I sob in Tom’s arms after the negative pregnancy test. I take another one and it says the same, and again the result comes up so fast that it felt like these tests work on a percentage basis: 0 per cent pregnant. You have failed the test. Did you even try? Are you sure this is the subject for you?
For weeks, I am reclusive.
I veer between comfort eating and starvation, and punish my body for not giving me what I wanted. I had done everything that was expected of me, and I have lost and I am devastated.
‘You can tell me now, did you cheat on me?’ I bark at Tom, because now there is no reason not to ask, is there?
I tell him about the other messages Rachel sent me too, the ones I never mentioned, and he denies it all again and says he doesn’t know who Rachel is, or why she would send me such awful messages. I laugh in a nasty, disbelieving way and raise my eyebrows because I want to hurt him, or hurt me, it is unclear which one.
I won’t let it go.
‘This girl said you slept with her,’ I say coldly.
He swears on his family’s life it isn’t true.
‘Have you done anything to piss anyone off? Anything to make someone want revenge on you? Because otherwise, why would she say this if it’s not true, Tom? You’re not a celebrity, you’re not in a boy band. It makes no sense.’
He shakes his head.
‘I genuinely have no idea,’ he says, and now he is crying. ‘All we have been through and somebody does this. Of course I haven’t cheated on you, of course I haven’t.’
Where do you go from there?
I ignore calls from family and friends, then I turn off my phone so no one can infiltrate my world, because I hate the world, all of it, and I am on an angry lockdown at home.
Which means, of course, that there is a lot of the one person in my life I cannot shut out: Harriet.
Harriet becomes the recipient of much of my rage.
‘Fuck you, Harriet!’ I shout when she is singing loudly enough that I am confident she won’t hear but later, I say it when she is quiet, too. ‘Fuck you and your happy fucking songs!’
I throw a lamp against the wall and it breaks, leaving a tiny scratch mark in the plaster. I convince myself that leaves a gap for her music to get through and only serves to make her louder.
I go online to see what she is doing, who she is socialising with and just how perfect her life is now. I become convinced that she knows about my existence and pities me. I consider the possibility once again of her and Tom. I fixate on her, as someone who is everything I am not, who has everything I don’t.