Still, even though I knew this, even though I had this short answer, I was confident that would change over time. He went out with other people, I’d see other people but none of those relationships ever lasted. Because the two of us were going to end up together, weren’t we? When we were single, we’d flirt till it hurt, all preparation for us getting together, I thought.
Three years ago, he met his girlfriend, Tara. Met her, then rang me up in a tizzy saying, ‘Ceri, it’s happened, I’ve met her. I’ve met the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. I’ve met The One.’
I’d always listened with interest when he’d met other women. It was the kind of interest that came from knowing it’d never last because, well, they weren’t me. He and I were meant to be. It was written in the stars, in the Domesday Book, practically anywhere you looked it said ‘Drew & Ceri 4 ever’. This time had been different. I could hear it in his voice. The excitement and joy and shock that he’d met his ideal woman. He was in love. After two hours, he was in love. She was, indeed, The One. And she wasn’t me. Or like me in any way. (Whashisface Tosspot asked me to move in with him about six hours after I got that call from Drew. By all rights, I should’ve taken to my bed with a bottle of wine and a box of tissues, instead, I’d gone to meet Whashisface Tosspot. Maybe I’d suddenly realised that now my long-term plan for happiness was heading off into the sunset with someone else and I needed a back-up plan, a sunset companion of my own, Whashisface Tosspot became it. It could’ve been that, but personally, I favour the Jedi Mind Trick/Work Of The Devil explanation.)
I’ll never forget the sudden horror that rushed through me when I heard Drew’s words. It’d hit me, right then, that we weren’t eventually going to end up together. That maybe, if I’d told him earlier how I felt, things would’ve turned out different. I didn’t want that for Ed. Or for anyone. ‘What if’ was no way to live your life. ‘Always regret the things you did do, never the things you didn’t,’ someone once said. They weren’t wrong.
‘I’ll tell you Ed, nine years of unrequited love that results in nothing more than friendship hurts, quite a lot. Hate to see you waste your twenties like I did, mate. Ask her out and if she says no, at least you’ll know. You can find someone else to lust, I mean, love.’
Ed was silent for a very long time, he pursed his lips slightly and his eyes clouded over, he was thinking very hard by the face on him. My eyes strayed back to the TV screen and to the gorgeous but silent David Boreanaz. I jumped guiltily when Ed rejoined me in the land of the speaking.
‘You really think I should ask her out?’
‘I do,’ I replied. ‘I would. But only because I know now that the one thing more painful than rejection is looking at yourself day after day and wondering “What if”. There’s this line in Strictly Ballroom that I remind myself of whenever I start to chicken out of stuff. It goes, “A life lived in fear is a life half-lived”. And, let’s be honest, who wants to live half a life when you can have a whole life? That’s like eating half a chocolate bar when you’re hungry enough for a whole one and you’ve got a whole one in your hand.’
‘All right, all right, all right,’ Ed mumbled, nodding slowly.
‘Anyway Ed, I’ve got to watch Angel now, but feel free to stay.’
Ed smiled at me wryly. ‘Is that OK?’
‘Course. But no talking.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to enjoy it, you know, alone.’ Ed waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
I grabbed a pillow and thwacked him with it. ‘Listen you cheeky get, you ask out actress woman then you can take the mick out of me and how I run my love life, all right?’
Ed grinned, accepted my proffered can of beer and lay back on my bed.
Bless you, but you still need a wash and blow-dry.
What if ?
I asked myself that a lot. A lot. I still, for example, thought: What if I’d taken English lit A-level instead of politics A-level? Would I be the politically-minded journalist I’d become before I ran away to Leeds? Or would I be someone else? Would I have become interested in Psychology or have done an English degree? And what if I’d done an English degree, would I have met Jess? What if I’d never met Jess . . .
