. Gretel sounds like a sociopath, if you ask me. Both the real one and your imaginary one. All these men falling for her would’ve realised she was just as fucked up as the rest of us eventually.’ She reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, April,’ she says quietly. ‘Nothing. I mean, you’re not perfect, no one is, but you can’t torture yourself with this idea that other women are more chilled out, because they’re not. Also, who wants the pick of all the men in the universe? Men are terrible!’

  I hug my knees to my chest. ‘But so many women seem to be in happy relationships,’ I protest.

  ‘Seem to be.’ Megan gestures out like a magician’s assistant. ‘There you have it. God knows what they’re putting up with and shutting up with in order to make it “work” with the stupid fucking man they’re stuck with.’

  Megan is in the enviable position of having completely given up on romantic love, and, as a result, is probably one of the happiest, most content people I know. I mean, it helps that her parents are loaded, so she’s inherited a two-bed flat in freaking Kensington but, as she says herself, ‘what I inherited in money and property, I also inherited in a fucked-up family dynamic and major issues’. She reaches out and pulls my head out of my knees. ‘Think of all the married women we know, then look at their husbands. Is there a single one of them, a single one that you don’t think is a bit of a dick and wonder how she puts up with him?’

  I pause as I run through all my ‘happily married’ friends’ husbands. There’s Joel, Steph’s husband, a Chelsea season-ticket holder and has therefore never once spent a whole weekend with her, apart from their two-week honeymoon. Even then, she says he watched football on the hotel TV the whole time. Then there’s Stu, Kim’s husband, who corrects her on her grammar in front of people. Even Katy’s husband, Jimmy, is someone she constantly complains about. ‘He just doesn’t do anything,’ she’ll moan. ‘It takes so much effort sometimes to get him to just mend a bloody shelf without me asking a million times.’

  ‘So, these are my choices?’ I ask, spelling them out on my fingers: ‘a) accept that all men are problematic cretins who don’t deserve us, but try to find one to love anyway. Which is what I’ve been trying to do, but men don’t seem to want to be with me because I’m not like Gretel, despite the huge personal compromises I’m making in trying to love their pathetic arses. Or b) give up, live my life without a man, continue using a vibrator and find a sperm donor if I get really desperate to have children?’

  Megan points to herself proudly. ‘And you will notice I’ve gone for option B. Look how happy I am. How young I look.’ She jabs the uncreased skin around her eyes.

  ‘I want there to be more options than these. I get more options for how to take my fucking coffee. I’m so depressed.’

  Megan tilts her head. ‘I know, hon. It hurts. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘Is there … am I …’ I can hardly make myself say it, the inkling in my stomach that makes me feel sick and useless and desperate. ‘Am I just … unlovable?’

  Megan pulls me into her so tight that I can smell her Chanel Coco Mademoiselle. Only Megan would still wear perfume on a lazy Saturday. ‘Of course you’re not unlovable! You’re so lovable, I love you!’

  ‘You have to say that because you’re my friend.’

  ‘No. Because it’s true.’

  ‘I’m too damaged for love. Ryan fucked me up beyond repair and men can sense that. They want someone perfect; they want a Gretel.’

  ‘Everyone’s damaged, hon,’ she reassures. ‘And men are the most damaged of all. It’s nothing to do with you. You know it. Deep down, you know it. And, how many times do I need to tell you? Gretel ISN’T REAL.’

  I hear her words and I know they are right but I still don’t believe them. I remember the look on Simon’s face when I revealed a tiny part of myself that wasn’t easy-going. It’s the face I’ve seen time and time again, over the years and the heartbreaks. So many different men, with different features, temperaments, eye colours and bone structure – yet all with the same drawing up of the eyebrows, the lowering of their chin, the face they pull when they realise you are too much and they’re not sure they want you after all (though they’ll still be willing to sleep with you and hide all of this until you catch on).

  I can’t do it any more.

  I can’t see that face on a man again. Especially as so many of those men weren’t even all that. It’s exhausting feeling so permanently powerless.

  What does it say when a man you’re willing to compromise on isn’t willing to compromise on you?

  ‘Are you OK?’ Megan leans forward, her face the picture of concern and love and understanding. The sort of face it would be amazing to see on just one boyfriend, just one. If men could love women the way women love each other, everything would be terribly easier.

  ‘I’m such a reluctant heterosexual,’ I admit.

  Megan squeezes my knee. ‘I know, honey. Aren’t we bloody all?’

  Things I’ve tried, to make it work with men

  Being truly authentic and open and myself

  The result?

  ‘I’ve never had to have this many conversations about my feelings before. It’s all a bit too much.’

  Backing off and playing it cool

  The result?

  ‘There’s something missing, you know?’

  Just allowing it to happen naturally: ‘The right guy comes along when you’re not looking for him’

  The result?

  I did not have sex for a year and a half.

  Being ‘less picky’

  The result?

  I ended up ruining my life for two years with Ryan and all the things he did to me.

  Being ‘more picky’

  The result?

