It’s been three days since Joel and I broke up and it’s all my fault. If only I hadn’t been so needy or jealous. If only my body hadn’t betrayed me and stopped us from having sex. If only I could have just been normal, then perhaps I’d not be sitting here with my heart in a million pieces.
I’m technically on study leave, but I can’t concentrate. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, staring down at my revision notes, words blurring before my eyes. Heartbreak is so much worse than I ever imagined – it has ripped through my past, present and future and left them all in tatters. It’s like being forced to live without an essential part of my soul. Something is missing – gone for ever. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that to feel like this is “normal”. Like death, heartbreak is an inevitable part of life, and it baffles me how the world isn’t full of people collapsing into a heap on a daily basis. Or maybe it is and other people are better at hiding it than I am? Is Mum going to sit me down – like she did when she told me Santa wasn’t real – and tell me that life really is that bad?
This morning I cried about a fart. A FART. Sammy let one rip and it took me back to Joel’s first fart in front of me. It made me laugh so much I farted too, and instead of almost dying from embarrassment, we both almost died from a lack of oxygen from hysterically laughing. That memory, although stupid, rammed home even more that what Joel and I had was rare. I don’t think I’ll ever find it with anyone else.
Sammy said I was grieving. Sure, Joel’s not dead, but he isn’t a part of my life any more.
I wake up, I cry.
I brush my teeth, I cry.
Like I said, I’m supposed to be on study leave, but unsurprisingly there’s been minimal studying. I’m home alone on weekdays, which is good in one way because I can cry as much as I like, but also rubbish because I can’t escape my thoughts. It’s hard to focus on anything when my mind is a sea of what-ifs and my eyes are a blurry barrier between me and my revision notes.
I can’t even message the chat for support because it’s Lena’s group and I no longer feel welcome. She and Demi are totally blanking me. If I was at school, there’d be no hiding from them. I guess as far as they know Joel and I are still together. Joel’s socials are ghostly quiet and I’m not deleting a single trace of us from mine, so, on the surface, nothing’s changed. I want to keep it that way. I’m not ready for anyone else to know yet. I can’t face the sympathy slapped across people’s faces or the whispers behind my back when they find out.
But I’ve never needed my girls more than I do right now. I need ice cream and hugs and Lena’s tarot cards and Demi’s convincing way with words. I need them to realize how bad things have been so maybe they can forgive me for being such a rubbish friend. But they’ve never felt so far away, and I don’t have the words or energy to work out how to bring them closer.
I snatch up the tear-stained page from the table and force it into a crumpled ball just as the metal clang of the letter box sounds. I chuck the scrunched paper at the wall and make my way to the hall, grateful for any distraction.
Most of the post looks like bills or junk mail, but as I flick through there’s one addressed to me. My stomach tightens. It couldn’t possibly be… No. Surely life wouldn’t be so cruel? I chuck the rest of the post on the dining table and make my way up to my room.
I stare at the white envelope for a moment, trying to bring myself to open it. I savour the last few seconds of denial, then I tear it open.
I skim through the formalities, eyes on stalks, zoning in on the important part.
Scheduled procedure: 6th June.
My stomach lurches. The date is there in black and white. My operation is in three weeks’ time. Do I want to cry or be sick? Both?
I read it again, but before I reach the end the inked letters become a smudge of black slugs and the paper begins to tremble in my hands.
Here come the tears again – this time full-body wracking sobs.
It’s official. On 6th June I’ll have a working vagina, but no one to use it with. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having second thoughts about going through with the operation entirely.
The irony of the situation is not lost on me. I haven’t thought about sex since Joel broke up with me and my Shame Sack has sat untouched in my drawer – a painful reminder of a journey that now feels pointless. Maybe I’ll want to have sex with someone else in the future, but the urgency has totally gone now.
The minute Mum got home from work last night, I flapped the referral letter in her face. She didn’t even need to read it to know what it was given the state I was in. She said we’d talk about it today when I was able to think straight. I’m not sure I’m quite there yet, but if we want to cancel, we only have a few days to do it. I’ve finally managed an hour without crying so there’s not going to be a better time than now to sidle into my parents’ bedroom.
