‘OH MY GOD, LUCE,’ Cass says as she throws her body over mine. Darren stands there with his face in his hands. You’re crying, aren’t you, mate?
It’s been an afternoon of it, people filtering in and out of this room with grapes, flowers and bento, sheer relief on their faces to know I’m both alive and also back in the room. Everyone from parents to sisters, to teeny tiny nephews and nieces who enjoyed playing with the controls on my bed and nearly folding my body in half. But the love is real, all these people, and the best thing is knowing who they are, how they fit, how they belong in my life.
‘I think it was the shock of knowing you two got together… What the actual hell, guys?’ I mumble.
Darren looks almost effervescent with joy to have his old Lucy back. ‘It works. And essentially, it was all because of you.’
‘Then I’d better be a best man or something, name a child after me.’
‘Deal. So what do you remember now after the accident?’ Cass asks.
‘Oh, all of it, it’s a very strange feeling. Thank you though for sticking with me when my mind was being an absent bitch.’
‘Well, you owe me thirty quid so I have vested interests,’ Darren says.
I laugh and hold both of their hands as they stand either side of my bed.
‘I can’t believe you took me to Velvet Boulevard on my birthday though? You literally took me to my workplace.’
‘We didn’t know what to do. It was that or Heaven and we didn’t think you were ready for a gay nightclub. We’ve told all the gang down there you’re OK.’
I smile. That’s the biggest relief of all maybe. To not have to start again but slide into old routines, to go to auditions, do the odd work shift and shag the odd random. It wasn’t a perfect or orthodox life but it was mine and it made me happy, so much of it made me happy, and if I could speak to my seventeen-year-old self who thought this didn’t carry value or that it was time wasted then I’d tell her to rethink all of that doubt. Life isn’t a straight clear path, it should never be, and I’ve enjoyed my last twelve years being a complete rollercoaster.
‘So what now, Wonder Woman?’ Darren asks.
‘More physio, rehab and then back into the world. I’ll have to buy a new Elsa dress, grow the hair out, I’ll make it work.’
‘You always do,’ Darren says. ‘And when you’ve made it work, we’ve all got a date in a field, yeah? We’re going to call it Lucy’s Comeback Fest. I’ll even make the T-shirts without complaint.’
I hug him warmly. I might even get them from Marks & Spencer.
There’s suddenly a knock on the door and I turn my head to see an unexpected visitor. You? Really? How far and wide has news travelled of me being back in hospital? My eyes go to Darren, who studies the visitor at my door.
‘Cass, maybe you and I should grab a coffee or something?’
Piss off, that was not what that eye signal meant, which makes me wonder what sort of friend he really is. Grace would have read that in a heartbeat.
‘Guys, this is Josh Reid. I knew him from school.’ I attempt to sound as deadbeat as I can to show that his presence here is not welcome but instead they all shake hands. ‘These are my mates, Darren and Cass.’ Josh’s eyes scan down to Cass’s boobs and, immediately, I’m hoping Darren might smack him.
‘I can go if it’s not a good time?’ Josh says.
Please go, jump in the river.
‘Oh no!’ Darren exclaims. ‘We’ll let you guys catch up,’ he says, winking at me. Really? No. Don’t leave me with this wankpuffin. They exit the room, leaving Josh standing there with another supermarket bunch of flowers, pretty much wearing the same outfit as last time. I really hope he’s changed and showered in that time.
‘Hi.’ That’s his opener.
‘Hi, come in?’ I ask. Rather than stand there with your crappy flowers. He comes over to the bed and sits on a chair next to me.
‘You’re the last person I expected to see here,’ I tell him, quite bluntly.
‘Oh, well… it was on social media. Farah from school, your mate – she put it there and then a mate told me and, yeah, I thought I’d come and see how you were…’
‘Apart from the hole in my head, it’s all good.’
He laughs at that despite it not being particularly funny.
‘Are none of your family here?’ he asks, obviously not keen to bump into the likes of Emma or my mother again.
