Fuckingbest wishes, what a scumbag.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Have I been awake for hours, or have I only been dreaming that I’ve been awake for hours? It’s that kind of dark, fuzzy point of the witching hours where I just can’t tell.
I pull the thick duvet closer around my chin. I’d reach for the lamp on my bedside table but it’s way too chilly out there. Also, it’s that sort of spooky night where I’m fairly certain a monster would reach out and grab me if even an inch of skin were to exit the covers.
I can’t sleep. Or, if I can, it’s for hungrily snatched minutes where it’s all anxiety, stress-ridden dreams chasing a faceless boy, screaming about weddings and babies. One minute it’s Alistair I’m hunting, while he runs for the hills. The next it’s Paul. Then it’s the fuzzy avatar of Will’s Twitter profile or Rich the Bastard grinning at me as he texts other women in front of me. In one really sweaty moment, Carl turns up.
I can’t keep lying here, thinking, worrying. It’s too much.
OK, I will be brave. I will turn on the lamp. If themonsters get me, I’ve had a good life. I’ve loved and I’ve been loved.
I reach for the switch, flooding the room with light that hurts my eyes. I blink quickly, trying to acclimatize to the brightness as I take in every corner of the room, checking everything is normal.
All clear. Phew.
I check my phone. Fucking 4.52am. That is among the worst of times to be awake. I know there’s only really a couple of hours until I have to get up for work, and yet, it’s way too early to give up the ghost and just get up. Instead, it seems likely I will lie here thinking and worrying now until I have to drag myself, all zombie-like, into work.
OK, I have to admit this Seven Exes Mission is getting to me. There are only two exes left – Carl and Rich. And there are so many weird and complicated emotions tied up with both. Never mind the five I’ve already contacted.
Oh sod this, I’m done with just lying here – there’s only so much fucking introspection any one person can take. I will get up and wear myself out, circling the flat. And if someone thinks I’m a burglar and the police get called, so much the better. If I’m in jail, I can’t go into work looking like a zombie, can I? What better excuse to take the day off.
Ooh, warm milk is meant to help in this situation! I mean, technically, more than a teaspoon of milk gives me the shits, but that’s OK because at least pooing out my internal organs means I won’t just be lying in bed staring into space, thinking about the many dreadful people I’ve slept with.
I work myself up to a sitting position, still wrapped cocoon-like in my bedding. The next big question is: can I somehow reach my big, cosy dressing gown – currently hanging on the door – without having to leave my duvet? I can figure this out. I did get a B in GCSE maths after all.
I ditch the warmth and make a run for it, feeling the rush of cold enter my bones, even in those few seconds before I can re-wrap myself up.
Idris bought me this dressing gown.
It’s the warmest, loveliest thing I’ve ever owned. I look around the dimly lit space of my bedroom. Does everything I own have some kind of link back or memory attached to a boy? How miserable. And how very depressingly like me.
I shuffle out into the corridor, yawning widely. Maybe I’ll treat myself to a long, luxurious witching hour poo. When you live with other people and there’s only one bathroom, you never really get to enjoy your poos. You’re always tense, waiting for a bang on the door or worrying about a smell that might linger afterwards. Lou once went in there after me and I heard her mutter something about mackerel. A meal I’d had three days before.
Outside the bathroom door, I almost scream as a shapeless blob of human emerges out of nowhere.
‘Jesus,’ I hiss, trying to laugh away the fear still coursing through me. ‘Sorry, dude. I didn’t realize anyone else was up.’ My eyes struggle to adjust to the dark after the lamplight of my bedroom, but I recognize Bibi’s distinctive yellow dressing gown. It has a hood with bear ears, and if mydressing gown were not so brilliant, I would be very jealous of its coolness.
Bibi doesn’t reply immediately and the fear returns to my stomach. Not really because I think someone has broken in to use the loo dressed as Bibi – more like, I don’t know, something else undefined. It’s like something big is about to happen. All my internal warning bells are sounding. The hairs on my neck are up.
‘Beeb?’ I whisper more carefully and step back, groping for the light switch. It floods the hallway with yellow light and we both blink hard.
It’s Alex.
‘Oh!’ I laugh, relieved, but the Something is still there. ‘What are you doing here? Are you and Lou having a sleepover without me? How dare you! I always bring the Milky Ways.’
‘Um.’ She stares down and I wonder if she is maybe sleepwalking.
From behind me, a door opens and a voice whispers, ‘Alex?’
It’s Bibi. She tiptoes towards us, stopping suddenly and noisily when she sees me.
For a moment, her face flushes with guilt. It only lasts seconds before it’s replaced by a sort of complacency. A kind of resignation to whatever fate is about to befall her. I look between her and Alex. They have the same expression on their faces.
My first reaction is to laugh because how absurd! Thislooks like I’m catching Bibi and Alex having a one-night stand! But how stupid, of course it’s not that.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
