Page 14 of Grin and Bear It

My voice was sharp, which I instantly regretted. I drew in a deep breath and pulled back in everything else that I was dying to say, at the same time willing my head to spin a little less rapidly. What I really wanted to tell her was that when I’d been watching a TikTok and the term ‘almond mum’ had come up, my whole body had stiffened in recognition. I’d listened to the content creator talk about the preoccupation with thinness and health as being an aesthetic extension of the beauty myth, of idealised femininity, not as being focused on healthy outcomes or having any actual medical grounding. And I’d known exactly what she meant. But I held all that in, and focused on the consistent messaging I ended up revisiting with her almost every conversation.

“We don’t talk about these things,” I said, in the firm, measured voice I’d had to practise over and over to get right. “Remember? This does not help me at all. Rather, it sends me into a nasty little self-hate spiral, and you don’t want that, do you?”

Mum let out a sigh. I’d sucked the wind out of her sails and, like a becalmed boat, she didn’t know what to do with that. I listened to her silence for a few seconds, then forged ahead.

“Mum, I’m just tired. I have to commit to long hours to do my job.” The one she had hassled me about getting into for years, before she found out what the reality of teaching was like. “That’s the way it is. Now, I’ve got a ton of work to get done before bed, so I’m going to go.” She made a small sound of displeasure at that. “But I’ll give you a call on the weekend, OK?”

“Fine.”

It was all I got from her and frankly, it was the best possible outcome when she was like this. But part of me? It mourned the fact that right now I wasn’t going to get what I really could’ve done with: the full mum experience. Where she would have listened to my tales of woe, made supportive noises as I told her what a dick Derek was, then call him some choice names of her own. Where she told me that I was awesome and beautiful and any man would be glad to have me and that, one day, the right one would. But we’d never had that kind of relationship and a whole lot of therapy had made it clear to me that we never would.

But I knew who’d step in to fill the gap.

“I’ve got to go,” I told her in my best arsehole-whisperer voice. “Thanks for checking in on me and I’ll call you later.”

I hit end call before she could argue, because sometimes all you can do is take control of the situation. I stared at my phone for ages, wanting to talk everything through with Coll, but also not wanting to dump all my shit on her. Instead, I sipped my way through the rest of the can I’d opened while talking to Mum, and then part of the way through another one.

I really didn’t want to bug Coll. She was over at her boy’s place, no doubt enjoying coupley bliss, and she didn’t need more of my shit. She was already sharing the house from hell with me. So I decided I would put the call off in favour of doing something proactive—getting up and collecting all my dirty clothes and shoving them in the machine—before I did anything else. I couldn’t bear another horror frock day. One bonus was that I already had all the clothes piled on my bed so it didn’t take me long to get the washing in the machine. Once I put the washing powder in, I peered at the dial to make sure I had selected the right cycle, and started it off. As soon as I did, the water pipes rattled.

“No,” I told them, because taking a dominant stance with plumbing is a sure path to success. The brass pipes vibrated against the wall, the taps shaking along with them. Water started to fill the washing machine in rapid bursts, then stopped again. “No,” I said again as the rattling got louder, a far-off groan sounding like the house was dying around me. “No, no, no…” I prayed under my breath as a small hiss of water escaped the taps.

Fuck this place. It wasn’t a fixer-upper; it was a bloody tear-the-bastard-down-er.

As if sensing my traitorous thoughts, water suddenly came exploding out of the cold water tap, not from the spout, where it was supposed to, but from the connection itself.

“Fuck!” I yelped, slapping my hand down on it, as if that would help, desperately trying to wrench the tap tighter and then it happened. Again. Water hit me right in the face, just like it had in the shower. Admittedly I didn’t get smacked in the head by any fittings, but water jetted free between my fingers, soaking me, the floor and the damn washing machine.

