The Places I've Cried in Public

by Holly Bourne

  I’ve passed out and regained consciousness so many times. It’s been months, Reese. Months. But you’ve come back, you’ve still come back, and that makes me fizz with joy. But…but…

  It’s also been long enough for me to get help, to know that maybe this isn’t healthy. I keep walking. I keep putting one foot in front of another. I hold on. I don’t say anything back. I’m seeing Joan – she will help me make sense of this. I don’t trust myself to make sense of anything any more.

  Ironically, you can’t handle my silence. “Amelie, please talk to me. This is torture. Are you even listening? I love you. Did you not hear me? I love you.”

  I snap for a second, and let my guard down. I spin to look at your beautiful, desperate face. “You have a really weird way of showing it,” I say.

  Your eyes widen, I see you gear up for an argument, one you will win, no doubt. Yet, you throw me off again.

  “I know,” you admit. “I’m sorry, Amelie. I’m so sorry. I’m such a fuck-up, I’m such a fucked-up mess.” You stop and lean against someone’s garden wall. I cannot help but stop with you. I’ve never seen you like this, not ever. You take off your hat, and look so vulnerable without it. You squeeze it in your hands, ruining the brim. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Amelie,” you choke out. “I feel like I’m broken. I know I always made it your fault, and I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry. Because it’s me. I’m the problem. What’s wrong with me, Amelie?” Your whole body’s shaking. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?” Then you cry. You collapse and dissolve in on yourself while I stand here hopelessly, in total shock. “Amelie, I need you.” You look up at me through your tears. “You were so good for me. So good.”

  My heart starts to lurch towards you, like a dog dragging its owner on a lead. Because I love you, Reese, and I can’t bear to see you like this. My head starts joining forces. It starts having dangerous thoughts like, Maybe this is the breakthrough we needed and He must love you, look how much he is hurting. This must be the truth.

  You are crying. You, not me. Here, in a public place. Where anyone could walk past. We’re even. You’ve finally made yourself cry, rather than me – and maybe, just maybe, everything between us will be okay.

  I reach out to comfort you, knowing physical contact will be the undoing of me.

  “I’m such a mess. Amelie, help me. I love you. You’re the only one who can…”

  And, just before I make contact with your shoulder, there’s a voice.

  Run.

  Run, it whispers. Now! Go! Flee! It is not safe to stay here.

  My hand pauses in mid-air. Where’s this voice coming from?

  I’ll tell you where.

  It’s my gut.

  And I promised myself I’d listen to it. I clutched it and I solemnly swore and I must I must I must listen to it. Because listening to my heart got me nowhere, and neither did listening to my head. It’s my gut’s turn to have the steering wheel. I promised.

  I don’t touch your shoulder. I don’t say “There, there”. I don’t let the fairy tale come true – not yet. The only way I can walk away now is by telling myself that, if you really love me like you’re claiming to, then you can wait.

  I take a step back and you look up, tears still on your cheeks. “Amelie, please? At least sit down next to me. I need you. Please.”

  I shake my head. “I’ve got to go to my music lesson.” I take another step back.

  “Music can wait! Amelie.” You tap the space next to you on the wall so desperately it’s almost a command.

  You’re saying my name so much. You never used to call me by my name. It takes every ounce of bravery I have to refuse. “I’m sorry you’re upset,” I say. When I speak, my voice sounds different. Calmer, deeper, quietly powerful. “But I really am going to be late. Let’s talk later.” Then I turn and I walk away from you as fast as I can.

  “Amelie? Can you stay behind a moment?” Mrs Clarke asks. “I just want to go through your composition coursework.”

  I sway from foot to foot anxiously as her finger traces over my musical score and she mutters the lyrics under her breath. I stare at her wedding band and wonder if she’s happy with the person she’s married to. If they make her feel safe and sure, rather than tense and like something is wrong with her. I hope it’s the first option. I know she’s just a teacher and is only doing her job and all, but I do feel like she really cares. That she actually, properly, wishes me to feel safe and secure too. She runs over the lyrics one more time before looking up with a smile.

  “This is great, Amelie. Just great.”

  I let out a long sigh of breath. “Really?”

  “Yes. I mean, the second verse needs work, but all second verses need work. You’ve got a day or two to get it just right.” She hands my open notepad back to me. “It’s nice to have you back.”

  Even with everything going on, my face cracks into a smile to match hers. “What do you mean?”

  “You know. You doing music again. Turning up to lessons, even. It’s a bit of a relief to be honest, though I’m probably not allowed to say that.”

  “Thank you. Though you’re right about the second verse. I’ll tweak it.”

  Mrs Clarke pulls back my pad to look at it again and she reads the song title out loud: “‘The Places I’ve Cried’. It’s such a good idea for a song.”

  I laugh. “How would you feel if I told you that it was actually Mr Jenkins who gave me the idea?”

  “Oh god – for that V&A project he had the assembly about?”

  “Yeah. I’ve been making a memory map to donate, and that’s what gave me the idea for the song.”

  “Yikes.” She smiles. “Never tell him. He’ll be insufferable in staff meetings. Whoops. I’m probably not allowed to say that either.” She stands up, picking up her coffee mug. “Right, I’ve got a free now. Lots of exciting marking awaits. What are you up to?”

  I shift from foot to foot again. “I was actually going to ask if I could sit here for a while? I have a free, and I find the library hard to work in…” And I’m hiding from you. “Would that be okay?”

  She holds out her arm. “Of course. My classroom is your classroom. Good work, Amelie. I can’t wait to hear you record the finished song.”

