The cool, disinterested voice replies immediately: ‘I didn’t find any events about “life” in the next three months, Lilah.’
Oh thanks, Siri, you shady fucking bitch.
I try another question, desperate for some validation. ‘Siri, is it OK to drink, like, a lot of alcohol, alone on a Sunday morning when my boyfriend is out at the gym again, I’m hungover from another lonely wedding where I knew no one, and I’m generally having a really bad time?’
Her reply is distant and disapproving. ‘Here’s what I found on the web for that, Lilah.’
The worldwide web, it appears, thinks it’s probably not a good start to a Sunday and I close the booze cupboard reluctantly. I can’t even get any warmth or comfort from my phone, and it knows me better than anyone.
I go for a wee and sit on the loo, drip-drying and thinking sadly about what is going on with my life.
It’s been a week since Lauren and Joely stormed out of that wedding, leaving me high and dry – except not dry at all, because obviously I cried loads like the loser sap I am. After they left, I stood there awkwardly for ten minutes, my mind blank. I was probably in shock, still clinging on to my melting drink while I tried to process what had just happened and what I should do. I was peripherally aware that a few people nearby were staring at me – understandable, given all the shouting – so I got out my phone and pretended to laugh at a couple of text messages. But then I lost it because I saw a text from Lauren, sent hours before, innocuously asking what I was wearing to the wedding and telling me she was bringing fabric samples along for my maid of honour dress.
That’s when I ran out the building, barely holding it together. I couldn’t stop replaying the argument over and over in my head. Going through what I should or could have said to calm the explosion. I’m still wondering that now, as I climb back into my cold, empty-of-Will bed, without any Sunday morning booze to warm me up. Whose side was I supposed to take? What could I have done to stop the horrible outpouring at each other – and at me? A woman in the car park outside the wedding asked me if I was OK, and should she call someone for me. I assume she thought I was drunk (which I was), and I kept shaking my head, tears pouring down my face, and thinking that the people I needed her to call for me were the ones who’d just stormed off and abandoned me there. The person I was going through all this shitforwas the one who’d just screamed at me and left. It didn’t feel like the right time to reach out to Will to come get me – not after so much silence between us – and I knew my brother wouldn’t even answer his phone.
So I got a bus home on my own instead, and cried against the window, watching the rain. There was the tiniest bit of comfort in the feeling that I was in a movie.
Since then, it’s been a long, lonely, sad week of working, not sleeping, and feeling like dog shit. Will has barely been in the house at all, always at work or the gym – like now. I’m pretty sure he’s deliberately avoiding me, and I kept all my crying for when I was alone. It says a lot about where we are in our relationship now, though, because even Rex noticed I seemed miserable. On Friday he even offered me a bite of his Yorkie bar. But then he said maybe I shouldn’t, actually, because he didn’t want my sad, normal-people germs.
It was nice of him to offer, though.
I have tried exactly once to speak to Lauren and Joely. I rang Lauren’s mobile on Tuesday evening, and her sweet little sister-in-law Simone answered the phone. She sounded mortified and said in a loud, awkward voice that Lauren couldn’t come to the phone because she was in the shower. Then I heard a door slam in the background and she whispered in a rush of words, ‘Sorry Lilah, she’s still too cross to talk to you. Maybe just give her a bit of space for a few days? I’m sure she’ll come around. You guys will beOK. You’re such good friends, I know it will work out.’
Space!HA! We’re not in an American sitcom. What is this space stupidity?
Anger at the humiliating rejection carried me through the next few days. I felt really annoyed with myself for even trying. WhyhadI tried? It’s not like I did anything wrong! I didn’t really do anything, did I? I was just standing there at that lovely wedding, an innocent bystander to the awfulness. This massive fallout isn’t really my doing, is it?
Is it, Siri?
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question, Lilah.’
Fuck you, Siri.
I made one other attempt – this time with Joely – sending her a WhatsApp message asking to talk things through, but it quickly became apparent that she’d blocked me. Which is gloriously melodramatic of her.
Annoyingly, the anger faded, and after over a week of silence – with nothing to show for it from either of them – honestly, I just feel crushed now. Tired, sad and just... over all of this.
