Very Nearly Normal

by Hannah Sunderland

  He picked up the bottle of wine, sipped and handed it to me.

  ‘So, are those the things you want?’ he asked.

  I turned to look at him. His breath left his mouth in wisps of white. Only then did I realise how cold it was. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If I’m following what you’re saying, then you want the high-powered office job and the boyfriend who looks like David Gandy? Would those things make you happy?’

  I scoffed. ‘I couldn’t think of anything worse than sitting in an office all day and there’s nothing wrong with David Gandy, but he doesn’t do it for me.’

  ‘Then why are you jealous?’

  ‘Because she has everything she ever wanted and she hasn’t earned it. She’s landed on her feet time and time again while I fell on my face beside her.’ I thought back to the time when I’d applied for all those jobs after uni and the string of rejections I’d got in return, while Kate landed the first job she interviewed for and then rubbed her success in my face. I hadn’t known what I wanted to do, other than write, so I’d just applied for anything and everything. But all the jobs just seemed like a distraction from what I was really meant to be doing: writing the next bestseller. ‘She’s happy and I’m not and that’s why I hate her.’ I surprised myself with what I said. Did I truly hate her? Love and hatred were so often confused.

  He leaned a little closer and I studied his mouth. The idea of kissing him crossed my mind; his lips were parted and they dithered slightly in the cold November air. The wine had made me feel soft, like a cat on a hot day, and I could feel myself warming to him.

  ‘Show me,’ he said, his breath dancing over my face in hot waves. ‘If she’s so spectacular, then show me.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ I replied.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because then you’ll want her; everyone wants Kate.’

  He frowned. ‘You’ve made it clear that you don’t want me, so why should you care?’

  I turned to him and looked into those ocean blue eyes. ‘Because I’m selfish and I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of stealing you away.’ I stuttered slightly. He looked down at my lips and with a mild sense of panic I lay my head on his shoulder.

  ‘But you don’t like me,’ he said, the warmth of his voice carrying his smile to my ears.

  ‘You’re not so bad, as stalkers go.’ We both breathed a laugh and then I closed my eyes. ‘When Kate and I were seventeen, I decided that I had a crush on Jonathan Yardley. He was one of those artsy types with a floppy fringe that stuck in his eyes and his hands were always smeared in charcoal from his lunchtimes spent in the art room. I’d told Kate about how I felt; I was stupid enough to trust her back then. Cut to three weeks later and Kate and Jonathan were the school’s hottest new couple. I wanted to cut all her hair off with the blunted art room scissors, but all I did was nod and say, “I never really liked him that much anyway”. I don’t know why I carried on talking to her after that.’

  ‘That was a cruel thing for her to do.’ The smile was gone from his voice. ‘Were you heartbroken?’

  ‘No.’ I sighed the word and lifted my head to look at him. ‘I’ve never been in love. I think it’s always turned to shit before I had the chance to love anyone.’

  ‘Well, let me see what I can do about that,’ he said, projecting charm. I let out a chortle. It was dirty and loud with the odd snort thrown in. ‘Kate could be the most dazzlingly beautiful human that has ever been created, but that doesn’t mean that everyone would fancy her. Beauty is subjective.’ I felt his arm shift and a moment later it was around my shoulders, the warmth of it startling in the icy air.

  ‘When you see her, you’ll realise how much of a stupid thing you’ve just said.’ I closed my eyes and breathed in the smell that rose from his jacket. My head spun with the intoxication of it.

  We sat in a comfortable silence for a while as we finished the second bottle of wine, my alcohol-numbed brain was slowing now and unable to feel the same level of distrust towards Theo that I had done before. He was lying back on the floor, his eyes studying the painted ceiling above with the flashlight of his phone. The blanket lay over his legs, stopping at his stomach where his shirt lifted, showing a sandy dusting of hair around his navel. I almost reached out and touched it with my freezing fingers but I managed to stop myself and instead lay back beside him.