Thinking ‘What if’ always made me homesick. And after talking to Ed, I started feeling homesick. Not for London, I had nothing to be homesick about in London. My parents, my sister, my brothers, their various families, a few friends were there. I’d left them behind, but since I didn’t live with any of them, I didn’t miss them. In fact, I’d probably start to see them more now I didn’t live within an hour’s journey of them. Two hundred miles apart was probably exactly what I needed to inspire me to see my family more often. No, I was starting to feel homesick for my time in college. To see all the people I’d gone to college with. Pastsick, really.
After Ed gave up on Angel and went off to bed (or to play heavy metal quietly), I got my photo albums out and lay on my bed looking through them. Pictures of my room in halls, pictures of the living room in my last student house, three streets over from where I was now. In that pic, I’m stood by the stone fireplace, wearing my floor-length blue velvet, long-sleeved ball dress. Specially bought – at a bargainous £10 in Oasis – for my graduation ball.
I flicked on a few pages and there was a picture of me and Drew at the graduation ball, a few hours later. Him in his smart black tuxedo, black bow tie, his razor-cut blond hair and cheekbones making him look rather effete. I was so in love with him when that picture was taken. At least I thought I was in love with him. That fierce, all consuming love hadn’t changed until, what, three years ago. Like I said to Ed, I spent most of my twenties in love with a man who didn’t even know I was alive. We had our heads close together, in the picture, my jet black bob almost touching what was left of his blond hair, our faces glistening with sweat because we’d spent half the night dancing and we were both flashing 100 watt smiles at the camera. Drew’s arm was slung casually around my shoulders. I knew exactly what I would’ve been feeling – quivery and giggly, thinking, ‘Oh, GOD! Drew’s touching me in front of a camera! It’s a sign! He does love me really. Tonight could be the night.’ I stroked my fingers across the plastic covering the photo, as I got another pang of pastsickness. Awww, young Drew, young Ceri. So bloody stupid. We didn’t even get less stupid the older we got. Well, I didn’t.
After the initial shock of Drew meeting ‘The One’, which resulted in me moving in with Whashisface Tosspot, I’d gone into denial. I’d hung up the phone, sat staring into space for ages until I reached a very important decision: I’m not going to think about it. At all. Drew, my love, my long-term plan for happiness had met his dream woman, so the best course of action was to enter denial, quietly and calmly, without any fuss, and not think about it.
Since I’d decided not to think about it, I could think about nothing else. It was always there at the back of my mind. Kicking away, dancing up and down, waving a red flag, demanding attention. When I woke up in the morning, when I got ready for work, when I sat at work, when I came home from work. When I made dinner, when I ate it, when I watched telly, when I was having sex, I thought about it. My stomach churned; dipping and rising, spinning and twisting. I found it hard to eat without feeling sick afterwards. I’d be sat at my desk, editing copy and find my right leg perched on the ball of my foot, bouncing nervously up and down. And all because I’d decided not to think about it.
Three months later, exhausted by the effort and nausea involved in not thinking about it, I decided to think about it. I decided to let myself off the hook, stop being such a brave little martyr and go into the pain. Go into it, embrace it, accept it. I was, at least, allowed to cry about it. I picked a weekend when Whashisface Tosspot went away to his parents’ (of course, they had a huge house in the country but he was always pleading poverty). As he drove off very late Friday night, I got myself all the tools for grieving I’d previously denied myself – a couple of bottles of wine, a multipack of tissues and some appropri
ate CDs – and took to my bed.
Except, my mind, twisted as it was, refused to collapse. Refused to let me cry and wallow and give in to how much pain Drew’s news had caused me.
As I lay under my duvet, Can’t Live If Living Is Without You playing on loop in the background, there was no emotional retching. No physical heartbreak. No tears. No open-mouthed ugly cry. Not even when I squeezed really hard. All that came to me were all the negative things about him. About this Drew, this man who I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.
