The Places I've Cried in Public

by Holly Bourne

  I felt like all my sanity had drained out of me. All my ability to see straight or act and behave like a “normal” human was supposed to, gone. All I knew was that I had to get through to him. I could handle him hating me, I probably deserved it. I could handle him screaming at me. I could probably even handle him breaking up with me – just as long as I felt he was there. That he cared about me at all. His total lack of emotion only made me more emotional. I knew the harder I cried and the crazier I got, the more repulsive I was becoming, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to break through. I had to, I had to.

  “REESE. PLEASE, REESE. YOU’RE KILLING ME! TALK TO ME.”

  He stood up and walked away towards the station. I chased after him, wailing like a cat who’d been trodden on.

  “I ONLY WENT AFTER ALFIE BECAUSE HE WAS CRYING. IT’S YOU I LOVE. YOU KNOW IT’S YOU I LOVE.”

  He entered the harsh strip lights of the station, where announcements told us about the very few trains leaving Sheffield that late at night. A few drunken people clutching baguettes looked up blearily as I stormed in after him.

  “So you’re just going to leave?” I yelled at his back. “Go home in the middle of the night? And what? Not talk to me ever again?”

  He carried on walking and I carried on scuttling after him. I glanced up at the board, and aha! There were no trains going to London. It was too late. He had to stay. He had to stay with me. Reese looked up at the board and I felt him notice it and figure out the same thing. I stopped behind him because I suddenly felt slightly afraid. His back radiated a blast of danger.

  I sniffed and tried to wipe away my tears with my hands. I stared at his back, desperation oozing out of me. Waiting…waiting…

  He turned and made himself look at me.

  “There are no trains,” I said.

  “So it appears.”

  “Reese, I love you.”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Do you really though, Amelie?”

  “Yes! Of course I do! I’m here, aren’t I?”

  The relief that he was speaking to me. The relief that he was looking at me. I saw his walls begin to crumble and I dared to hope that we could get over this, that we could mend this unbearable anxiety in my stomach.

  “You just ran after him,” he whispered. “I came all this way, and then you run after another guy.”

  My heart flooded itself with love. He sounded genuinely sad. I couldn’t bear the thought that I’d hurt him. I would’ve done anything to make it better.

  “I love you,” I repeated, wanting to soothe him so much, to reassure him of how much I cared. “Seeing you in the crowd was one of the best moments of my life.” And my memory was already rearranging itself, telling myself that was the truth.

  The tiniest hint of a smile. “Really?” he asked, thawing.

  I wanted to throw myself at him, but I held myself back, sensing I needed to convince him a bit more yet. “It was like a fairy tale.”

  “It was a last-minute thing. I only booked the hotel this morning.”

  I smiled shyly. “You’ve booked a hotel?”

  He nodded. “Yes. A really posh one. Well, as posh as you can get in Sheffield.”

  The joke told me we were getting there. And he’d spent all this money and come all this way. He must love me.

  I held out my shaking hand. “Can we go to this hotel then? Talk things through?”

  He let me squirm on the hook a moment or so longer.

  Then he smiled.

  Then he said, “Or maybe, instead of talking, you can make it up to me?”

  He wrapped his fingers in mine and pulled me into him. The drunk people cheered for us as we kissed under the announcement board. Then he tugged on my arm, and he started walking me to the hotel he’d booked. The hotel where it happened.

  “You’d do it if you loved me.”

  “But, Reese…”

  “Everyone does it.”

  “But…”

  “Is it because of him? Because you still love him?”

  “What? That’s nothing to do with it. I’m here because I love you!”

  “I came all this way. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  …

  “It’s not even a thing. Other girls do it all the time. Why are you being so frigid?”

  “But…”

  “I’ll go slow. We’ll take it really slow. Please.”

  …

  “Please, Amelie.”

  I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to. I’d said “no” so many times. “Never” even more times. There was not one part of me that wanted to do it.

