Page 10 of Insta-Love

“Fit chicks.”

“I said athletes, Kath. Do I need to send you my underwear selfie for this to sink in?”

“Babe…”

“Don’t ‘babe’ me. Tell me honestly you wouldn’t be intimidated.”

Kath goes quiet.

“My point exactly.”

“Don’t give up, though,” she says quietly. “You, more than anyone, deserve a break in life.”

“I don’t think dating Mr My-Body-Pays-My-Rent is it though, hon.”

“So he’s a fitness model. Who cares? He’s a human like you. He has reservations and fears just the same, I bet.”

Yeah. Totally showed that on the driveway the other day.

“He’s successful, confident, goal orientated…everything I’m not.”

“Listen to me and do as I say,” Kath says firmly. “Think back to when Lily was born. You doing it?”

“Yeah.” I step to the side and rinse my hands off under the tap while she continues. Can’t believe Gym Boy is a freaking Instagram sensation.

“What did you have back then before she came along?” Kath asks.

“Glen?”

“Apart from that douche. Possessions, relationships outside of him?”

I hesitate with the towel in my hands. “A few clothes, a notebook, minimal makeup, and the only person I spoke to was you.”

“Fair to say you had almost nothing, right?”

I glance over at the phone as though I’ll find Kath there staring at me with her no-shit glare. “Right.”

“And what have you got now?”

My parents back, a daughter that I’d shift the earth for, and enough possessions to fill my car at least. “I get your point.”

“It might feel like you’re treading water when the shore seems so far away, babe, but I promise, if you look back at that boat with the hole in it every so often, you’ll see you are still moving, even if it is slowly. You’re still getting somewhere.”

Her words make me feel a little better, but the truth remains: we’re the same age, come from the same background, and here I am a single mum living with her parents at age twenty-five when Kath is climbing the corporate ladder in the city, dining out most nights with like-minded friends, and planning her next annual holiday to some exotic location.

If anyone were likely to snag a hot-to-trot guy like Gym Boy next door, it would be a woman like Kath, not an aimless failure like me. I know I shouldn’t think that way—hell, I tell Lily not to put herself down, to believe in her abilities. But when a woman just keeps on getting tripped up by life as much as I have, it’s hard not to be bitter when people who haven’t had to struggle tell you that it’s as simple as keeping on trying.

Maybe I’ve had enough of trying? Maybe one more failure is all it will take to break me, so I’d rather live in this limbo than risk ruining myself for good? I hate knowing I feel this way toward Kath, but the truth is the truth. I’m jealous, envious of the only person who’s stuck around for me from day one. What kind of shitty friend does that make me?

“I better finish up before I get Lily,” I say. “Thank for listening as usual.”

She scoffs. “Any time. You need to vent, babe, you do it. All that doubt and worry is toxic. You keep it in and it’ll slowly kill you.”

My lips twitch into a half smile. Yeah, my negative thoughts toward myself are toxic. Only thing is I don’t think it’s the kind of poison you can ever really get rid of. No matter what you do, how you heal, the damage is done. I could tell myself that with a positive mindset things will change, that Lily and I will have our own place again, that maybe there’d be some snowball’s chance in hell I could catch the eye of a guy like our neighbour, but deep down there’s that part of me that believes this is it. This is as good as it’ll ever be because everything after this is on a slippery slope downhill.

“We’ll talk again next week, yeah?” I feel rude for cutting our conversation short, but as pathetic as it is, that little revelation about who I’m living next to has left me feeling worse than I did after our awkward introduction the other day. I just want to curl up on the sofa and eat half a packet of chocolate before I have to face the outside world again.

“I’ll call you this time, save you the cost.” Kath pauses for a moment, and my finger hovers over the end button. “But if you need to ring me before then, make sure you do okay?” She huffs into the phone. “I worry about you sometimes. You haven’t had the best luck in life, and, well, you know. It sucks. I worry sometimes you’re not telling me all there is, babe.”

“You’d be the first to know if you needed to be concerned about me—promise.”

“Take care, and send me more pictures of your neighbour.”

I chuckle, confident I won’t. “I’ll try.”

My finger taps the red circle and I draw in a deep breath. I hate lying. I avoid it like the plague. After the untruths that spewed from Glen as freely as his next breath, I swore a policy on honesty. But this is one little white lie I can live with: Kath would actually be the last person to know if things weren’t okay. Why would I tell her every pathetic insecurity I harbour when all it would do is drag her down too? I can battle it on my own. Not like anyone else needs this kind of weight on their shoulders any more than I do.

I tap the home button, swipe to Google, and punch in ‘natural anti-depressants’.

Because that’s just the kind of friend I am.

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