Page 60 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

Some nights Dom from college and her girlfriend Ruby, who lives out here and smokes rollies and has incredible hair right down to her bum, come along too and I meet all their friends. And all the bands’ friends. And Lowe’s housemates. And their friends. And everyone knows everyone and everyone knows the others we’ve scooped up between us, over the years, along the way. Nobody questions our friendship because we’re both ‘adults’ and single and nothing is happening. WHY ISN’T ANYTHING HAPPENING? ‘Wow, they really are just friends – well, isn’t that remarkable?’

Our friendship restores faith in humanity, yet at the same time I feel shit about it. It’s a total scam on my part: my love for Lowe, if anything, is only getting stronger. Cementing. Crystalizing. I am a barnacle. A wart. Stubbornly refusing to wash away. A tick. I wish I could be de-rooted, tweezered out, before I get eternally trapped under his skin forever. Like Carrie Bradshaw, I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d be up to if I wasn’t here with him. How many of those girls he would stop and talk to.

On a night out, a girl who looks like a model from the Sixties wants to talk to Lowe outside. Outside means away from me. She drags him by the zip of his hoodie, eyelashes fluttering. I can see him, faintly, through a stained-glass window – candle-lit diamonds in blues, greens and reds over his face – but not clear enough to read his expression, to see if he’s looking for me. What are they talking about?

Now I feel like some estranged cousin who his parents force him to hang out with whilst they’re in town. To occupy, to keep busy, to tag along.

Ryan, Lowe’s scarecrow housemate, finds me on the leather couch. He invites himself to take a seat, his flat pint splashing froth on my yellow velvet flower print dress. ‘Whooops, sorry!’ He makes himself laugh and I laugh back even though I’m annoyed. He eases in. ‘So … you and Lowe, then?’

‘What about us?’

‘You guys … ?’ He criss-crosses his hands, his fingers interlocked. ‘A thing? Or just … ?’

‘No!’ I shriek. ‘We’re just friends.’

He wiggles his finger at me sloppily. He’s pissed; he has a stain down his front; he’s harmless, possibly trying to flirt. ‘No, no, no, don’t play games. You sleep in his bed every week – you’re together all the time. You’re single; he’s single – what’s the deal?’

‘There is no deal.’ I laugh it off weakly, to be polite – not that I owe the scarecrow anything. But there is a problem – Lowe’s outside with a girl. Ryan swigs his drink, offering me some. I shake my head, looking for Lowe over his shoulder.

‘You really don’t fancy him then?’ he asks me, plainly, rubbing his stubble. Oh no, he’s gearing up for something – I can feel it. ‘You don’t like him?’

‘I do’ – but I don’t want it to get back to Lowe that suddenly I’m in love with him because I don’t want whatever this intimacy is to stop – ‘but not like that.’ I put my hands on my lap. Clasped. My prison of a secret, safe.

Ryan, somewhat convinced, nods, his tongue clicking. Don’t do it – oh God, he’s doing it. ‘What about a drink with me one day, then?’

I laugh it off. ‘Ryan, you’re not serious; you’re drunk. You’ve seen me looking a state, eating cereal out of your pint glasses for weeks—’

‘I like it! It’s nice having a woman’s touch around the place!’ he defends innocently, not realizing how offensive that is.

‘I’m not Snow White!’ I can only imagine how Ryan sees me, singing whilst letting the deer from outside lick the plates clean like in the cartoon – which by the way is not the way to clean a plate. ‘Anyway, I’m not really looking to date.’

‘Aw, please?’ he begs. ‘I won’t look like this.’ He drapes his hand down his body and it makes me laugh. I look up at the stained-glass window. Lowe and the Sixties model are gone. I swallow. Fear sets in. The bass of the music bolts through me: where is he? Don’t tell me he’s gone off with that girl. He wouldn’t do that to me, would he? How can I even be so sure?

Ryan is still there, coldly blinking, eagerly waiting my response. ‘I’m a nice bloke, I promise.’

‘I know you are, Ryan,’ I say. ‘But I really don’t want to be your Mrs Scarecrow.’

‘One drink?’

‘Fine. Yes. OK. One day we can have One Drink.’

Ryan has more chance of having a beer with David Bowie.

‘Yessssss!’ He fist pumps. ‘Get in!’

‘Please don’t do that again,’ I say, but then we actually find ourselves laughing.

‘See? This is why I need you around.’

Lowe makes his way over to me. Where the hell has he been? Where’s the girl?

‘Nightmare,’ he says. ‘One of our friends’ ex-girlfriend. Keeps trying to chat to us about their break-up.’

Really?

His loyalty surprises me every time. No matter what happens on any night out, who we speak to, dance with, who steals us for a-too-long-cigarette or corners us, robs us of each other, we always walk home, hand in hand through the navy night along the seafront. Walking away from everyone like the last two people on earth. I wonder if it’s the same for him – is he so happy he could die too? Because I’d go like this, in this state of felicity. The elements battle, rain so hard it’s needles. My shoes are puddles but he’s the one for me; with the lantern of him in my heart, I can do anything.

We hurry inside for tea, the key wet, slippery in his hand, his housemates sleeping or still out for the night. We play ‘house’ in the dark. I towel dry my hair and feel the black flecks of running mascara smudge on my fingers. I wish I could look sexy soaking wet, like one of those beachy-hair girls who let their hard nipples point through soaked vest tops but I know I look like the Penguin from Batman Returns. He kicks his jeans off with a smile. I put them on the radiator because I know he wouldn’t do it, and the smell of wet pub floors begins to brew. We brush our teeth at the same time, staring in the mirror, polishing our smiles. Then we slink back into the bedroom to listen to soft music for a bit, and I admire the room he’s built for himself. I soak in his humanbeingness. How if he’s hungry – he eats. If he’s tired – he sleeps. If he’s cold – he puts clothes on. If something’s broken – he fixes it. Nothing needs to be new; it’s used or worn until it falls apart, and if it isn’t used he gives it away.

---