‘Isn’t people trying to help a good thing?’
‘Not if it starts to feel like that’s the only way they know how to talk to you. Like everything else about you is erased because you’re the poor sap who got hit. And they tell you how you’re feeling, instead of asking. Like, you must be feeling awful. You must feel like it’s your fault. It must be just terrible being you. And then they tell me I should be in therapy! Where – what – we can pay someone to carry on telling me how crappy my life is and how bad I should be feeling about it?’
It took me a moment to realize she’d finished talking because I was trying to remember our conversations over the last few months. Did I do that?
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Yes, you do it.’
‘Did you just read my mind?’
‘No, I read your face.’
‘Oh.’ What was I supposed to say? ‘Well, sorry?’ I still wasn’t convinced that caring about someone was a bad thing. What did she expect? That people wouldn’t try to empathize?
‘You know who doesn’t do it?’ Her voice had started to relax. ‘Rosie.’
I felt a flash of hurt. Rosie? Who’d called her pathetic and made jokes about her victimhood showing?
‘She said once that I should just get over it,’ she continued.
‘But that’s a horrible thing to say,’ I said, frustrated.
‘At least it’s honest. And it’s true. Hey, we need to go left here.’ She’d taken hold of the umbrella and was gesturing in the opposite direction to the one I’d gone in, towards the railway line.
None of this made any sense to me. I followed her, ducking my head under the umbrella, unsure what to say.
‘So I should be more like Rosie?’ I asked eventually.
‘Oh God, no. I didn’t mean that. And don’t make it about you. It was just a passing comment.’ She hooked her arm through mine. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’
I’d never known anyone who could flit from mood to mood as lightly as she did. In fact, if I hadn’t had a sister with an actual diagnosed mood disorder (where the changes between moods were in no way ‘light’), I’d have thought she had one. Maybe it was a self-defence thing.
We were both silent for a while. As we walked, I watched the droplets falling in front of us, gentler now.
‘Do you know that quote?’ I asked. ‘The one about rain. Something like, “in every life there’ll be a little rain,” or something?’
‘Oh, that shit can fuck off,’ Suzanne said, surprising me with her vehemence.
‘What? Why? Isn’t it a nice quote?’
‘No, it’s total bullshit. I hate it when people make sadness all deep and beautiful and, like –’ she waved her hands helplessly – ‘profound. That’s the word. It’s not profound. It’s not beautiful. It sucks. It sucks balls.’
‘Well—’
She interrupted me. ‘I think it makes non-sad people feel better. Like, they think it must be a good thing to be sad, because you’re getting all this insight into real life and pain or whatever. Like how people say tears are like rain. Fuck off. Tears are just tears and they make your eyes hurt and they won’t stop when you want them to and ugh. You get all those arty photos of girls crying – it’s always girls, have you noticed? – and it’s so beautiful and tasteful and moving. When the reality is your face goes all blotchy and your nose runs and you can taste it every time you breathe.’
‘Taste what?’
‘It. Pain. Sadness.’ She let out a breath through her nose and twisted her lip. ‘I’m just saying that sadness isn’t beautiful. And if it looks that way, it’s a lie.’
‘Liiike . . . you?’ I couldn’t not say it. She’d basically given it to me on a plate.
She looked at me, half proud, half bitter. ‘See, Cads? I knew you’d get there in the end.’
I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, but I followed Suzanne through Brighton’s slick, winding streets, happy to let her lead. She’d cheered up, something about the freedom of the city at night having its usual effect on her. She’d got bouncy again. ‘So, if I’m the troubled one,’ she was saying speculatively, after we’d been walking for about fifteen minutes, ‘and you’re the nice one, what’s Rosie?’
‘The sarcastic one,’ I said. ‘Nice? Really? Why do I get the dull word?’
‘I’m sarcastic too,’ Suzanne said, ‘so she can’t be that.’
‘Well, you’re both nice as well. So . . .’
‘We’re not nice.’ She was grinning. ‘You’re the nice one.’
Before I could give her hair a sort of playful tug, she’d moved away from me, swinging the umbrella back to her side.
‘Here we are!’ she sang, gesturing to a huge, derelict building I’d assumed we were walking past. It was surrounded on all sides by dark blue fencing that was covered in graffiti.
I looked up. ‘Seriously?’
‘Yeah!’
‘I think I’d rather go to the beach.’
‘Nooo.’ She shook her head. ‘We can go up on the roof and watch the sunrise. It’ll be great.’