Fierce Fragile Hearts

by Sara Barnard

  23

  ‘Anna Begins’

  Counting Crows

  In the morning, I sleep in until eleven and then head into town to meet Rosie and Caddy for a New Year’s Day brunch. Rosie’s in a good mood but Caddy is quieter than usual, stabbing at the pancakes she ordered harder than necessary and leaving little fork dents.

  ‘Everything OK?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Bit hungover.’

  I glance at Rosie, who raises her eyebrows at me.

  ‘What was that thing about last night?’ I ask. ‘You and Kel.’

  Caddy frowns. ‘Oh, it was nothing.’

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  There’s a long silence. In the seconds she doesn’t speak, my skin starts to tickle with nerves. If she doesn’t want to talk to me about this kind of thing, if I’m not someone she can be honest with, then are we even friends any more? We could always talk to each other, that’s what made us friends in the first place.

  ‘He thinks we haven’t spent enough time together,’ she says finally. ‘In the time I’ve been back from Warwick.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Haven’t you been together, like, basically every day?’

  ‘Yeah …’ She sighs. ‘He means just the two of us.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say again, getting it this time. ‘Because it was always all of us together?’

  ‘Pretty much, yeah. He thinks …’ She hesitates, then glances at me. I smile, not my big Suze smile, but my smaller, real smile. ‘He thinks I’ve been, like, avoiding him. By wanting you and Roz around. But I was like, I don’t see them any more. And Christmas is hard for you. I’m not going to not see you guys because of my boyfriend. So us all hanging out together is the solution, right?’

  I nod. ‘You’d think.’

  ‘Well, yeah. But it bothered him, and we’d sort of talked about it, but then at New Year when I wanted to go back to yours with you, it all kind of came out. Plus there’s the whole Matt-and-you thing. That’s stressing him out.’

  ‘Why?’

  Caddy glances at Rosie, and they exchange a look that makes my stomach twist. They’ve talked about this. ‘Because he thinks it’s going to blow up and then we won’t all be able to be friends any more.’

  ‘I think you can give us a bit more credit than that,’ I say. ‘If we were in an actual relationship or something, then yeah, maybe. But we’re not.’

  ‘Suze, that’s literally the exact problem,’ she says. ‘How can you not see that that’s the exact problem?’

  ‘Cads,’ I say. ‘We’re different from the two of you, OK? We know what we’re doing. Honestly, me and Matt are just having fun together. There’s no pressure, and that’s a good thing. It’s not a big deal at all. We don’t even see each other that much, just if we happen to be in the same place.’

  ‘If you happen to be in the same place?’ Rosie repeats.

  ‘Yeah. Like, at the moment, he’s hanging out with us because of Kel.’

  Rosie snorts. ‘No, he’s not, you muppet. It’s you.’

  ‘Definitely you,’ Caddy says.

  ‘He’s Kel’s best friend,’ I say. ‘They hang out when they’re both in Brighton.’

  ‘Your wilful blindness is very endearing,’ Rosie says, rolling her eyes. ‘Stupid, but endearing.’

  I feel my face starting to burn. ‘I just meant that Kel is the main reason, and I’m like a bonus.’

  Caddy laughs, sudden and genuine. ‘Oh my God. This is adorable.’

  ‘If you need it spelled out,’ Rosie says, ‘Matt never spent time with all of us until you were around. Last New Year, for example. No Matt.’

  ‘Well, he had all the music stuff going on,’ I say. ‘So he didn’t have much free time.’

  ‘What is wrong with you?’ Rosie asks.

  ‘Ouch,’ I say, pouting for effect.

  ‘Seriously,’ Caddy says. ‘Why are you having such a problem with this?’

  ‘Stop ganging up on me!’ I protest. My face is flaming now. ‘You’re making it sound like a “thing”, that’s all. And it’s not a thing.’

  ‘It’s definitely a thing,’ Rosie says flatly.

  ‘It’s not!’

  ‘Suze, what is it you think people in relationships do that you and Matt aren’t doing?’ Caddy asks. ‘Seriously. What is it?’

