Page 6 of Way Down Deep

But he’s beautiful, and, yes, I like the smell of his hair at the end of the day. Even I can’t find two similes to mash together to describe it. I can’t say what it smells like, but it feels like coming home, somehow. Like familiarity or recognition. I knew he must be mine before the blood test results even came back, because of that smell and how exactly right it is.

He’s watching TV now. I let him do that a lot, and play on my iPad, even though it can’t be good for him. But it hurts too much, taking him to the park, seeing him stare fearfully at the slide and swings and pigeons like they’re snarling dogs. Screens calm him, and I’m so helpless at this shit. And so fucking tired.

Okay, stranger, that was a lot. That was half of everything, so do right by me, here.

Don’t tell me I’m doing great or to hang in there or that these things take time. Just tell me about you. Something real. Something solid I can dig my fingers into.

2.50pm

I can do that: I studied English Literature. Went into it expecting to meet all the friends they say you will and go to all the parties I had always missed in high school. But the friends never materialised, and I kept missing all the parties. Some because I wasn’t invited. Others because I just didn’t really want to go. I finally left when I realised I was only doing what I would have done anyway: devouring books and movies by the boatload.

So I understand about the nice things. I wanted them too, and I failed at getting them.

Or at least, it feels like I failed.

Sometimes I get so much joy and pleasure out of a meal or watching a movie or reading a book in the bath that I don’t really know if I won or lost. I don’t know if it’s okay to live your life like this—through other people and places that don’t actually exist. It makes me think I’ll look back and wonder why I wasted all this time.

Why I didn’t go barefoot while I still could.

But maybe that’s silly to think, if my attempts always come to nothing?

It’s hard to keep trying when it always turns out wrong. I mean, I’m utterly addicted to talking to you. Yet part of me hesitates before I pick up the phone or press send on a certain message. More and more I find myself deleting particular lines, in case those are the ones that will finally make you fall silent. Cutting myself off before you can do it for me.

I think it’s why I’m not sharing as much as you might like.

Because it’s easier.

It’s easier to hear about you than tell you about me.

I could read about your little boy all day—it gave me a jolt of surprise and something else, something tender, just to see those words. To see you being so honest about your feelings towards him. Everyone always makes it seem terrible, to doubt whether you love a child. But love isn’t something that can simply bend around all barriers. It isn’t a coat you can wear for all occasions.

It’s messy and elusive and strange. It runs when you think it should be there and comes when you least expect it to call. Sometimes it hits you in a rush; other times it creeps up like a thief in the night. Lies waiting for that moment when you need it most.

Or at least, I hope so.

Don’t you?

6.46pm

Are you there, stranger?

The sun’s setting, and I still have my socks on. The boy should be going to bed soon, though, and after that I promise my bare feet will be propped above the radiator.

Maybe I’ll read a book tonight instead of watching TV. It’s been a long time since I heard that sound—the dry hush of pages turning in a quiet room. I’ve been avoiding the quiet. The boy gives me too much of it. Probably half of why hearing your pings coming through feels so damn nourishing.

You said, “More and more I find myself deleting particular lines, in case those are the ones that will finally make you fall silent.”

It’s funny, because after I sent my last messages, I told myself, if she pussies out and turns this back on me, I’m gonna be a dick. I was frustrated by some shit this afternoon, nothing to do with you. You’re the one good thing right now. But I thought, if she holds back, I’m gonna say to her, tell me something goddamn real about yourself or I’m out.

That’s unfair.

It’s true, but it’s not fair.

Because you didn’t sign up for this. I was thinking before, this is so random. This is like accidental Chat Roulette. Was Chat Roulette a thing in the UK?

Basically the idea behind it was that you went on this video-chat app and you got linked up with some other user, totally random. In theory it was a beautiful thing, like some great-grandma from Corsica gets connected with a disaffected skateboarder from New Jersey, and everyone discovers they’re not so different after all. Kumbaya.

But like all great things, dudes ruined it by waving their dicks around. I heard that like 99% of the time you’d wind up with a screen full of some rando jacking it.

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