Page 49 of So Thrilled For You

I didn’t know.

I didn’t want to have sex with women.

I’d never fancied one.

I didn’t fancy Phoebe, did I?

Fancy.

What a strange word.

Childish. Simple.

The walls of the en-suite squeezed in. Sleep fell heavy on my eyelids, whispering, ‘If you pass out, Nicki, all of this willgo away.’ I wiped myself for a final time, stood up, brushed my teeth to rid the taste of Phoebe and Matt from my tongue, stared at my reflection for a while just because that’s what I’d seen people do in films whenever they did something dramatic. I had never done anything dramatic with my life, so I had only a script of clichés to follow.

I needed to turn my phone back on to set my alarm and a barrage of messages erupted. I didn’t read any of them as I punched the alarm in – my phone telling me it would go off in only three hours and seven minutes’ time.

Sleep.

Escape this.

I climbed into bed next to the warmth of my familiar husband and stared at the ceiling for three hours and seven minutes until my alarm went off—

Someone to my side shrieks with laughter and I’m jolted back. We all eww at a blown-up photo of Voldemort as a baby. Here I am again. At my baby shower. Sitting on a sofa, surrounded by everyone celebrating Matt’s baby growing inside my stomach. From the outside, everything is how it should be. Conventional old Nicki, doing the conventional thing at the conventional time, with the conventional guy. Picture perfect.

Except Phoebe’s eyes find me again, that questioning arch of her eyebrow, asking me the silent question. And me, trying to figure out how to communicate my silent answer.

Yes, I love you too.

The same words I’d typed out and sent to her the next morning. Imploding my life.

Transcript: Inspector Simmons

interviewing Lauren Powell

Simmons: Character witnesses for you have unanimously stated that you’re a considerate and caring person. The phrase ‘not a bad bone in her body’ has been used many times.

Lauren: That’s very nice of you to pass on, thank you.

Simmons: Do you think that’s a fair assessment of you?

Lauren: I try to be nice to people. Doesn’t everyone?

Simmons: Tell me, Lauren, is it ‘nice’ to send threatening and abusive messages to people on Instagram? [Silence] Phone records show that, on the day in question, you were blocked, after sending many unpleasant messages to a hypnobirthing Instagram account. [Silence] And, in fact, that’s not just a one off. Our records show you’ve created multiple burner accounts for the sole purpose of targeting and abusing this person. What do you think your friends would say about that? [Silence] You look angry, Lauren.

Lauren: I am.

Simmons: For being found out?

Lauren: No. For you saying it’s ‘abuse’ to simply tell the truth to someone.

Simmons: They weren’t very nice messages, Lauren.

Lauren: I’ll tell you what’s not very nice. Telling women to hold a fuckingcombto help with the pain of contractions during labour.

Lauren

I breastfeed Woody to sleep in the pitch black of Nicki’s parents’ bedroom. True to Charlotte’s promise, the blackout curtains work absolute wonders, and he drops off easier than usual. His breathing deepens, signalling that it’s hopefully safe enough to replace my nipple with my little finger and progress to Stage Two. To be honest, it’s nice to have a break from the party and the fairytale lie of what motherhood involves. It’s basically deranged how baby products are all in such light pastel colours when they’ll soon be covered in shit stains and piss stains and vomit stains and food stains once they start weaning. Why is baby stuff all cutesy animals and soft light fabrics when motherhood is blood and gore and chaos? I look at Woody’s face, sleeping in the gloom, and remember receiving a pale, yellow duck towel from Charlotte at my baby shower spa day and simpering at how cute it was. I couldn’t wait for the moment I’d wrap up Woody after his bubble bath, hair wet, pudgy skin slippery. How I’d cradle him on my shoulder and say ‘quack quack’ and we’d laugh together at our reflection in the bathroom mirror. Instead, I was still bleeding giant lemon clots into my knickers when we gave Woody his first bath. He shat in it, pissed in it, screamed every moment he was in there, frantically wiping the stinky green poo further into his body. I hadn’t had a chance to change my giant postpartum sanitary towel for two hours because he’d been cluster feeding, so, as I scrambled to put him in the towel, my own bodily outputs overspilled with his, and the duck looked like it had been hitby a car and shat itself with fear as it was dying. The stains might’ve come out if we’d had the strength and time to try Vanish on it, which we didn’t. We just threw the baby duck towel right into the bin, alongside our hopes and expectations of what we thought this life might be like.

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