  ‘Use the word “relationship”?’ I suggest. ‘Use pet names?’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No, obviously,’ I say. ‘People in relationships want to be in relationships. And we don’t. Relationships are, like, exclusive.’

  ‘So you’re sleeping with someone else as well?’ Rosie asks.

  The obvious thing to do at this moment is tell them that we’re not actually sleeping together, but I don’t. They’ll be even more convinced that it’s ‘a thing’ if they find out. So I roll my eyes and sigh. ‘Don’t be so literal. No. But I could, if I wanted to. And so could he. He probably is, I don’t know.’

  They both gawp at me. Caddy’s eyebrows have gone right up to her hairline. ‘You think he’s still sleeping with other girls?’

  ‘I don’t know – that’s the point. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘How can it not matter?’

  ‘Why do you even care?’ I demand, trying not to get annoyed. ‘What’s it got to do with you what kind of relationship we have?’

  ‘Quite a lot? Like, the fact that his best friend is my boyfriend? And even if he wasn’t, I think you deserve better.’

  ‘Than Matt?’ I’m instantly defensive on his behalf, surprising myself with it. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  ‘No,’ she says, overly patient. ‘Not him specifically. You deserve better than benefits. Or being someone’s benefits.’

  ‘Do you hear how judgemental you sound right now?’

  There was a time when me saying this would have been more than enough to make Caddy’s eyes go Bambi-wide and her to back off. But today she just rolls them and says, ‘I care about you and I worry that Matt – who Kel and I introduced you to, so I feel responsible – could hurt you. Girls fall for him all the time. They say they won’t, but they do.’

  ‘You and Kel are both judgemental,’ I say. ‘Maybe you should work on that before worrying about me.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you and Matt are deluded,’ she says. ‘We all saw you together. We saw it. You know what Rosie said when the two of you “went to get drinks”?’ She lifts her fingers in scare quotes.

  Rosie lets out a bark of a laugh. ‘Oh God, don’t tell her what I said.’

  ‘What did you say?’ I demand, spinning a little in my seat to stare at her.

  ‘She said she shipped it,’ Caddy says.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Rosie starts laughing harder. ‘I was drunk. I wasn’t myself.’

  I’m not laughing. ‘Make up your mind. Are you shipping us or are you saying he’s a fuckboy who’s going to hurt me? Or that I’m the problem?’

  ‘Suze—’ Caddy begins, face creasing.

  ‘Listen,’ Rosie interrupts, her voice calm. ‘We like you. We want you to be happy. And Matt makes you happy, that’s obvious. We don’t get why that’s so hard for you, that’s all.’

  ‘Don’t you want love?’ Caddy asks, and my head, previously tense, starts screeching Alarm! Retreat! Shutdown! at me. ‘Isn’t that what you want? I don’t get why you don’t want this.’

  ‘I know you don’t,’ I say.

  ‘Are you scared of it?’ Rosie asks.

  Of course I’m scared of it. How can anyone not be? That’s what I don’t understand. Giving yourself to someone that way, exposing all the vulnerable parts of you. How could you ever trust anyone that much? How could you ever trust yourself that much? Letting someone love you like that is giving them ammunition to destroy you. The more you care, the more it hurts.

  ‘This is all irrelevant,’ I say. ‘Matt doesn’t want any of it either. We’re on the same page. We want the same thing. Which is to not want a thing.’ I smile, pleased with myself. ‘It’s a thing.’
>
  Rosie rolls her eyes. ‘Kind of not the point.’

  ‘How is it not the point?’

  ‘Because this is bigger than you and Matt,’ Caddy says, as if she and Rosie are one person, sharing one mind. ‘Fine, you and Matt don’t want a relationship – weird, but OK. What about the next guy? What about the next ten years, or twenty? You’re just going to be on your own forever?’

  I’m starting to feel suffocated. My throat is tightening. The first tug of panic somewhere inside me. ‘Why is it that you can have loads of great people in your life, but if you’re not in a traditional relationship, you’re “on your own”?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘And I don’t know why you think you can say something like this to me, when you’ve got every traditional relationship going and I’m the exact opposite. Let me deal with that in my own way, OK?’