  …

  “I love you, Amelie.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Just try. For me, try. I thought you loved me.”

  …

  “Look, I’ll take it slow. Really slow. I promise I’ll stop the second it hurts, but it won’t.”

  “I really don’t want to, Reese. Can’t we just…?”

  …

  The way he looked at me. I would lose him if I said no. I really wanted to say no. My arms were crossed over myself, my head down. He kissed my neck. Started to take off my top while I clung back to it, not even wanting to be naked.

  “We love each other. It’s not a big deal. Stop making it a big deal. Don’t you love me?”

  “Of course I love you.”

  “Then show me. Try.” …

  No…

  No no no no no…

  “I guess I can try.”

  I’m back at my hotel and I’m screaming. I’m under the showerhead again and I’m still screaming. I feel like I’ve been screaming since it happened but no one can hear me. They must be silent screams. Or it’s just I have nobody left in my life to listen to them, to care about them.

  You lied, Reese.

  You said you would take it slowly, but you didn’t.

  You said you would stop if it hurt, but you didn’t.

  In fact, when I said it was hurting, you only got rougher.

  I’ve not let myself think about it until now. Now I’m scared I’ll never be able to stop thinking about it again. Whenever I close my eyes, the memory regurgitates on me.

  And it wasn’t just how you were during it that messes with my head, Reese, but also…

  Also…what you were like afterwards.

  How you kissed away my tears, rubbing my nose with your nose like we were cute Eskimos.

  How you said, “That was amazing,” like it was.

  How you fell asleep, without asking me if I was okay, even though I was so clearly not okay. You rolled over, ignoring the mess we’d made on the sheets, ignoring your girlfriend staring hollowly at the ceiling and in pain because of the way you’d been. You started to snore and I listened to the noise of it, and to the sounds of the city outside, and I focused on getting through each five-second interval for quite some time before I was able to take myself to the shower and collapse onto the tiled floor in shock. It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. Yet it happened, it happened, it happened and it can never be taken away.

  The next morning, Reese woke me up with room service. He’d even got them to put a carnation on the tray. Between mouthfuls of croissants, he leaned over to kiss me, tucking my hair behind my ear and looking at me with such tender love that I started to think maybe I’d imagined the Reese he was the night before.

  “I love you so much.” He squeezed my hand as we checked out.

  “I love you too,” I found myself replying.

  The receptionist overheard, sighed and said, “You guys are so cute.”

  I found myself thinking, Maybe we are.

  I’d left my bag at Jessa’s, but I couldn’t face seeing her and explaining everything. Not when my whole body hurt. So I just left with what I was standing up in. The train journey was agony, sitting for that long. Reese winked at me and then took my fingers to his mouth and kissed them. He rested his head on my shoulder, and he whispered how much he loved me and how great last night wa
s and how special it was that we’d found one another. And it started to melt in. Because what else could I do? Focus on the previous night and what had happened? It seemed so strange, so surreal, that he could be like that – just take what he wanted when it was clear I hadn’t wanted to give it – and then be like this. The two didn’t fit. So maybe I’d exaggerated his brutality, him ignoring the fact I clearly didn’t want to? Or maybe he’d just got carried away and didn’t mean it, or didn’t realize I was hurting? Which doesn’t make sense, because I’d started crying. I’m not sure how he missed that.

  He was perfect the whole way home, as I left the North and the scattered carcass of my old life behind me. We whizzed past the chimneys and he fell asleep on my shoulder, and I felt so safe and so full and so glad he was back. That I’d managed to save it. Save us. I could just push last night aside. It was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit. It was the Bounties left in an empty tub of Celebrations – just leave them behind and pretend they’re not there.

  He was wonderful as he walked me home, kissing me and saying he couldn’t wait to see me at college the next day. He was wonderful that night, sending me funny messages full of kisses.

  “How was your trip?” Mum asked when I got in, not noticing I didn’t have my bag with me.

  “Great. It was great.”

