Page 52 of Bad Friends

Then as my mind clears the fog of sleep, the pain I’ve harboured for so long resurfaces – pain I’ve kept tight inside my closed palms, kept away from any other part of me – or that’s what it feels like. Since Adam and Susan’s wedding – in fact, since that Christmas when we first had sex – I’ve been constantly holding onto some hope that he’ll change, miraculously scoop me up and save me from myself. But how can that happen when he’s the one who broke me? He’s my disease, my problem… my undoing… my Achilles heel. Even Theo who I’ve grown so close to in the past two years has near enough given me the impression that while I’m with Paul, he won’t condone it and he doesn’t want to know.

The painful, tragic truth is that I’m not Paul’s number one. If I were, he’d have behaved so differently and treated me so much better. I’m not his priority, never have been, and if he didn’t want to hurt me, he should never have cornered me at Chloe’s house that Christmas Eve. Not only that, but I realise now that many of my insecurities stem from Paul’s treatment of me, both now and in the past, when we were teenagers. Of course, we were young and foolish in school, who isn’t? But some people who meet young stay together if they’re right for each other and it feels to me like it’s some fatal flaw alone that is preventing that – either Paul’s relationship with alcohol, or his inability to see me for who I am and not just his doormat. Or am I deluded and all the things I’ve felt over the years, all the times we clicked and talked for hours at the back of a pub or party…

Perhaps I was mistaken, all this time and none of what we’ve shared was ever right. If it has all been false and fake on his part, then maybe that’s why I get it so wrong in my other relationships, because all the time with Paul I’m being duped into thinking I have a connection with him – even while deep down I know from his camp it’s phoney. Then, with everyone else, I can’t help but think it might be phoney with them, too. If I can’t trust one of my oldest friends and am constantly pulled back and forth with his hot and cold tendencies, how can I trust that anyone is being genuine, if he’s not? Maybe that’s where it all went wrong with Ian – I was too scared to tell him what I wanted because I was afraid he would leave me. He knew I was growing dissatisfied with everything and he was just as much a coward, also scared of being alone even though he knew I wanted marriage and babies and he once told me those were the furthest things from his mind.

Paul enters the bedroom without a knock and discovers I’m awake. He looks wrecked, tired, depressed. He doesn’t seem to have slept on the pull-out sofa and I can see he meant to creep in without waking me, just to get some clothes.

He slides across the carpet, collects some stuff from his drawers and escapes back out as quickly as he came in. No words? Nothing? Does he know better now than to dare talk himself out of this one?

I listen as he steps into the shower, not whistling or singing as he usually would. He’s got a great singing voice too.

My heart clenches. I don’t know what this is… this masochistic human tendency to attach so many memories to songs, to times when we were happy-go-lucky and there wasn’t any stress or expectation – we were just friends. Except we never really were. I’ve always fancied him and I know he’s always fancied me. I think maybe he’s looking for something he can relate to and he doesn’t see it. I always thought he was so perfect, a great big brother, always standing up for his kid brothers. I always looked at Lydia and saw someone so proud of her sons and I always thought Brendan’s absence was down to his working hard, putting dinner on the table.

In my mind’s eye I focus and realise my love for him stems from all the things we’ve seen and done together. Trips we all took as a group, in the summer holidays between university semesters. Matching novelty t-shirts. Meals he and I would make together for the group. Conversations we’d have about our friends and how they’d fuck up whatever relationship they were in at the time – only for us to be proven right.

Or is it that he just sees me as so much more than those other women and he can’t handle it? Can he not deal with how much more I mean to him? Isn’t he man enough to give himself up to love and fully commit?

After his shower I hear him cleaning his teeth and spraying hair products, combing his hair into place no doubt. He leaves the bathroom and appears in my doorway, refreshed and resolute, I see – something new in his eyes. Hope, maybe. Denial?

“I’ve got some things to do but I’ll be back later.”

My heart clangs, wondering if he’s only coming back to pick up his stuff.

“What things?” I demand, because he can’t just swan around and tell me he’ll be back later without explaining himself.

“I’m going to put things right,” he says, “you’ll see.”

He leaves the flat and I have no idea what he’s going to do to rectify this, but we’ll see, won’t we?

It being a Saturday, I drive out of town and do my grocery shopping at the big Asda. I visit Costa for a large coffee and toasted sandwich and drive home leisurely, in no hurry.

All the while it’s playing on my mind – what is he up to? Where is he? What is he thinking?

I arrive home to discover he’s back before me, waiting on the sofa with a load of paperwork spread in front of him on the coffee table. I’m wondering what the hell is going on when he leaps up and helps me with the shopping.

“What’s happening?” I mumble, as he directs me to the sofa, the excitement in his eyes making me nervous.

“Come and sit down,” he asks.

“I should really put the shopping away. I’ve got some frozen stuff.”

“Okay, do that and then come back.”

I hurry to the kitchen and stuff things in cupboards and the fridge freezer as fast as possible. By the time I’m back in the living room, I’m sweating, out of breath and scared what it is he’s going to say. It all looks… not like Paul. What happened to him?

I join him on the sofa and he shows me some paperwork he got from the bank. “I’ve got some money my grandad left me that nobody knows about. He said I could do what I want with it and he wasn’t going to leave any of it to Dad because he’d just drink the money down the toilet. So with that and our salaries, we could secure a mortgage and I’ve been and got some ideas of what we could get if we moved out of town a little, somewhere a bit nicer and quieter.”

I’m worried he’s losing it; I’m also worried I’m being overly critical for thinking that.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m changing,” he says, “I’m getting out of the city with you. My job’s on the outskirts anyway and I was gonna have to commute every day, so why don’t we move? Settle down. Get married and start a family. Isn’t that what you want?”

I take a deep breath and gulp. “Yes.”

“Great! These are just ideas for now. We’ll have to see how my job goes first and prove to the bank we can do it, but why not, eh? Why not?”

He hands me a leaflet for a three-bedroom house with a nice bathroom, big garden, a couple of reception rooms and a converted loft. It could be a family home for us, for sure.

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