  ‘Why do you like me? I don’t even like me,’ I said, resting my head on the dusty floorboards, pulling my half of the blanket over my legs and closing my eyes; the room barrelled around me and I quickly opened them again before I ended up being sick.

  ‘Do I need to have a reason? I just do.’ We turned our heads to face each other at the same time and something crackled in the air between our too close faces.

  ‘But you don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘And you know nothing about me. Let’s change that. Tell me something.’ His eyes felt like spotlights on my skin; warm and revealing everything in their bright light.

  ‘Like what?’ I asked.

  ‘What’s your favourite colour?’

  ‘Green. What about you?’

  ‘Orange,’ he replied with a nod to my tangerine-coloured jumper.

  ‘Favourite film?’

  ‘Don’t have one.’

  ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous. What about music? Favourite band?’

  ‘The Rosehipsters,’ I said, expecting him to not know the indie-folk duo from across the pond.

  ‘I like them too,’ he said. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘You like The Rosehipsters? I took you for more of a David Guetta type.’

  ‘What year do you think this is, 2010?’ he said with a slight chuckle. ‘Believe it or not, other people like non-mainstream music too.’ He sighed before asking his next question. ‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’

  ‘A writer. I still do.’ The words slipped from my mouth before I could remember to lie. ‘I don’t usually tell people, like it’s a dirty secret or something.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell people?’

  ‘Because then I have to tell them that my novel was rejected, again and again, and it hurts me to say it.’ I shook away the tightness in my chest and turned back to him. ‘What about you?’

  ‘That’s easy. I wanted to be David Bowie.’

  ‘You have to answer seriously; those are the rules,’ I slurred.

  ‘I am being serious. I saw a documentary about him when I was about eight. He was the coolest person I’d ever seen in my life and I wanted to be him. I took guitar lessons, dyed my hair, I even wore blue eyeshadow for a few weeks after I first saw the ‘Life on Mars’ video. But alas, there could only ever be one Bowie.’

  ‘I bet you rocked that eyeshadow.’

  ‘You know I did.’

  I rolled my head to look up at the ceiling and heaved a contented breath. ‘I know what you’re doing, by the way.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘You’ve let me get drunk so that I’ll open up to you.’ I looked back at him, a strand of hair falling over my face. I held up a finger and prodded him in his chest. ‘I’m onto you.’

  Good God, his chest was firm. It made me want to run my hands over it, but I restrained myself. I still had that much self-control at least.

  He shuffled my way and reached out a hand, brushing the hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. My breath caught in my throat.

  ‘Why are you so unhappy, Effie?’ he asked.

  I felt moisture behind my eyes and the sudden urge to cry built up in my forehead. I was unhappy, dreadfully so, and no one had asked me about it until now.

  ‘Because I’m doing nothing with my life,’ I replied, my voice thick with drunken emotion. ‘I always thought that I’d be someone, that I’d do something important or meaningful, but the truth of it is that I’ve barely done a thing. I go to work, I come home, I drink too much, I fight with my mum and then I fall asleep and start again the next day. My phone goes we
eks without ringing sometimes. I think that if I lived alone and I died, then I’d be one of those corpses that turns into soup on the carpet before anyone noticed that I was missing.’

  I paused for breath and wiped away the tear that trickled down the side of my face and into my ear. ‘I know whose fault it is. It’s those coming-of-age movies where a bunch of young people go on a road trip and watch the sunrise and discover who they are. They do things that they’ll remember for the rest of their lives and grow as people in the process. Well, my age has already come. It’s been and gone and I’ve never done anything like that.’

  ‘What would you do if you could?’ he asked, his brow furrowed and his eyes reflecting my own sadness.

