“Do you know what? I love him, Queenie, not that you know what that is. I try to work things out, not push away.” Cassandra twisted the knife with her words. “And not all of us want to act like teenagers. Some of us want to move forward with someone, Queenie. Some of us want to grow up.” Cassandra stopped and turned to look at me. She was shaking.
“And unlike you, some of us don’t let the past dictate the way we live our adult lives.” She carried on down the road, and I stood and watched her walk away. When I got back home, my phone lit up.
THE CORGIS
CASSANDRA HAS LEFT THE CORGIS
Darcy
Where’s Cassandra gone?
Queenie
Turns out Welshman is CASSANDRA’S ACTUAL BOYFRIEND. WHEN SHE WOULD SAY “MY GORGEOUS GUY” IT’S BECAUSE HE IS LITERALLY CALLED GUY, AS IN THE GUY I WAS BANGING
Kyazike
Raaaaah
Queenie
The whole time we were sleeping together
Darcy
Shit. Small world, isn’t it?
Queenie
I actually did some quick math and I think I started sleeping with him before they met
Queenie
Don’t ever tell her that though
Kyazike
LOL we ain’t telling her nothing
Kyazike
And don’t worry, fam, I’ll back you if she comes to fight you
Darcy
Don’t worry, it won’t come to that! She’ll realize that it’s his fault, not yours
Queenie
Oh God oh God oh God oh God
chapter
NINETEEN
Queenie
It’s been three weeks and you still aren’t speaking to me, Cassandra. I don’t know what to do. You know how sorry I am. XXXX
I ROLLED OVER in bed and pressed SEND, holding my breath as I watched the blue iMessage bubble turn green. Either her phone was still off, or she’d blocked my number.
I couldn’t lose anyone else in my life. I’d tried reaching out to her via every form of communication bar fax and telegram, but nothing. Kyazike suggested she go round there to “talk to her on a level,” which I’m trying to figure out is a threat or not, and Darcy thinks that I should give her space and time to process everything.
Did I do something wrong? I’m the one who was a side chick, I’m the one who was nothing but some sort of sex person to yet another man who didn’t think I was deserving of anything but hard sex.
I guess I don’t matter. Not to Cassandra, not to Guy, not to anyone. My mum, my dad, Ted. Tom. Nobody has ever wanted me, not properly.
I rolled out of bed and pulled on the nearest outfit without looking at what it was, beyond obviously checking that it was long enough to cover my bum. I walked down the stairs, passing Nell in the hallway. She stared at me, asking if I was okay just as I got to the front door. I mumbled that I was fine and left the house, striding purposefully toward the bus stop until I realized that I (again) wasn’t wearing a bra, so slowed down. Why did I always forget this crucial item when getting dressed? As the bus moved along, I drafted a monologue in my head, jotting very key points down in my phone.
As the bus approached my stop, I looked out the window and saw rain hitting the glass. Deciding that I needed to get on with what I’d come to do rather than just go round on the bus until the weather got better, I stepped off as it started to pour, then did some sort of shuffle-running, arriving on the doorstep of mine and Tom’s old building drenched through to my bones.
I took some deep breaths and rang the doorbell, wiping rain off my face and observing my reflection in the glass pane. I realized that my headscarf was still on, soaked through. I whipped it off just as a petite blond girl I thought I recognized opened the door. She must have been a neighbor I’d seen in the short time I’d lived here. Her hair was up in a loose bun and she was wearing nothing but a black T-shirt that reached her knees. As she stepped back from the door, her pert breasts shook with the motion, her nipples almost pointing to the sky. I crossed my arms in order to cover my comparatively heavy bosom.
“Hi,” I huffed, blinking water out of my eyes, “I think I must have pressed the wrong buzzer. I meant to press flat B, sorry.”
The girl squinted at me through small blue eyes, and her face dropped. “Er,” she started, “let me just . . .” then turned and ran up the main stairs. I stepped into the communal hallway and wiped rain off of my arms and legs with wet hands, splattering the ceramic tiles. The smell of the building was soothingly familiar, and with each deep breath I felt the tension in my stomach loosen.
“What are you doing?” I heard. I looked up and saw Tom standing on the stairs outside our old door in nothing but a pair of sweatpants. As he closed the door behind him, my mouth dried up and my stomach lurched half with fear and half with desire. It had been so long that I’d forgotten what he looked like topless. I thought about turning to leave, but I’d gone all that way in the rain so was going to say what I’d gone there to say. Plus, it was still pouring.
“Tom! Hello, stranger.” My voice trembled. “How are you?”
Tom didn’t reply, he didn’t move, he didn’t show any sign that he was pleased to see me. He just carried on looking down at me.
“So,” I started, “I know that you might not be ready to talk to me, but I just need to say something. I—”
“Queenie, this isn’t fair.” Tom cut me off firmly. “You can’t just show up here.”
“Okay, and yes, you’re right, and I know that I should be respecting your space, but, like, I used to live here, plus you’ve been ignoring my messages for months and I didn’t know what else to do,” I said in a small voice. “I don’t need to come up, but let me say what I need to.”
Tom opened his mouth to protest, probably, but closed it again. I took that as my cue to begin.
“I don’t know how it’s been for you, but the last few months have been fucking terrible for me,” I confessed. “I’m so far away from where I was when I was with you. We used to speak about marriage, and babies, and at the time I didn’t think I could do it, and I was scared, but now I’m even more scared that I’ve lost you, and lost the marriage and the babies—” I took a deep breath. “I’m having all of these random one-night stands with men who treat my body like it’s a sex aide, and there was this one guy who I was sleeping with and the sex was, on reflection, pretty brutal, but then Cassandra came round and it turns out it’s her boyfriend, which is mad, and so she called me a slut”—I paused to take in a deep breath—“and there’s also this guy from my office who I knew I shouldn’t get involved with but I’ve been so lonely and I was just waiting for you to get in touch, and he turned out to be married so I really shouldn’t have got involved. . . .” It was like I couldn’t stop it from coming out. Tom wasn’t looking at me, but I could see from how red his face was getting that he was angry. I carried on anyway. “So I’m sensing that I’m probably oversharing, but the point is that I miss you and I’m scared of the person I’m becoming.” I finished speaking and took a deep breath. “I’m not me without you. This break is killing me.” I took another deep breath. “I’m sorry. For everything.”
I listened to Tom breathing heavily through his nose. I opened my mouth to ask what I could do to get him to talk to me again when he finally spoke. “You know that’s the first time you’ve apologized?” He laughed softly. “The first time you’ve actually said sorry. After everything. The pushing away, the lashing out, the mood swings. The first time you’ve apologized.”
“It can’t be,” I said, before realizing that he was probably right. “Well. I am.”
I started to walk up the stairs toward Tom, but he put a hand out to stop me. “It’s too late, Queenie,” he said quietly. “It was too late months ago, I thought you got that!”
I stumbled backward down the wooden steps and grabbed onto the handrail to stop myself from falling and cracking my head open on the tiled floor.
“But we love each other!” I said, trying to convince him. “All this time, I thought we loved each other,” I said, trying to convince myself. “And the text, at New Year’s, I said I wanted us to have a good year, and you replied with a kiss?”