  I got into my room, and I crawled onto my stomach, lying face down in bed. Memories started resurfacing and I felt the desperate need to shower again.

  My phone went.

  Him!

  It shook in my hands as I read it.

  Reese: We are perfect together and I love you so much xxx

  It was just what I needed. It just about made it all alright again.

  I’ve been naked on the floor of this hotel room for most of the night. I got up once, to wrap myself in a towel. I’ve not slept. I’ve just sort of cried and huddled and shivered and wailed. The hotel is silent at this early o’clock in the morning. I peel myself off the ground, turn on the shitty complementary hairdryer and point it at parts of my body to warm up. I manage to pull some clothes on, then see in the new day by staring at the wall and shaking violently.

  Alfie’s mum can hardly contain her surprise when she finds me at her door – at eight o’clock on a Sunday morning.

  “Amelie! Oh my god. Hello.”

  “Is Alfie up?” I don’t have the energy for basic pleasantries.

  “I don’t think so. But I can wake him, if you don’t mind waiting in the kitchen.”

  She invites me in, without asking me why the hell I’m there, and why so early in the morning, and why I’m not down south, or why I deem it appropriate to just turn up when I’m so very responsible for breaking her son’s heart.

  “Wait here. Feel free to make a cuppa.”

  I’ve always loved Jan. I’ve known her since I was five – she picked me up from music lessons, shared the school run with my mum. She’d always let me choose what to sing along to on the car stereo.

  I take a seat in this kitchen I know so damn well. I let warmer memories crowd into my annihilated brain. Memories of Alfie and me attempting to bake beetroot brownies and how they turned to mush. The endless cups of tea, sat chatting to his family about science or Sheffield Wednesday football club, or how well my last gig went. The covert kisses we snuck in, between family members coming in or out – me giggling into Alfie’s chest the one time his brother walked in on us mid-kiss and yelled, “EWW.” I bathe in the warmth of these memories and they light the tiniest of flames in me. Until I realize that is all in the past and I’ll never be able to undo what’s happened, and Alfie hates me, and I have no idea what I’m doing here, only that I couldn’t not come.

  I hear his mum’s muffled voice through the floorboards. The creak of Alfie stirring awake.

  “Amelie’s here?” He says it so loud I can taste his confusion on my tongue.

  My heart thrums as I wait to hear him swear, or refuse to come down. He has every reason to. He owes me nothing. But I must’ve known for certain he would come down, that’s why I came. Because I can rely on him.

  And here, here he is, thumping down the stairs, appearing in the door frame.

  His mouth collapses open when he sees the state of me.

  “Hi,” I manage, drinking him all in, wanting to cry just at seeing him. He’s pulled on some baggy jeans and that T-shirt he loves so much with the periodic table on it. His hair is messed up. Jan’s not come down with him.

  “Amelie, what the hell’s happened?”

  I can’t cry. Not yet. It wouldn’t be fair to him, and I’ve already been so unfair to him. Me being here right now is unfair too. So I hold it together. Just. Though I’m ripping at the seams. It feels like I’m held together with Pritt Stick that’s melting in the sun.

  “Can we go for a coffee?” I ask.

  We don’t talk as we get coffee from the place we always got it from. Every big talk we’ve ever had we’ve had in the Botanical Gardens. We instinctively know we need to save it all for there.

  We clutch our cups and sip at them, even though they’re still a bit too hot. The gardens are beautiful and bursting with blossom. Magnolia punctuates the blue of the sky, and carefully-tended beds host cute crops of flowers. It’s cold though, and I’m declimatized to the northern chill. We wipe dew off our bench, then we tuck our coats under our bums and sit down anyway.

  Just Alfie’s presence brings me temporary calm. I forgot what it feels like to be near him. Even before we were together, he was like slipping your feet into your favourite pair of slippers. We stare out at the red and yellow of the manicured flower beds.

  “I know I’ve said it before, but I’m sorry.”