‘They don’t keep vigil constantly. I allow them to eat occasionally. I think Beth is downstairs.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’
I wish they were here so they could help me beat you up. The last memory I had of Josh was in my bedroom at my family home and I felt completely powerless, still overcome by all that emotion I felt for him as a seventeen-year-old. Even when I found out the truth of what happened to us as kids, it was heartbreaking, a complete revelation. Now, I have all that information, all that power. I know what happened in that nightclub and how, essentially, he was a bit of a lad getting his leg over with other girls, damn the consequences to other people and their teenage hearts. As a thirty-year-old, I barely give him a second thought.
‘Glad you got through the second op all right,’ he says, putting the flowers down on my bedside table.
‘Yeah, lucky that…’
‘You’ll need to grow your hair out again.’
‘Yep.’
‘Not that your hair looks bad…’
We sit there in silence for a moment, like he’s a young man come to visit a great-aunt he doesn’t quite know.
‘Sorry, Josh, why are you here?’ I ask, trying not to draw this out.
‘I just wanted to see you.’
‘So this is for your benefit, to make you feel better about your life?’
You can tell that turning this on him is confusing and, I’ll be frank, I like that.
‘I came because I wanted to… I don’t know how to say this…’
He looks all around the room, the eye contact is poor, the delivery worse. Spit it out, boy.
‘When you showed up again in my life, it just got me thinking about stuff, about the direction my life has gone in and my relationship, my marriage. There was a time I really loved you. I was an idiot for what I did at the time and how I treated you. And…’
Holy crapballs.
‘I think part of me wonders if you are the love of my life. I think I’m still in love with you.’
The actual holiest of crapballs.
‘Josh?’
‘Yeah?’
‘No?’
His face falls somewhere between crestfallen and insulted. I’ve just done something super romantic, right? That’s what all girls want. To hear that they’re loved, validated and someone wants them? No?
‘What are you doing?’ I ask him.
‘I’m telling you how I feel. I’m just being honest.’
‘You don’t love me…’
‘Well, isn’t that up to me and how I feel?’
‘So you want to have sex with me?’
‘Well, I…’
‘You said you wanted to be honest.’
‘I guess… You’re really fit.’
‘That’s not love, Josh.’
‘Nah, I mean… I think it all means something. Why did you think I was still your boyfriend when you woke up? You forgot everything else? Why did you think about me? Maybe it’s a sign.’
‘It’s a sign I had a complete brain scramble. You are married with kids, don’t do this.’
‘But––’
‘But what, you want to shag? Or have an affair? Or leave your wife and start a life with me, see your boys every other weekend? Yeah, I’m not the girl you’re looking for if that’s what you want.’
‘You don’t think we were in love back then? The more I think about it, it was the most in love I’ve ever been…’
Really? More than with your wife, the mother of your children, your own sons? What an awful thing to say. If I could, I’d drop kick him out of this window. He stands up, almost asking me to throw him a bone. And that’s when a memory comes flooding back to me. We’re standing outside some toilets…
‘Don’t go to university, Lucy. Please…’ he begs.
‘But it’s London. It’s literally just down the road. It’s not like I’m going to Glasgow. You can visit whenever you want?’ I answer.
‘Don’t you love me?’
‘I do. Of course, you know that.’
‘Then stay. You can do all sorts of distance courses these days. I’ve looked some up for you.’
‘Where has this all come from? Why don’t you want me to go?’ I try and hold his hand but he won’t let me near it.
‘Because you’ll meet people, guys, other blokes, I’ve heard what goes on at university.’
I smile. I know what goes on at university because of my sisters and it sounds brilliant.
‘You must not love me as much then,’ he states callously.
‘Josh. Are you asking me not to go to university or are you telling me?’
‘I’m not doing anything. I love you.’
‘This isn’t love.’
‘Well, piss off then.’
‘I want to do something with my life, Josh.’
‘That doesn’t include me. You think you’re better than me? Smarter than me?’
‘I’ve never said that.’
‘Seriously, go to university, live your life. Fucking selfish is what it is. Fuck off.’
‘No, YOU FUCK OFF.’