Meanwhile, I’ve still been getting calls and messages about the hen do, which is creeping ever closer and closer. Everyone’s demanding confirmations and final payments for activities and events, not to mention the continuing questions from the hens themselves about things I’ve already told them five times. I don’t know what to do about any of it. I don’t know if I’m even still Lauren’s maid of honour. She said I was fired during that argument, but surely she didn’t mean it? That was just a heat of the moment thing, wasn’t it? Oh God, I really don’t know. Maybe she’s already appointed someone else. Maybe Simone got promoted to the top job – I should’ve asked her. But if I’m not her maid of honour, there’s no wayJoely’s still a bridesmaid either, right? So should I be cancelling her seat on the flight to Marbs? And mine? Should I be cancelling the whole thing? That would really show Lauren if I just full-on demolished her much-talked-about hen do.
Do I want to ‘show’ Lauren? Probably not.
I don’t know anything at the moment and I feel so helpless.
So I’m doing the only grown-up thing I can do – I’m hiding. I’m ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away or resolves itself, somehow. And every day, with every missed call from a hen company and every ignored duplicated email from Katie Jacks, I feel the weight of everything piling higher on my shoulders, and the anxiety filling my stomach like acid. Every day I feel like more of a failure – as a friend, as a girlfriend, as a granddaughter, as a human being. There must surely be something I can do to fix it all, but right now I can’t see it. I can’t see anything much at all.
Just then,Will wanders into the bedroom. He’s been to an early morning gym session and it hits me properly how little I’ve seen of him lately. For once, I’ve been the first one to bed at night, and he’s been gone when I’ve woken up, hitting the gym early, and working longer hours at the office than usual. He was supposed to come to the work-friend wedding I was at yesterday, but he cancelled over text at the last minute, saying he had to work. It was pretty mortifying having to explain his absence, but I can’t blame Will for being sick of all this. I’m over it too. I wish I could explain that properly to him.
He doesn’t smile or even look in my direction as he passes the bed, heading straight through to our en-suite shower. For a moment the sadness spikes in my stomach and I think I’m going to scream and cry in the middle of our bedroom. In front of the neighbour’s cat, who always comes over on Sunday mornings for extra breakfast, even though Moira next door keeps pleading with us not to give it to her.
I really hate that this is the new normal for Will and me. Not speaking, not sharing, not even really seeing each other. I miss the touching, sure, but it’s not even Will’s physical nearness I miss. It’s that thing you get with a nice boyfriend – the thing of having someone on your team. I miss talking over dinner about our mundane lives. I miss him being my partner.
You’d think with the sudden cessation of wedding messages and meetings this week, things would’ve been better between us. But it feels like it’s gone too far now. He’s not trying anymore. Neither of us are. I haven’t even told him I’ve fallen out with my best friends. When I got back that night from the wedding, I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it or tell him the things they’d both said to me. I told myself I’d tell him the next day, and then the day after that. But I still haven’t and I’m not sure why. I miss talking to him so much, but this feels like too big a thing to start with. Maybe it’s because we’ve hardly seen each other? Contestant auditions for next year’s series have started with a vengeance again at work this week and I’ve been run off my feet with everything. I could’ve texted or emailed him, though. Or just stayed up until he got home in the evening, so we could talk. I guess, if I had to really self-analyse – which I seem to be doing a lot of at the moment – I think I’m worried if I tell Will what Lauren and Joely said to me, he might agree with them.
Because I think I agree with them. Iama coward. I’m a coward in life, too afraid of upsetting people or rocking the boat. And now it looks like my cowardice even extends to my relationship with Will. I need to talk to him about Lauren and Joely, and I need to talk to those two about him. These three are always automatically the people I go to when something major like this happens. But obviously I can’t do that. It’s very surreal when the people you would turn to most in times of trouble are the ones who’ve caused the trouble.
Or maybe I’ve caused the trouble? Oh God, I don’t know.
I know, as well, that I’ve been avoiding Will because a conversation needs to be had. A big one. We are going to have to talk at some point about what’s happening between us. And I don’t think it’s going to be terribly great. But yet again, I’m hiding and ignoring and proving to the world what a big stupid coward I am. If this was a movie, by this point in the story, the whole cinema audience would be screaming at me to just get killed by the villain already.