  Literally no matches. At all. On any dating service. But then I was so traumatised after Ryan, I only liked about one in two hundred.

  Going for someone older and more mature

  The result?

  ‘I like you, April. But I’m not sure I like you enough to introduce you to my children.’

  Going for someone younger with less baggage

  The result?

  ‘You’re not, like, one of those crazy 30-something women who are desperate for babies, are you? Oh my God, you are, aren’t you!’

  Being open and brave, and never losing
hope: ‘Just keep putting yourself out there’

  The result?

  Simon.

  I lose the rest of my Saturday in a wretched spiral of loathing and self-doubt. I hate myself for how hard I’m taking this. I hate myself for how un-normal I seem to be. So it was six dates, so he didn’t like me, so he’s actually a dick, so he’s not The One after all. So what? I know that’s what I’m supposed to be thinking. I’m supposed to shimmy like Beyoncé and know my worth. I’m supposed to go out and get hammered and show him what he’s missing, and, in doing so, not think about him once. Then Simon will subconsciously realise I’ve moved on and it will prompt him into realising what a huge catch I am and, unable to believe he’s lost me, he’ll turn up and make a heartfelt plea. But it will be too late. I’ll tell him to go home. I will be too full of healthy levels of self-esteem for a shit like Simon. He will torture himself every day for the rest of his life about what he missed out on. I will never think about him ever again.

  This is what would happen to Gretel.

  I’m not Gretel though. I am April.

  And instead April goes through every single message we sent, focusing particularly on any nice ones, to further prompt her heartache. April loses her whole day in a Google hole, reading psychology blogposts about different attachment styles, and occasionally stumbling with her laptop into Megan’s room whenever she has a breakthrough.

  ‘Simon is an avoidant attacher,’ I announce, eyes wide with the revelation, like I’ve just started speaking in tongues. ‘He told me his parents moved him around loads in the first two years of his life. Look! Look here! It’s just his attachment style. If I can convince him to go to intense psychotherapy, in about two years we’ll be perfect for each other.’

  Megan doesn’t look up from her Times Style supplement. ‘I’m disconnecting the router.’

  ‘I still get 4G.’

  ‘I’m confiscating your phone.’

  My mum rings for her weekend phone call to hammer home the existential crisis.

  ‘How’s it going with the new fella?’ she asks, ripping open the wound and tipping some gangrene into it. I don’t even have to reply. ‘Oh dear. Already? Again? I wish you’d listen to me and stop doing this to yourself.’ I lift my head upwards and focus very hard on the crack in my bedroom ceiling, the one that makes it look like its hatching. Mum sighs down the line. ‘What happened this time?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I thought it was going well?’

  ‘SO DID I!’

  I shout so loud Megan runs into the room to check I’m OK, Sudocrem decorating her face in little splodges. I point to my phone and mouth ‘my mum’ and she nods in understanding and retreats.

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, darling, I was just asking.’ She’s all sniffy and snippy and acting like she’s the victim. Oh yes, this is how phone calls with Mum go. It’s like paint by numbers, but you replace the numbers with emotions like ‘guilt’ and ‘exasperation’ and ‘shame’.

  ‘I know, I know. I’m just upset.’

  ‘So he dumped you?’

  ‘Well, we weren’t technically going out.’

  ‘Did you sleep with him?’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You did, didn’t you? How many times do I need to tell you?’

  I close my eyes and try to take yogic breaths. ‘Mum, please.’

  She isn’t listening; she never listens. Instead she goes off into the same old nonsense I’ve heard since I was a teenager. How you can’t trust any of them and I’m crazy for even trying. How, if I’m so determined to try, I shouldn’t sleep with them too soon. How you should make them have to wait for it. How they will not commit to you if you’re already giving them what they want. How you should only expect the worst anyway. I’ve never told her about what happened with Ryan, as I honestly can’t handle her thinking maybe I deserved it for being such a naive wench. Since Dad left when I was 3, I don’t think she’s even spoken to a man other than Jeremy (Jezzer) the postman. She fills the void with Bridge Club and Book Club and Church Club – swimming in pools with all the other divorced, embittered women who can never recover from the hurt of being left thirty years ago.

  ‘I’m sorry April,’ she says eventually, after telling me, in detail, about how you cannot trust any man: I just need to take one look at my father. ‘I know you had high hopes for this one.’

  ‘I did. I feel so stupid now.’

  ‘Don’t you feel stupid. He’s the stupid one to let you go. You’re a lovely girl. You have so much love to give.’

  ‘Pity nobody wants it.’

  ‘I want it. Megan wants it. All your friends at work want it.’

  She’s always quite nice, Mum, once she’s puked up all her lemons.

  ‘Yeah yeah, I know I know.’ I roll my eyes. ‘I still feel stupid. You know? For thinking he could be different, he could be the one?’

  ‘Everyone always thinks they’re the one at the time,’ Mum says. ‘Otherwise why would we bother? You have to think they’re different in order to put yourself through it. It’s only when you’re out of it that you realise how insane you were to think that.’

