Monday 8 August

Malik’s task this week asks us to look mindfully at our decisions. Mindfully. Ha ha. How else are we going to be looking? Elbowfully? Ribcagefully? Sort of has to be the mind, Malik.

God. The roads I should be not taking.

Top of the list, I guess, is Rupert.

Beauuuutiful Rupe. Bec and Tash and Lola and I were so excited when he asked me out. I’m going to say it: we are the perfect couple. On paper, anyway. Short honeymoon.

The kissing weeks were fun. The gazing into his lovely face and knowing it was mine. The turning heads. The awwwwwws. The envying looks. The rightness of it all. I thought I might be falling. I waited, impatient, confident: fall, Ady, fall.

To be honest, I was curious, the first few hand jobs I gave Rupert. The mechanics of it all. The penis is whack – strange and interesting. But the first time he put his hand up between my thighs I grabbed his wrist. Not to guide, but to stop. Instinct. Why? And the look on his face? Pure relief. He wasn’t going to have to navigate the girl-scape. Not such a reach for him to believe that getting him off was our shared goal. It’s not that it does nothing for me. It’s a pretty intense few minutes. If Rupert did put his fingers in the right place, he wouldn’t find me unaffected by all that hot needing and coming.

What stopped me? Was I the only person who was ever going to flick my switch? Maybe I’m autosexual – is that a thing? Hey, I actually haven’t heard of it. I might have created a whole new sexuality. Google . . . Jeez, is there nothing on this planet that someone hasn’t already invented? If only I were living a century ago I’d be appreciated as a totally original thinker.

It’s been a regular once-a-week thing for a while now. Party, his room, my room. Lots of spilly handfuls. Fun facts that surprised me: semen emerges at a very warm temperature and at high velocity; it can really travel; clean-ups in unexpected places sometimes necessary. But I’m detached, on the outside of what’s happening. Tissues at the ready.

Then, out of nowhere, he suggested that it was time for a blow job. That was it, right there – a road that I would not be taking. Nuh-uh. No way was I going to drink the stuff. How would he like it if I had really bad hayfever and I blew my nose and offered him the tissue – to eat? Who decided that ingesting guys’ metabolic waste would be a thing?

So, ‘metabolic waste’ – not the language of love, am I right? Surely love would nibble and sip and lap and suck with relish. Wouldn’t it? Love would not speak of ‘metabolic’ or ‘waste’.

I know breaking up is the right thing to do. But even though I’m quite prepared to break up with Rupert, I am extremely reluctant to break up with my dream formal night, which includes Rupert. So, can I stretch things out for another month? Or should I set him free now? I can’t just use him as a glamorous formal night accessory, can I? Would that be a dirty little secret road that I could choose? Well, sure. Could I live with that decision? Not so sure.

Is it to do with how uncertain things are at home? Don’t want to let anyone see how quivery I am inside, so I’m constructing a barrier to make myself impervious and impenetrable? Perhaps I’ve already formed an exoskeleton because of all the secrets I contain, all the versions over the years of pretending to the outside world that everything’s okay at home when I’m not sure it is.

There’ll be a queue when he’s out there and single again. Everyone loves Rupe. What’s not to love? What’s wrong with me?

My heart has stayed so slow and cool and empty for him, and it’s my heart I want filled.

I knit and stitch love into the clothes I dream and make.

I made Kate’s wild messy bun and poked those flowers into it with love.

I’m weak-kneed in love with beauty every single day.

I was jealous of Clem’s rush to meet that boy. To see her usually scrubbed-clean sporty-girl face made up all wrong and shining eager. That’s some sort of love, for sure.