Page 54 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘America don’t like imperfect teeth,’ he says.

‘But, we’re not in America. We’re here. And if they don’t like your lovely teeth then I don’t like America.’

Every rejection letter is just another finger being lifted off the cliff from which he’s been dangling, and Nile doesn’t get into any drama schools. It’s a disappointing shock for us all that leaves me furious at the broken system. But he doesn’t want to hear about that. ‘You can try again next year?’ I offer, even though I can’t bear to think of him going through all that again. Poor Nile. He scrunches up the letters. He can’t get an agent without a play to showcase himself in and his parents don’t have the money to bankroll him whilst he continues to audition off his own back in London, even if he was to live at Aunt Linda’s. ‘I’ll just get a job!’ he says brightly but his parents pull the plug on that. They have already set him up with a job back home – teaching Performing Arts at a summer school at the local arts centre. Besides, Aunt Linda has a new tenant moving into the box room and needs the rent. He sees this as insulting. His dreams, crushed. His bitterness manifests itself monstrously; it casts a physical effect over us. He very quickly cuts all ties with London. He say it’s ‘the worst place on earth’. He say it’s ‘overpriced’, ‘fake’ and ‘full of knobheads’. He asks, once, if I’d consider moving to Devon and when I say, ‘I’ll definitely visit you but not to live, I’m sorry,’ he doesn’t ask me again.

We don’t break up, exactly. At the end of college, he says he’s going back to Devon. For good. Too proud for the farewell drinks I suggest organizing.

‘I love you,’ I tell him. He doesn’t say it back. I watch his train pull out of the station, more sad than I thought I’d be. I really loved him.

‘My daughter,’ Dad announces, smacking his worn Levi’d thigh, nudging his girlfriend, Lovely Naomi (who owns at least thirty pairs of glasses with the exact same frame just in different colours, has a twenty-three-year-old son who lives off-grid and is Lovely).

‘Eighteen years old and the first in our family to go university, I can’t believe it! You’ll be buying me a house one day!’

Er. I don’t think so, Dad. I smile, not wanting to disappoint him in front of Lovely Naomi. It isn’t even a great university.

‘Let’s celebrate!’

Any excuse for a pint at the pub, a pint that I have to buy.

‘Where’s that nice Neil bloke gone?’

‘Nile,’ I correct. ‘He’s gone back to Devon.’

‘Shame. Why can’t he live here in London?’

I don’t have the energy to go into details with my dad about why the world isn’t exactly the same as it was when he was sixteen. ‘Dad, NOBODY can live here. It’s so expensive. I’m at university and I still have to live with Mum.’

‘You could always live with me?’ Dad asks.

‘Thanks, Dad.’

Lovely Naomi sips her vodka tonic.

Twice a week I commute to my ‘uni’ to study Creative Writing in an old, empty, dead Lord’s house. The course is taught by tutors who either don’t show up, or, if they do, very much don’t want to, and ignore us or slip off to have a breakdown. Or my favourite – just apologize, openly, for how embarrassingly bad the course is. I make one friend. (And yes, thanks to Myspace, they are a True Love fan. It’s kind of hard to find someone my age who isn’t.)

This is a hard landing after the joy I had at college, where I saw the world through rose-tinted glasses. Where life was bustling, it now feels stark. Meanwhile, Lowe’s on tour with his band. I try to visualize an invisible silver chain, hoping he’s still clenching to the links of us with our short and sweet exchanges:

Hey, Ella, we’re in Scotland! How are you? x

I try to anchor the chain. Cool! All good here, course is a bit dry but writing lots. Have the best time, miss you, hope the shows are going well. X

And he doesn’t reply and I can’t help but feel I’m not an anchor but a ball and chain.

We talk less and less because the patter of small talk is just anxiety-inducing and exhausting, our lives so different. The days go on and on. I begin to avoid updates on him and the band like my bank statements.

To fill the precious time that I’m meant to be using to study, my dad’s friend gives me a part-time job as a junior at his hairdressers. I wash hair, sweep dead hair, check in clients, make coffee, people watch. I write poems at the front desk on scraps of paper and take the fluff out the tumble dryer. This way I can spend more money on food and alcohol but also theatre tickets and books and gigs. I write lots. I read lots. I watch lots. I eat, very lots, of sandwiches. And although university really isn’t what I thought it would be, London is still the best city in the world. London has it all. I give myself an education.

That’s what I tell myself anyway as I wave goodbye to Aoife and Bianca. They’re headed for Gatwick airport, their towering backpacks loaded and strapped nearly as high as their expectations, for their gap year. They’re going travelling, flying around the world. And with clever Ronke doing us proud at Cambridge, the only place I’m flying is off the handle. I’d watched Bianca hand-write out the names of hostels and night clubs and cram it into her camo bumbag; it’s all so last minute. This is just crazy; No plan. No return ticket. No jumpers! Have they lost their minds?

‘Really?’ I ask again. ‘Do you really not know one person out there in Cambodia? Are you really just going to leave it all behind? Are you really about to share rooms with strangers? Are you not … scared?’

‘Of what?’ They laugh like I’m cute.

‘Errr … drugs, bugs, being mugged?’ I didn’t mean to make it all rhyme but they know what I mean. What about rape? Being kidnapped? Crocodiles? Ayahuasca? Diarrhoea? Full moon parties?

Their train pulls away and I wave them off, standing there with their families like the left-behind little sister. We turn and walk away, making patent chit chat. Bianca’s dad offers to buy me a hot chocolate from Caffè Nero as consolation, and obviously I say yes because he’s loaded. A guy my age stands behind me in the queue wearing a True Love t-shirt. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. HOW? I HATE THE INTERNET.

‘Cream and sprinkles?’

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