  Megan returns with a cup of tea. She hands me the mug and leans her face into my phone. ‘Hi Susan!’ she calls. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Oh, it’s Megan!’ Mum sounds excited. ‘Put her on.’

  Even in my sadness, I’m able to smile as Megan takes the phone to give us a break from each other. ‘Hi Susan, how’s Bridge? You’re such a shark! Yes, yes, I’m doing well. Job fine. My new manager is a trash bag, but that’s what you expect in PR. Oh, we’re just going to watch TV tonight. Don’t worry. I’m taking good care of her. What’s that? Oh, yeah, we’ll probably just re-watch Dawson’s Creek as usual. If things get really wild, we’ll crack out season one of The O.C. Yes that Sandy man really is quite something, isn’t he? Those eyebrows!’ Megan laughs and I hear Mum’s laughter crackle out tinnily from my phone.

  There is love, I remind myself. There is always love to be found. Not the love I really, really, want, but, for today, on this terrible today, I have all the love I need.

  That’s the sort of thought Gretel would have, I realise.

  That night, I lie in bed and, for the first time, I let myself really feel all the pain that men have put me through. I’ve tried so hard not to think about it for so very long but it’s all catching up with me. I can feel my heart closing as I stare up into the darkness that’s never that dark. After all this time, it’s finally giving up. I’ve determinedly clamped it open, every morning of every day since I first decided to try and love a man. Despite all the knock-backs and reasons not to and shattering disappointments, I’ve always picked it up off the floor where it’s been discarded, blown off the dust, admired the new scar, put it gently back into my ribcage, and prised it open again. I know that the opposite of love is fear. That it only works if you believe.

  I don’t think I believe any more. In fact, I think I’m beyond not believing. I think I’m finally, finally, allowing myself to feel pissed off.

  So I’m lying here, in my 33-year-old body that isn’t getting any younger, and I’m thinking of all the horrible things men have done to me and this wide open heart of mine.

  There was Tommy, in sixth form, who told everyone I just ‘lay there like a brick’ the day after he took my virginity. Then there was Tommy again, who cheated on me with Jenny Cartwright and everyone in the whole school knew it but me. There was his laugh when I confronted him. ‘I thought you knew?’ he’d said, like it was all my fault.

  Then there was my overcorrection boyfriend at university, who couldn’t be more sweetness and anti-toxic-masculinity and wrote me poems and pushed them under my halls door, but also needed to be loved in a way that no one could ever offer, bled into me, making my life his life and my friends his friends and always said ‘I don’t mind’ whenever I asked anything. When I left him after graduation, he couldn’t handle his ‘investment not maturing’ and swapped th
e love letters for long emails about what a total prick I was as a person.

  There was the date that went for a piss at the pub and never came back.

  There was the guy who told me he wouldn’t go down on me because I tasted like chow mein.

  Then there was Ryan … whom I met aged 25, when I was insecure and scared by how long I’d been alone for and who was the most perfect boyfriend for six months, and made me believe I was going to save his life – but then couldn’t handle it, or me, when I couldn’t. Then two years of arguments, always concluding that it was all my fault, of anxiety pulsing through my stomach, wondering what Ryan I would get that day – the rare, amazing Ryan, or the man who told me I spoke too much and laughed too high-pitched and cooked all my food wrong and who never wanted to touch me. Until those two times where he raped me coldly and clinically – and it took me years to call it that because I was so confused and filled with self-disgust that I felt I’d just let it happen.

  Then there was the fallout of Ryan after he moved on to some poor 24-year-old, whom, I know from the low moments when I spy on him, he still calls Hashtag Soulmate on his insta. How I tried to have a one-night stand, like you’re supposed to do when you’re 27 and heartbroken, but how I couldn’t have sex and screamed in piercing agony, pushing him off me.

  Then there was the hospital appointment, my legs in stirrups, and the year of using numbing gel and vaginal trainers to try and fix what he’d done to my body and being too scared to leave the house, let alone consider dating.

  Then there was John, two years afterwards, whom I told about Ryan and who then used it against me. Telling me it was clearly ‘too soon’ for me to have a relationship if I ever dared behave imperfectly, before dumping me.

  Then there’s been all the micro-aggressions of dating hell since. The ghosting, the guy who is happy to date you for two months, and, then, only when pressed, admits he ‘sort of has a girlfriend’. The slight winces new dates make when you say something that doesn’t match their idea of what a woman should be. The last-minute cancellations, the hours of my life waiting for a man who is late, checking my phone, and pretending I don’t mind when he finally turns up. So much rejection, gaslighting, entitlement, pushiness, scorn, manipulation, power play, compulsive lying, on and on it has gone. And, every time, no matter what men do to me, I have taken some time out to recover and then hurtled back into the ring, determined to try again. You can’t lose the faith otherwise you lose the opportunity to spend your life with someone. You’ve got to keep trying, I told myself. This time will be different, I told myself. You can’t love without fear, I told myself. There must be someone, I told myself. They can’t all be broken, I told myself. Other people have managed it, I told myself.