Dad’s downstairs and Mum’s just got out of the bath. She’s lying on the bed with one towel wrapped round her hair and one barely covering the rest of her. As she likes to do after her baths, she’s watching Pointless on TV. She mutes it when she sees me and pats the space beside her. I get under the duvet, the mattress warm where Mum’s been sitting. I trace the damask-patterned cover – the more I do to keep myself busy, the less focus I can give to the sadness sitting precariously close to the surface.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about this,” I say heavily.
“I understand that,” she says. “Listen, would it help if I told you my news?”
I lift my head. “Yeah? Not pregnant are you?”
“God, could you imagine?” Mum shakes her head. “No, not pregnant, but I have applied to an Open University course in English Literature.”
“No way! That’s amazing.” This time my mouth manages to form a smile. “Maybe one day you’ll write a book and you can recommend it to people at the library.”
“Maybe.” Mum smiles shyly, cheeks pink. “Ready to talk about the op now?”
“No,” I say meekly. “But I’m going to.” I scratch at the remainder of my pink nail polish left from prom.
“So we’ve got a decision to make. Ultimately, it’s up to you.”
I whimper. “I don’t want to choose. Look where that’s got me before.”
Mum’s eyebrows rise, but she doesn’t say the dreaded I told you so about me accepting Sunderland. If I want to change my firm and insurance choices, I need to start the process ASAP as the final deadline for all things UCAS is speedily approaching. But I can’t face that on top of the op and my A levels. Also, I can’t bring myself to close that door just yet.
“Well, you don’t need to make this decision on your own. Let’s talk about the pros and cons of doing the op now versus in the future.”
I screw my face up. Why does this have to be my real life?
Mum continues. “You’ll be away at uni for the next three years and then looking for a job or doing further training. So now could be the best time to do this.”
“True. But I’m single now. Feels pointless.”
“This is about you, not Joel.”
I wince at the mention of his name. It’s starting to feel alien already and I’m not at all prepared for that.
Mum goes on. “And I know it’s hard to imagine right now, but you might meet someone else at uni.”
“I can’t imagine it, but I suppose you’re right.” There’s a slim chance that I might meet someone else and I don’t want to have to go through all this again.
Mum looks at me, her face soft and open. “Whether you wait three years or three weeks, it’s going to be a scary thing, you know? That won’t change. It might feel better for you to get it over with so you can move forward without it lingering like one of your dad’s Sunday roast farts.” She smiles.
I shift to lie down and bury my head in the pillow. I chuckle and softly wail at the same time. Three weeks. All this could be over by the end of my exams.
I emerge from the pillow. “It would be amazing to close the door on this chapter for good.”
“So what you thinking?” Mum reaches down and starts to play with my hair. Her support and presence fills me with a courage I didn’t know I had.
“I’ll do it,” I say with as much certainty as I can muster. “I need to. For me, not for anyone else.”
I’m about to do a stupid thing. I should stop myself from doing the stupid thing, but I have no control over my hands. I’m typing a message to Joel to tell him I’m having the op. It doesn’t feel right that he doesn’t know.
I’ve been thinking… (Dangerous? Maybe.) The operation should have changed everything. Joel would’ve had more of a reason to stick around and the parts of our relationship that were on wobbly ground could have been built back up on a solid bed of mind-blowing sex and the intimacy that comes with it. I was thinking it was too late. Joel’s gone and that ship has sailed.
But what if the ship hasn’t sailed yet?
What if the ship is still docked? Or at least close enough to the shore that I can throw myself aboard and the two of us can sail off into the sunset? It’s not been long – there’s still a glimmer of hope. The operation and the physical change it brings could save us. Why else would the universe or God or whoever the hell is out there have ordered things in such a way that my operation is happening RIGHT NOW? If everything in life is supposed to happen for a reason, as Lena constantly barks on about, then perhaps this is a test. A test that Joel and I are meant to surmount, coming out the other end stronger.
As these thoughts splash through my mind, I scrabble to type them down, not wanting to miss out on imparting a single part of this divine wisdom to Joel himself.
I might be delusional, but the good thing about being delusional is that you don’t care. I believe enough in the goodness of the world that life cannot possibly be this cruel.
I press “send”.