  ‘Everything,’ I replied. ‘I want to travel and eat weird new foods in weird new countries. I want to get lost on purpose. Not in a Cast Away, becoming best friends with a bloodied volleyball kind of lost, but just to get away from everything.’ I turned and let his image fill my eyes. ‘Do you know who you are, Theo?’ I asked, searching his eyes for the truth. ‘Do you know the person you are? Because I have no idea who I am.’

  ‘I think I do, but then people never stop changing so can you ever really know who you are?’

  I rolled my head to the side and looked at the list that sat upside down in my eyes. ‘I changed who I was to fit in with Kate and her cronies. I went to see bands I didn’t like, films I didn’t want to see. I drank drinks I didn’t like the taste of, all for them. I turned myself into a chameleon and echoed what everyone else did and said and liked. In the process I became a nothing person and Kate left me anyway.’ I realised that I wasn’t just tearing up now, I was fully crying.

  ‘Why did you do all of that?’

  ‘I just wanted to keep my friend. I think I always thought it was just a phase and she’d come back to me when she was ready.’ I blubbered.

  Oh my God, I was such a loser. Not only had I spat wine all over myself and started wearing my dinner, but now I was full-on ugly crying in front of him.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’ I wiped the tears from my eyes and sat up, head rush making my vision blacken at the edges. I wondered if I might pass out, but then I felt his hand on my shoulder and it brought me back to earth.

  ‘You’re not a nothing person, Effie.’

  It was past eleven when we climbed down from the treehouse, our bones aching with the cold. Theo descended the ladder first and waited at the bottom, ready to catch me if I missed a rung and fell. My head spun like a top as I grappled for the ladder with untrustworthy hands. The ladder seemed to carry on forever, the ground never growing any closer, until I felt Theo’s hands tighten around my waist and lower me to the grass below. I felt his hands on the skin of my hips. They were cold.

  I turned around; he was closer than I’d expected him to be.

  ‘Thanks.’ I cleared my throat and attempted to look sober.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said with eyes fixed on mine, the approximation of a smile on his lips.

  The air zinged between us as we looked at each other, wondering who would turn away first, but neither of us did.

  Theo exhaled quietly. He was nervous.

  My palms were sweaty, my knees were weak, my limbs were heavy. Wasn’t there a song in there somewhere? Wasn’t there a line about spaghetti too? Oh God! Why had I drunk so much? I could barely stand without swaying from side to side and now I’d have to somehow navigate this newly formed sexual tension with diminished motor skills and a churning stomach.

  I wanted to kiss him and by the look in his eye he was up for it too.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and leaned forward, closing the gap between us and looking up into his face. As far as I could see, he didn’t want to run away like Daz had; he didn’t want to bail after deciding he liked Kate more, but then he hadn’t seen Kate yet.

  He looked down at me and swallowed and I knew that he was going to kiss me.

  My body suddenly went into a state of panic. My lips were chapped and dry and hadn’t been kissed in months, maybe even years. They weren’t ready; I wasn’t ready. I began to squirm, my chest heaving quick and irregular breaths as Theo drew closer, his arm wrapping around my back and pulling my chest to his. His heart beat against mine, his breath filling my mouth as his lips drew to within inches of mine.

  This wasn’t right. I’d only just met him and only a few hours ago I’d suspected him of being a stalker. I couldn’t let him kiss me.

  My eyes widened as his closed and I craned my neck away from him. He paused, looking unsure, and then moved to kiss me again. I darted out of the way and placed my hands on his chest.

  He frowned, pressed his lips together into a line, then said, ‘Have I read this wrong?’

  ‘I don’t know. What did you think it said?’ I asked, my voice high-pitched and nervous.

  ‘Well, you were looking at me with those kiss me eyes and you moved towards me and I just thought you wanted me to do it.’

  ‘Maybe I did, then maybe I panicked about it and decided that I didn’t. Can’t a girl change her mind?’ My neck was beginning to ache, my body in such a strange position that I had no idea how I was holding it for so long.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pressure you into anything. I just thought you wanted me to—’

  ‘It’s my fault, really.’ I pushed against his chest and he let me go.