Josh keeps looking at me as I play that moment in my head. Tears rolled down my eyes that evening to be called selfish from someone I loved, on the day I got my A-Level results, my birthday, on a day that was supposed to be about celebration, he shat all over it. That’s not love.
‘It was first love maybe. It was very pure and untainted by real life but you know what, Josh?’
I let him come in a little closer to hear.
‘I’m really bloody glad we didn’t end up together.’
He immediately looks insulted. Good.
‘Your love was dependent on me staying, me being close, it was built on conditions and stopping me from living my life, from growing. What an awful way to love someone.’
‘I was young.’
‘It was vindictive, even then. And after we rowed, you went and hooked up with Chloe Hilton in the loos at Oceana. Farah saw it. You didn’t even lock the door, that’s so rough.’
He doesn’t even try and apologise for that.
‘Well, yeah but we all do stupid stuff when we’re young. It wouldn’t be like that now…’
‘It won’t be like that now? Are you on drugs?’
‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’
‘Then read a sodding book… you’re doing it again! So you feel something and I have to react. This is how I’m reacting…’ I squeal, my face contorted in disgust, like I’ve just trodden in something I shouldn’t have.
‘Then this is how you’re gonna be – alone and single at thirty?’ he retorts, thinking for one second that I may be scared of that prospect.
‘I’m not alone though, am I? I’m surrounded by love and friendship and people who really care, who’ve been there this last decade and held me close and have never let go, despite me. You think I want to be defined by you swanning in here telling me you’ll have me and make me less alone? Fuck off. I’d rather sit on a cactus than have your knob near me again.’
‘Whatever. Look, I’m just telling you how I feel.’
‘Next time, write it down. On a Post-it note and shove it up your arse.’
He grabs his flowers and storms out. I hope he saves those flowers for the grave he’ll have to dig when I tell his wife what he’s been up to. I punch at a spare bit of mattress beside me. That hurt. At the doorway, two heads suddenly appear, Beth and Meg, wondering if it’s safe to enter.
‘Did you see who that was? Did you hear what he said? Go and chase him down, Meggers, and trap his dick in the lift door. Go!’
Meg stands her ground. They slowly enter the room, both with wide grins on their faces.
‘That’s not funny. What an utter wet wipe, thinking he can come in here and sweep me off my feet, like I’m some girl that needs saving, that needs to be told clichéd tripe like that.’
‘Luce, calm down. Your blood pressure, babe,’ Beth says, coming to sit down next to me. She takes my hand in hers and tries to stroke out the clawed nature of my fingers.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t I get punched by Chloe Hilton that night?’ Meg asks.
‘You did. You took one for the team,’ I tell her. ‘And Beth also jumped on in there and slapped her so hard her chicken fillets fell out of her bra.’
Meg stares into the distance to relive that memory, the sisters in full flight, it was a beautiful thing, like geese flying in formation towards the sun.
‘I was so drunk, I have zero recollection of that night. Did Josh really come in here confessing his undying love to you?’ Beth asks curiously.
‘Yes. I am fuming.’
Meg sniggers a little to hear it.
A lesser girl, poorly and broken, would have relented but not me. Wow, you love me? Even when I’m broken, bald and at my lowest ebb? You’ll still have me? Seriously, eff off as far away from me as humanly possible. Because I’m not nearly done. I am not broken. I’m going to get Igor back in here and I’m going to work my arse off and find someone who’ll sort out my hair and there’s going to be a comeback, bitches.
‘You may have just broken his heart though?’ Beth mentions.
‘And? Just a shame it couldn’t have been his face. That, what he was going on about, is not love. What’s in this room… this is love. This is what’s kept me alive and looked out for me all those years. He’s not part of this story, he’s not even a side note. He’s a typo, a mistake.’
Meg and Beth look at each other and smile. I like a rant, it’s cathartic and I think it’s the reason I have such good skin as I get all my bad energy out into the world rather than let it fester in my body, but there was something in there for these sisters that is all true.
‘Who am I in your story then?’ Meg asks.
‘You’re a novel, babes. You’d all get your own novels. Main characters for sure, starring roles. I’d change your mumsy jeans and have you in better outfits though.’
‘Bitch.’
‘And that is love…’