  Caddy and Rosie look at each other, and I want to get up and leave. ‘We just want you to be happy, Suze,’ Rosie says again. ‘You know that, so don’t get all stressed. You know we love you and that you can trust us. This is all coming from a good place. Chill.’

  My food’s gone cold, but I stab a piece of bacon and shove it in my mouth, just so I don’t have to look at them. My happy, normal friends in their happy, normal relationships. I do know they love me, and I do know I can trust them. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find their judgemental concern annoying. Why do I always have to be the one everyone worries about? Why can’t I be on the other side of this for once?

  It’s not until I’m home later that day that it occurs to me that Caddy never finished explaining what was going on with her and Kel, and that she’d done a me in how deftly she’d moved the conversation away from something she didn’t want to talk about. It was almost impressive. I pick up my phone and shoot Rosie a quick message, because part of being a trio is separating off into twosomes to talk about the other one.

  Me:

  Should we be worried about Caddy and Kel?

  Rosie:

  Hmmm … depends what you mean by worried.

  !!! Roz!! It’s that bad?

  Rosie:

  No, it’s fine. But long-distance relationships are against the odds anyway, right? And it’s not great right now.

  Me:

  Who’s in the wrong?

  Neither/both? Sounds to me like Kel’s being a bit possessive, but if she’s always been super-close and then starts drifting off, it makes sense that he’d worry? Plus we both know she fancies that guy.

  You know about Owen?!

  Suze. Of course I know about Owen.

  She’s told you that she fancies him?

  No, but I’m not an idiot. You met him, right? What’s he like?

  Basic.

  That bad?

  Not even bad, just blah. Just your basic guy. You know he came on to me?

  Every guy comes on to you.

  Still, bit of a dick move if she fancies him, right?

  ‘Roz, don’t be silly, not every guy comes on to me. I’m not that beautiful. Or big-headed.’

  Me:

  Rosie:

  It’s fine, I understand. You can’t help the face you were born with. Or your massive ego.

  Are you done?

  Don’t worry about Cads and Kel. They’ll be fine.

  Promise?

  Yes, I obviously promise something so completely out of my control.

  OK, good, so long as you promise xx

  24

  ‘Tonight’

  Secret Nation

  It hurts when they go back to uni. They leave on the same afternoon, Rosie on the coach up to Norwich and Caddy driving up with her sister. Having them back in my life for three weeks has made me realize how much I miss them when they’re away, which I guess is stupid, considering how much time we’d spent apart while I lived in Southampton, which was entirely my decision and my fault.

  In their absence, January rolls forward, grey and dull. I meet Miriam and we talk about my progress (‘You really are doing so well’), the whole plumbing thing (‘But why didn’t you call me?’) and how my pathway plan is playing out. She wants to talk about careers, whether I’ve started thinking more long-term, and I tell her no even as I think about Marcus giving me a tour of Dilys’s care home, and what he’d said about nursing needing people like me.

  The truth is I’ve been thinking about it a lot, but the only person I’ve told is Dilys. In her own silent way, she’s been pushing me to talk about it each time I see her. She does this thing where she puts her index finger up in the air whenever I shake my head and say I couldn’t do it. It means ‘But!’. So I’ll say, ‘It’s a stupid idea, I couldn’t even get into university,’ and she’ll put her finger in the air and raise her eyebrows: But! What if you could?

  Matt, who went back to London the day after New Year, has been doing some session guitar work for a studio and has dropped back his bar hours to part-time. He’s excited, he tells me on WhatsApp, that this could be the way forward for him. A couple of weeks into January, he suggests that I come up to London for the day and play tourist. When I do, he meets me at Victoria station with two cups of coffee and a smile. ‘Caramel mocha, right?’

  ‘Well remembered,’ I say. ‘Thanks. So what’s on the itinerary, tour guide?’