  Alfie sighs and won’t look at me. Not in the way that Reese would refuse to look at me – like it was a punishment – more in a please-give-me-a-minute-and-then-I-promise-I’ll-be-with-you way. I leave the silence to settle, I leave him the time he needs to break it.

  “Why are you here, Ammy?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, honestly.

  At that, he turns to me. Alfie doesn’t just look at me, he really takes me in. I see his eyes search mine, I see them scan my red-raw face, my shaking, skinny body.

  “What’s happened to you?” He asks with such genuine care that I almost combust.

  “I don’t know.” Then I do start crying a little. Not to make him feel sorry for me, or to trick him, but only because I can’t not. I start talking, words pouring out of me. “I came up here because things aren’t good, and I’m trying to figure out what happened… Alfie, I’m so sorry about what I did to you… I can’t even… I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t want to take the blame off me – but I think maybe it hasn’t all been my fault. I think… I think… He…he…”

  Alfie shakes his head. “Ammy, if you want to cry on someone because it didn’t work out with your new boyfriend, I’m really not the person to have picked.”

  “I know. I get that. But that’s not what’s happened. Sorry, I know I’m being so unfair, but I don’t know who else to tell…” His anger, though totally justified, adds to the pain and guilt surging through me, yet I desperately gallop on – the words are desperate to come out. “Alfie, it’s not about breaking up with him, it’s about everything that happened before that. Some…really dark stuff happened, and I’m only just letting myself remember it…”

  I start shaking in my coat, the memory crashing over me again and again, like I’m trapped in a rip tide.

  “He did something bad…he did lots of bad things…”

  At that, he softens. He reaches out and puts a hand on my shoulder. The undeserved kindness almost ruins me.

  “Amelie. Let’s take this slowly. What happened?”

  I start sobbing rawly. I drop my coffee cup. The lid comes off and it spills all over the concrete, spraying my shoes. “I feel like I’m going mad,” I tell him, ignoring the mess.

  “Talk to me, Amelie.”

  “I don’t deserve you. I don’t deserve
your kindness. I don’t deserve anything good.”

  “What? Ammy. What are you even saying? You’re scaring me a little.”

  I feel so guilty for confiding in him – this boy whose heart I broke – and yet, I came here, I clearly need to be around him. Alfie gives me some time, acting like he’s fine. Though, when he bends down to pick up my cup, I see his hands wobbling.

  Eventually I manage to say, “Sorry. It’s so inappropriate for me to be telling you this. After how I treated—”

  Alfie interrupts me. “Let’s worry about you and me and what happened another time. Look, before all this, we were best friends. You’re still my best friend… Oh god, I didn’t mean to make you cry harder.”

  I snuffle, but it doesn’t stop snot dripping into my mouth. You’re still my best friend. Those words. How generous they are…the safety I feel. Though I’m crying, it feels good. I want to tell my best friend about what happened.

  “The boy who came up to Sheffield a few months ago… Reese. His name’s Reese. Well, we’re not together any more. But that’s not why I’m so upset. Well, that’s not only why. Alfie? I’ve been remembering things. I came up here because something happened that night we went to the Leadmill. And I’ve been trying not to think about it, but now I can’t think of anything else, and I’m not sure I understand what happened.”

  Alfie’s hand on my shoulder tightens ever so slightly, and I sense him forcing himself to loosen it again. “Did he hurt you, Ammy?”

  I pause. Then I say, “Yes.”

  Alfie lets out a big breath.

  Then I add, “He did something really bad.”

  Alfie throws his head back to the sky. He takes his hand off my shoulder and I’m already panicking that he’s the wrong person to tell, that this is all about to get worse, that this is the stupidest idea ever. “Ammy?” he asks the sky quietly. “Did he make you do anything that you didn’t want to do?”

  I pause. Then I say, “Yes.”

  Saying it out loud releases something. A part of my stomach that’s been constrained since the last time I was here. The unravelling feels amazing for the tiniest of moments, but agonizing, rip-roaring pain fills the gap. I start crying again.