My brain kept dredging up examples of his caddishness any time ‘but I love him’ thought of rearing its pathetic head. How he’d cuddle up with me, but never made a proper move on me. How he’d go out with other people and flaunt it in my face (how many times had I heard how great his latest woman was, how sexy, how good in bed? Too many, that’s how many). How he’d disappear from my life if he met someone else and only call me to ask for advice when they were going through a hard time. How he’d give me the cold shoulder for days if I snogged someone and would refuse to listen to anything about them, at all.’ (When I’d admitted I’d been seeing Whashisface Tosspot for three months, Drew had blanked me for a whole month. Didn’t return my calls, didn’t text or email me, ended calls after a minute if I caught him in. Nada, for a whole month.)
It wasn’t just that, though. I started remembering how most of his girlfriends hated me, would be blatantly rude to me, probably because he told them that I had a thing about him. How he didn’t come to visit me when I was in hospital for a week with pneumonia – even though the hospital was only a twenty-minute bus ride away. How he’d once forgotten my birthday. Me, his best mate, he’d forgotten my birthday. How he’d got all our mates together for a do one Christmas after we’d all left college – and neglected to invite me. On and on my mind went. By the end of the weekend, I actually hated Drew. Every time I thought of him, I mentally growled. He was an emotional tease. He’d get me all whipped up, let me believe that some way along the line we’d be together. It wasn’t all his fault, though, I’d been led on by all those movies and books which propagated waiting it out. Which told you that if you just hung in there long enough, he’ll realise that you’re the one for him and give up going out with supermodel-types who’ll smash up his car windscreen because he didn’t call. (Yes, one of his girlfriends did that once and I’d gone with him to get it fixed.) No, he’ll discover he wants to be with the woman he comes running to emotionally and physically when he’s single.
Suddenly, I realised he’d been a bastard to me but because I thought I loved him, I hadn’t wanted to see it. And this falling for ‘The One’ was the final act of treachery as far as I was concerned. It was all right for him to go meet his perfect woman, all right for him to fall in love, all right, even, for him to realise he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. But why the bloody hell was I the first person he called up about it? Because he had no respect for me or the feelings he’d nurtured in me, was the short answer. (I was good at short answers, but this was the first time I’d actually paid attention to one.)
Drew, my beloved, was a bloody bastard who wasn’t worthy of my love or attention.
By four o’clock Saturday afternoon I’d thrown back my duvet, leapt out of bed and called up a couple of friends to meet me in Soho for a late lunch. Three of us had sat in a café on Old Compton Street, London, drinking wine and eating cake. It’d mutated to going to a pub, going to a club, then staying at a friend’s house in Fulham. We’d then gone for a pub lunch and got some more drinks in. By the time I got home, Whashisface Tosspot was back – unimpressed by how legless I was at six o’clock on a Sunday evening – and I’d re-entered my place called denial.
Except, this time, when I decided NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT, I really didn’t. I wasn’t nauseous and jumpy. I’d crossed the desert, the wide, barren landscape that was my feelings for Drew. I’d made it through the hardest times, the mirages of plentiful water supplies that were his jealousy at me seeing other people; I’d made it over the sand dunes of hurt that left me feeling worthless when he met someone else; and I’d survived those months of craving for the merest drop of affection to wet my lips on when he blanked me. Now, thanks to a weekend of negative thinking, of being surrounded by nothing except the cacti of his bad behaviour, I could see the other side of that desert and I was almost there.
Two months later, I finally reached the other side of the desert when someone called and asked if I’d spoken to Drew recently and I realised I hadn’t needed to shove him to the back of my mind because he hadn’t even entered my mind.
When you’re so infatuated with someone, like I was with Drew, it’s very difficult to see them for what they really are. But once I’d made that desert crossing, Drew stopped being the man who could do no wrong. He also stopped being the man who would one day wake up and find he loved me, because it was not going to happen. Once I could see him clearly, he became a good friend. A proper friend with no undercurrent of ‘What if ?’ He became a friend because, well, I can forgive my friends most things, but I couldn’t forgive the man I was supposed to love for not even liking me enough to make a pass at me. How embarrassing was that? He could cuddle me, he could flirt with me, he could talk sex with me, but he couldn’t even close his eyes, think of Leeds, and kiss me full on the mouth.