  We go to Spitalfields market for lunch and to spend some time browsing the stalls, lingering the longest over one with a huge vinyl record collection. Matt tells me that he wants to own a real record player one day, and I say of course he does. I buy a teal scarf with silver stars, even though I probably shouldn’t, because I want something I can keep from today. Matt buys two pastéis de nata on the way out and we eat them as we walk back towards the tube. From there, we go, in his words, ‘full-on tourist’. We walk to Leicester Square and through to Piccadilly Circus, stopping at the National Portrait Gallery on the way to Trafalgar Square. We sit on the walls of the fountain for a while, talking, his hand curled comfortably around my knee, and then head off again towards the South Bank.

  Matt leads me across one of the Golden Jubilee Bridges, pausing in the middle and pointing at the London Eye. ‘That,’ he says, ‘is my favourite tourist attraction in London.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. I just love it. Is that weird?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. ‘But in a good way.’

  ‘Do you want to go on it?’ he asks hopefully. ‘We can do something else, if you want.’

  I reach out and take his hand. ‘Definitely want to,’ I say.

  We join the queue, which seems long considering it’s an ordinary Thursday evening and the London Eye isn’t exactly a new tourist attraction. But still, I don’t mind. Matt happily tells me a load of London Eye trivia until he spots the look on my face and flushes pink.

  ‘Don’t stop!’ I say.

  ‘You’re laughing at me.’

  ‘I’m not! It’s sweet. You don’t seem the type to store tourist trivia.’

  ‘Hey, I contain multitudes,’ he says.

  ‘Clearly,’ I say.

  When we finally get on, I head to the side of our pod and look out, touching my fingers to the rail as we make our slow progress up and round. Matt stands behind me, one hand light on my waist, the other pointing out landmarks in the darkening skyline.

  I turn, my back to the view, so I can smile at him. ‘You know your stuff.’

  ‘My dad is a trivia nerd about stuff like this,’ he says. ‘I guess I picked it up from him. I mean, he’s a dick, and I don’t want to be like him, but …’ He trails off, then shrugs uncertainly. ‘I don’t know. I like knowing this stuff.’

  ‘That’s not a bad thing,’ I say.

  ‘Confusing, though.’

  ‘I had a therapist who says it’s good to recognize what good came with the bad,’ I say. ‘She says it’s a way to remember that people are human, not monsters. Like, it’s OK to love music and be glad I grew up with a dad who made me love music, but still feel legitima
te anger about the bad stuff. They don’t cancel each other out, you know?’

  Oh, God, what the hell did you say that for? My face has heated up. I open my mouth to try and take it back, ready to make a joke, but he’s reached for my hand and squeezed it, just gently. ‘That’s a good point,’ he says, nodding. ‘I might tell Mum. She’s actually thinking about getting a therapist, but she’s not sure if it’ll help.’

  ‘She should,’ I say. ‘Therapy’s great.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Well, maybe “great” isn’t the word. But it’s helpful, yeah. Maybe if more people had it, the world would be better.’

  He smiles. ‘State-sponsored therapy.’

  ‘Yeah! Even better. Sometimes I think people feel like they need permission to have it. If it was state-sponsored they wouldn’t need an excuse. I wish my mum would have it; she actually needs it. I said that to her once, but it didn’t go down well.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Oh, she said something about how only dramatic people have therapy.’

  ‘Did she say that before or after you had it?’

  ‘After.’ I see a flash of appalled confusion on his face, which he tries to cover, bless him. ‘My mum doesn’t like me very much,’ I say. ‘Which is another thing that sounds dramatic but is actually true.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asks, but he asks it like it’s a normal question, with an actual answer, instead of brushing me off and telling me that of course she likes me, she’s my mother.

  So I answer. ‘I’m just not what she wanted, really. I think sometimes that she’d like to like me more than she does, if that makes sense. But some things just are.’

  ‘Do you like her?’ he asks. No one’s ever asked me this before, not ever, and the question surprises me.

  ‘No,’ I say, surprising myself further. ‘I actually don’t.’ It feels like a revelation and a betrayal all at once. Too much to examine right now, so I fold up the feeling and store it for later, sighing out the tension that’s formed in my chest in one long breath. ‘Anyway. Sorry. That got heavy.’