I needed to get to the water meter and shut off the mains water. I needed to find a damn 24 hour plumber and give him a call to fix this fucking house. Or I needed to put it on the market and fuck it off, because surely renting couldn’t be worse than this. Then it’d be someone else’s job to fix the plumbing, and someone else’s bill to pay. Instead, it all overwhelmed me and I hit paralysis mode. I slid down the wall in just the lacy bra I’d had on under that formerly cute little top, and a pair of wet-look jeans that were living up to their name, with the fabric getting more sodden by the moment.

After sitting alonewith my misery for a little while, I snapped out of it, sort of, though it was like I was on auto-pilot. I slowly pulled myself up, went outside and turned the water off. When I came back inside, I walked to the doorway of the laundry and just stood there surveying the disaster zone. After a moment, I realised I should turn off the washing machine but then I couldn’t work out what to do with the clothes inside it, so I left them in there. I was still feeling spaced-out, trying to work out what to do next. When I looked down at myself and realised how wet I was, I figured the best thing I could do was go and change. Grabbing a towel and heading into the haven of my bedroom to try to dry off didn’t really help me feel any better. But it was as if rubbing at my cold skin somehow chafed at my numb emotional state, because after I pulled my PJs on, everything hit me at once and I started shaking. As my breathing started getting faster, I grabbed at my phone and blindly tapped into my contacts. My fingers felt like those big wobbly sausages in that movie,Everything Everywhere All At Once, skating across the phone surface and I didn’t care. Tears and gin blurred my vision, and I blinked and blinked, trying to clear my vision without success as I heard the phone ring, then a click as it went through.

“Everything’s fucked,” I announced, half-sobbing, half-gasping. “Coll, Derek messaged me to set up a date, but he meant someone else, and I was drinking in an Uber, even though I wasn’t supposed to, but that’s because some kids in my class shared a photo of me in a bikini. You know the one we took when we were in Bali? I don’t know how they bloody got their hands on it, but the principal thought I was trying to groom the boys or something. And then Mum…” My voice actually broke on that, but I charged ahead anyway. “And the pipes… Look, don’t come home, Coll. Just stay at your boy’s because this house is fucked. It’s so fucking fucked it needs to be condemned at the very least for crimes against home decor. The laundry taps went, and I’ve had to turn the water off, and I’ve got no clean clothes for tomorrow and—”

“Take a deep breath,” a deep, masculine voice, and it was as though I’d turned to ice. I stopped breathing altogether, my eyes widening in shock. “Take a deep breath and tell me again, slower.”

Chapter8

“I…” My throat felt bone dry, clamping shut, as if my body was belatedly trying to stop my brain from having me act like a complete basket case. Sadly, that ship had already sailed.

“I haven’t heard you take that breath,” the man said in a gentle tone, and there was something so reassuring about it. “Haven’t heard any and right now I’m wondering if I need to call an ambulance.”

“I…”

I pulled the phone away from my ear, blinked rapidly, and with abject horror I saw who I’d called. I’d entered the Walker twins’ guardians’ number in my phone to give them a heads up about what had happened today, then had promptly spaced on calling them. I sucked in one shallow breath, then another, not to allay his fears but to do what I had to.

“Oh my god, I am so—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” The command in his voice was one I couldn’t argue with. My lips snapped shut as a result. “Don’t. Just take a breath with me.” I heard the whistle of his breath as he inhaled and found my lungs filled too, the lightheaded, burning feeling fading slightly as a result. “Now let it out slowly.” I did, feeling my whole body sag.

“I rang the wrong number,” I explained in a small croak of a voice. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m not.” He was so matter-of-fact about that I couldn’t help but believe him, which left me off balance and not sure how to proceed. “Sounds like you’ve had a tough day. What’s your name?”

“El,” I blurted out. “I mean Ellie. Sorry, Eleanor, Eleanor Jennings.”

“Eleanor Jennings sounds like the name you give a copper when he pulls you over,” the man drawled. “I’m Nash, Nash Walker.”

Yes, I know, I thought, aghast, rubbing at my forehead.

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