TWENTY-FOUR

After the ritual, we had lunch: a leftover lentil salad with raw red onion and raisins. Owen would have been horrified – he would never eat fruit in a savoury salad – but I enjoyed the meal that Odile put down in front of me. Had I ever adopted his tastes, or was this a sign that it was over, that he was no longer inside me? Odile must have made the salad the previous day, and having spent the night in the fridge, it was so cold it hurt my teeth. I relished the pain as I shovelled lentils into my mouth and chewed. Was I really cured?

I felt different, but it was nothing like what I could have expected. I felt fuller in some way, more over-occupied than ever, as if the boyfriend I had consumed was multiplying in a kind of fucked-up mitosis. I slipped my hand into my gown and touched my stomach. Was it more rounded than before? Was the skin tauter?

I listened for Owen but heard nothing. Was he leaving me now, or was he simply fading into me? Maybe I was in the final throes of absorbing him, the edges of us blurring as I consumed him. Or maybe he really was on his way out of me; his way back to me.

s

After lunch, Odile made me a cup of chamomile tea and told me to get into bed and rest while she cleaned up. I didn’t argue. I had only been awake for a few hours, but I was completely drained. I left my bedroom door ajar, afraid to be shut off completely. I shrugged off the dressing gown and pulled the duvet over my head. The sheets felt cool and clean against my naked skin. Odile must have changed them while I bathed. I fell asleep almost immediately.

My dreams were candlelit and briny. In them, I was aware that I was chasing Owen, but I couldn’t see or hear him. I followed, not quite running, not quite walking, through dim corridors with carpets as red and spongy as raw flesh. I was trying to call out to him, but my voice was strained and all that came out was a marine clicking sound that echoed around me, even when I paused, still as a wall. The corridor stopped, blocked by a round and pink mucus wall with a small cervical dimple. I clawed at the dimple with both hands, gripping its edges with my fingers and pulling it apart, squeezing parts of myself through the gap as it widened. I shoved and huffed the mucus away from my mouth. I was trying to call out again, but the clicking was getting louder and more desperate. I pushed harder, until finally I was through. I was screaming Owen’s name over and over again, rubbing my face as if to remove the slime, and Odile was at my bedside holding my hand and saying, ‘Shhh, it’s okay, shhh.’

I had been asleep for less than five minutes. I was confused and shaking violently. It was like the time my mum woke me when I had been sleepwalking. She hadn’t wanted me to piss in the kitchen bin.

The chamomile tea was still hot. Odile wrapped my hands around the warm mug, only letting go when she was certain of my grip. I looked up into her eyes with their maternal promise of unrequited love. I let myself slip back into sleep, safe as long as Odile watched over me.

s

I slept for most of the day, sliding between abject, glistening dreams and dry, wooden wakefulness. Although I was not especially cold or hot, I felt feverish; disoriented and distorted. Odile remained faithful, bringing me glasses of cold water and mugs of hot tea that I sipped at superficially until they were taken away and replaced. Once again, I felt like a child, home from school, Odile mothering me back to health. I was aware of my nudity between the sheets but felt no shame. It was like my body was no longer mine, like I had taken on a new weight, a muscular shell to house something new growing inside me. Something that was not Owen.

Before she went to bed that night, Odile turned the radio on in the living room. She left my bedroom door open at a forty-five-degree angle, where it cut off the harsh glare of the lamp she had left on. An orange slice of dusty light and the murmuring voices of late-night radio DJs kept me company throughout the night.

My birth parents hovered at the edges of my fever dreams. But every time I tried to catch a good look at them, they faded into a mist which I sucked up in panicked breaths. I would feel them in my blood, as I had once felt Owen, and then they would ooze from my eyes and nose and back into my periphery. Each time they found a way out of me, they were smaller; and each time I sucked them back up, taking more of them into myself.

I woke up certain of something the next morning, but I had forgotten what. I lay still and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to recall the message I had received in my sleep. It wouldn’t come.

But something had changed; everything was too vivid, too colourful. I had a new, alien energy, an unknown purpose. I didn’t feel apprehensive or self-conscious. It was as if the days, the weeks, ahead of me, were laid out on a tightly folded piece of paper that would unravel itself to reveal predesigned outcomes over which I had no interest in taking control. I got dressed and shoved my phone into my back pocket, where it bulged from my body. I gathered my wallet and keys, cigarettes and lip balm and chewing gum and tissues, and tossed them all into my bag.

I yelled goodbye to Odile as I closed the front door behind me. I had no idea where I was going.

I was out of view of the flat when my phone vibrated. It was a direct message from Helena.

Great! How about Tuesday lunchtime?

She had included her phone number so that I would have to bridge a different medium to secure our meeting. I responded immediately, directly to her phone, suggesting a specific time and coffee shop.

Can’t wait. See you soon. Hx