Part of me clung to the notion that Drew was the one who got away, that I wouldn’t feel this for anyone else – three years on, I could see that I really didn’t want to. Because that wasn’t love. Love is a two-way street, except with me and Drew it had been totally one way. If he’d loved me, even a little, he wouldn’t have emotionally teased me.
I flicked through more pages in the photo album. We all looked so young.
I stopped over a picture of me that Drew had taken a few days after our final exam. I was lying on the grass in Hyde Park with sunglasses on, a huge smile on my face and sticking two fingers up at him. I looked quite good then, even if I say so myself. I was happy. I’d just finished my finals, I had a few weeks to go until the results. The world was my lobster. A group of us had gone to the park to play a game of rounders and I’d taken a break, lay on the grass not caring about getting grass marks on my short red dress (with white cycling shorts under it for decency).
As a shadow fell over me, I opened my eyes and found Drew stood over me, his camera poised. Just as he hit the button, I’d stuck my fingers up at him.
I didn’t look that different in that photo, actually, not if you looked at the photos of me then. But when you looked at the photo then looked at me . . . I was older. Not particularly wrinkly (wrinkles weren’t a worry of mine), just older; I suppose I’d done a lot and it showed on my face. I’d run a department on a women’s magazine. I’d found out that love had to be two-way for it to mean anything. I’d discovered that I’d much rather stay in with a video than go out ‘on the pull’. And then, of course, I lived with a man I’d torn out of every photo he’d managed to infiltrate. This was against everything I ever believed in, I loved to take photos, to take snapshots of every time of my life. To have it there to look back on if I ever got pastsick. With Whashisface Tosspot, I just couldn’t bear to be reminded of the biggest mistake of my life. It was bad enough that I’d slept with him for two years, did I really want to look at him too? No, was the short answer to that, too.
I slammed shut the photo album. Didn’t I just say to Ed that ‘What if ?’ was no way to live a life? Erm . . . maybe I didn’t say it, but I’d meant to. And, constantly dipping into my photo album was no way to live a life in Leeds, either. Yer have to look forwards I reminded myself.
And I will, right after I’ve watched a couple more episodes of Angel . . .
chapter seven
Blurting
Before I’d touched down in Leeds this time around, I’d decided to doff my cap to health and fitness. Devote some of my time and effort to what probably should come naturally. Not go crazy, not become a gym bore, not even attemp
t to lose weight or start chasing that mythical dream of ‘firming up’. I simply fancied the idea of being able to walk up more than two flights of stairs without making the asthmatic donkey sound of someone who’d had a thirty-a-day habit since she was sixteen. It was downright embarrassing that Jess could do the stairs thing without a hint of a donkey about her when she had been a thirty-a-day person since she was fourteen.
The gym on the college campus, a stand-alone annexe, was adequate for my purposes – a line of treadmills greeted you as you entered, flanked on the left by a large handful of exercise bikes. On the right was the weights area, plus rowing machines; further on and then down a short flight of stairs was a swimming pool and a circuit training gym.
I’d come here, the first day at college, straight from my final meeting with the last lecturer, Sally. (Sally had been lovely. The meeting with her had been left till last because she was the woman I’d be sharing an office with. Out of all the other three lecturers I’d met, she was the only one who seemed to be able to speak in short sentences.) That night I had my body introduced to the equipment and the ways of the gym. That should be reintroduced, welcomed back into the fold of the gym.
This wasn’t information I liked spread around, it was a shameful secret I’d buried and hidden from – but I’d joined a gym once before.
I was in college then too. Young, impetuous, easily brainwashed. If that wasn’t bad enough, I joined then, dot, dot, dot, went on a regular basis. To add insult to potential injury, I went every other day, in fact. On alternate days, I did aerobics.