  He awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. ‘I should go,’ he said, tapping an Uber order into his phone.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what I’m doing anymore.’ I rubbed my hands over my face, my palms coming away with black smears over them and I realised that I must have just smeared make-up everywhere. I literally couldn’t have been more of a train wreck.

  ‘Oh, look,’ he said, staring down at his black phone screen. ‘My Uber’s here.’

  We both knew he was lying.

  He turned and walked back into the house, not stopping until he was standing outside the front door. My parents weren’t home yet. The house was dark and the driveway vacant of the ugly-ass car we shared.

  ‘It’s not here, Theo. Please, come back inside. I’m sorry I made it weird.’ I almost begged.

  ‘You didn’t make it weird. It was fine. I’ll see you soon.’ He stepped back towards the door, going in for a kiss on the cheek and then thinking twice about it and going for a handshake.

  I shook his hand; his skin was just the right ratio of softness to roughness.

  Nice one, Eff, you could be having those soft-rough hands sliding all over your back by now. But no, you had to make things weird and so all you get is a handshake.

  ‘See you soon,’ I said as he turned and walked out into the dark street.

  I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and rueing the day I ever slithered from my mother’s womb. My brain was obsessively combing through every word I’d said to Theo, every movement I’d made, the tears I’d cried. Every so often my face would pucker like I’d just bitten into a lemon and I’d slap my palm to my forehead over and over until the wave of embarrassment was gone.

  He’d said, ‘I’ll see you soon.’ But when was soon? Would soon ever come or would he run for the hills like all the others before him?

  I could just imagine what my mother would say when she realised that the ‘gorgeous’ Theo wasn’t coming back. It made me want to crawl under the blankets and die of suffocation or, even better, like in those sci-fi films where someone cancels out their own timeline, just cease to exist at all.

  I flicked on my phone. He hadn’t texted.

  I opened up the chat and began typing before realising that I had no idea what to say and deleting it all.

  I’d wanted him to kiss me. Why hadn’t I let him?

  That kiss could have been so much more than two near strangers acting on impulse and two pairs of lips pressing together.

  It could have been fireworks and thumping hearts and hands in hair, but all it had turned out to be was a whole lot of
awkward and a lie about an Uber.

  Chapter Seven

  I’d wanted a cat for as long as I could remember, but for some reason or other, that childhood wish had never come to be. Cut to a year after uni when a beautiful, yet slightly dishevelled, tomcat turned up in the back garden.

  He was perfect, with black and white tuxedo fur and a black patch that looked like a Salvador Dalí moustache below his nose. He came every day, sitting for hours on the patchy lawn and meowing loudly at the French doors when he saw people moving around inside. After a month, I took him to the vets to have his microchip scanned, but he didn’t have one and after he refused to leave, I claimed him for my own. But like most good things, he turned out to be too good to be true.

  I named him Elliot, for no reason other than it suited him, and he fitted in perfectly; for a while. It was about three weeks later that I realised Elliot was the best con artist I’d ever seen. He was cute, yes, but the vengeful little bastard had a thing for attacking people’s ankles as they slept at night; creeping into their room soundlessly and sliding under the covers like a furry ninja before embedding his talons into the first bits of flesh he found. Not only that, but he waited until he was fully accepted as a member of the family before letting his habit of peeing in people’s shoes be known. He would perch atop the shoe, boot or slipper and pee, soundlessly, into the footwear and then wait nearby until someone naïvely pushed their foot in, watching with glee as they flailed around in disgust. In addition to this, he was a serial cheater, meandering off to his other family four doors down when he got bored at home.

  ‘Typical man,’ Joy would say when he didn’t come home.

  When I woke, head heavy with the remnants of the two bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape we’d drunk last night, Elliot was back. He lay on my chest and stared down into my eyes like a judgemental deity, as if he too knew how much of a fool I’d made of myself the night before.