Page 75 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

‘That’s great.’

‘Working at the hairdressers mostly.’

‘You’re still there? You cutting hair now?’ He sounds genuinely interested.

It actually takes years to train to be a stylist; it’s not that simple but anyway. ‘No, the desk, that’s where I’m working on the collection of poems,’ I joke. But again, true.

‘Hahaha, nice.’ He sucks on the cigarette. ‘It’s so cool you’re here.’ He looks at me then down at his busted trainers which you’d think by now he’d have sorted. He lets a thought drift over him. He rests his head on the fence. ‘I miss being around you, Ella – I really do. Can we meet up properly in London?’

My mind immediately springs to: In what way? A date?

‘Yeah, that would be nice.’

‘This whole thing’s been so … emotional.’ And then he says, so loosely like he doesn’t mean to say it, ‘I don’t think I can do it without you.’

‘What? Life?’ I joke, hoping that’s, in fact, precisely what he meant.

‘No, this whole band/fame thing.’

Oh. I feel my face snarl in a disgust. What does he mean by that? Why does it feel so gross when he uses the word ‘fame’ about himself?

‘You wanted it,’ I clip. All I wanted was you.

‘I thought I did but turns out fame is more like … a mental illness.’ He laughs.

‘In what way?’

‘I dunno … ’ His voice goes quiet. ‘I get paranoid … You think everybody just wants to be your friend because of who you are, the band. You find it hard to trust anyone. There’s pressure. Anxiety. Expectation. To be good. To be fun. You don’t sleep and you eat shit cos you’re always on the road in different time zones. I get homesick.’

He looks at me like I have the power somehow. He clicks his tongue like he’s thinking. ‘I really want to be friends again.’

Oh, no, no, no, here we go.

I want to say, How the fuck could we ever be friends again? It would never be the same. How could we ever be equal when you have fans, Lowe? People that think you’re God’s Gift. How long will it be until you start believing that what they think of you is true? And how, in all that mania, will you ever find me or my miniature day interesting? Your feet don’t even touch the ground. You’re a famous rock star. I’m a friggin’ receptionist wannabe writer at a hairdressers. Your record went to number one in the charts; meanwhile I’m excited because my boss has just cut me my very own key to lock up the salon with.

But I say, ‘Yeah me too.’ Knowing deep down that we won’t be meeting up when we get back because I can’t do it again.

Especially not when I see a striking girl with dark curly hair, heading towards us, Lowe looks down at his feet (annoyed? Embarrassed?), stubs out his cigarette. ‘I can’t remember if you ever met Heather?’

Heather looks me up and down like she’s heard all about me.

‘I’ve heard so much about you.’ She proves my point. What have you heard? Sticking her hand out towards me like an accommodating kind vet.

Lowe clears his throat. ‘Heather, this is Ella, my best friend.’

Bullets to the head.

You know when you smile so hard it’s an act of violence?

‘So hot, isn’t it?’ she says.

‘So hot, yeah.’ Try sleeping in a tent with toggles on a mountain. Bet you’re both in a five star in Barcelona.

‘Well, I better find Aoife,’ I say. Hold it together, Ella, even though the scar tissue isn’t healed and you’re a sack of feelings ready to split and bleed everywhere. Lowe tries to talk but I’m walking away already. Luckily it’s dark so nobody can see my sad face. Luckily it’s dark so I have my shadow as a friend.

I wonder if I owe myself an apology? For being so hard and harsh on myself? For all those years of grinding myself down and self-deprecation. Self-care isn’t a new pair of shoes; it’s finding the compassion to say sorry to yourself: I was a bitch to you back then and I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve that; you’re a bloody lovely person. You did nothing wrong except love. There have been times in our story where I actually thought I wasn’t good enough for him. The self-sabotage brings me to tears. It’s time I put some scaffolding around myself. Time to shed a skin. And this time, it’s not because I’m hoping to whittle down the wood to reveal a perfect – smaller – statuette hidden inside. This time I’m polishing down something that is already there, so I can shine. Thank you so much Lowe, thank you for waking me the fuck up. Now I can go into my twenties, the rest of my life, choosing to put myself first.

I stick my head around the dressing room door where Aoife is deliberately letting her bra strap hang down and flirting with the drummer.

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