  “Me neither.”

  I watch my teacher leave. The noise of corridor activity is slightly louder as she swings the door open and then muffles when it swings shut again. If I sit in that corner, then you won’t be able to see me through the glass. No one will be able to see me. And that’s just what I need for the next forty minutes, before my appointment with Joan.

  I allow myself five minutes to fantasize about everything that happened this morning. I doodle biro hearts as I play all the Disney outcomes in my head. Here’s a lovely fantasy about you begging for forgiveness for weeks. You’ll happily do everything I’ve ever desired to prove your love for me, and then we’ll reunite stronger than ever. Here’s just a really good kiss I’m imagining, clutching each other on the garden wall I didn’t sit on.

  “Stop it,” I say out loud.

  I’m here to remember. I’m here because this music room is one of the places I cried. It’s nondescript. It looks pretty much like every classroom in any educational establishment. There’s a faded wall display as it’s not near open evening yet so it hasn’t been replaced in ages. The tables are arranged in a horseshoe shape and they all have wads of chewing gum stuck underneath them. It’s a room that’s always too cold in winter and too hot in summer. Just your everyday, typical classroom, and you made me cry in it.

  I close my eyes.

  “Crazy,” I mutter under my breath, repeating your words. “You’ve gone completely crazy.”

  I open my eyes again and find I’m smiling. How strange it is, that today of all days – the day I decided to remember this particular cry, this particular cry started by her – you have told me you still love me. That she meant nothing to you.

  Life really does go full circle, doesn’t it?
You may have to wait a hell of a lot longer for it than you’d like to, but, in the end, you really do get back to your starting point.

  Her…

  I’m being a bad feminist really. Calling her that.

  Her name is Eden.

  “I can’t come to yours tonight,” Reese said, without looking at me, in the refectory. “I’m songwriting with Eden.”

  That was his first mention of her and it didn’t go unnoticed. Show me any girl whose little ears do not prick up with female intuition when their boyfriend randomly drops a new girl’s name into conversation.

  I worked really hard to not show any emotion on my face. I was getting good at it. I’d found that, if you can keep your eyebrows still, it sort of stops the emotional responses in the rest of your face – like your eyebrows are the things that unleash tricksy, telltale signs of your inner distress.

  “Who’s Eden?” I asked as neutrally as I possibly could.

  “You know Eden! Everyone knows Eden.”

  “I don’t know Eden.” I was trying to come to terms with multiple instant anguishes. Firstly, he’d just cancelled plans to see me. Again. Even though we hadn’t spent any proper time together in weeks. Even over the Christmas holidays, I’d hardly seen him. “It’s not my fault I have to go see my stupid dad,” he’d said, making me feel guilty, though he’d only gone to see his dad for two days, which didn’t explain the rest of the lonely holidays. Secondly, because of the cancelling, I was now facing yet another night in on my own, trying to work out how to explain to my parents why I have literally no life. I could hardly stand the thought of it. Alone, just staring at my phone and wondering when he was going to message me. Feeling euphoria whenever it flashed a different colour, and then despair when I realized it wasn’t a message from Reese – it wasn’t a message from anyone – just my phone telling me my battery needed charging. Thirdly, I was certain that Reese cancelling again meant that He Didn’t Love Me Any More, and that caused such heart-wrenching anxiety I knew I wouldn’t be able to eat for the rest of the day. He hadn’t even got me a Christmas present, claiming the treasure hunt and trip to Sheffield was one: “Anyway, why do you need presents to feel like I love you? That’s a bit insecure, isn’t it?”

  And now, now, on top of everything, I had to deal with some random girl called fucking Eden?

  “Oh god, you’re going to kick off, aren’t you?” he said, already pissed off.

  “What? Why?”

  “Look, Amelie. I can’t spend every waking moment of my fucking time with you – that would be weird.”

  The band, as always, were sharing a plate of chips between them and pretending very hard not to listen in on our domestic.

  “I’m happy that you’re songwriting,” I protested, feeling my face go red. “I didn’t say I wasn’t.”

  “I can see it on your face though. You’re so pathetic sometimes.”

  Ouch.

  Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch.

  The band put chips in their mouths and wouldn’t look at me. They all got out their phones and pretended to be immersed in their screens.

  Reese carried on. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. Come on! That was a joke. Can’t you take a joke? Look, I only said it because it’s just, it’s a bit weird that you don’t have any friends, don’t you think? It puts so much pressure on me to see you all the time.”

  But you don’t see me all the time, I thought. In fact, you’ve not spent any time outside college with me for over a week.

  I kept my face neutral, because I didn’t want to cry. Not here, in front of everyone. Not again. He found me so disgusting when I cried.

  “I told you, it’s fine.” I leaned over and tried to kiss him in a sexy, breezy manner.

  “Eww, Ams, your breath stinks!” He pulled away and laughed, reaching out to grab a chip while I stayed there, still mid-pucker, and let the humiliation soak through me.

  I have no friends and no life and my breath stinks and even my boyfriend doesn’t want to see me because I’m so pathetic.

  Self-hatred is like a snake that eats its own tail. It feeds off itself – the bacteria of it spawning more bacteria until the infection is out of control. I’d really started to hate myself in those weeks after Sheffield. I’d lost all my friends. I lost all my confidence. Why wouldn’t I? Reese was telling me I was pathetic. He made me feel like it was only out of charity that he hung out with me at all. He’d started saying mean things, on the rare occasions I spent any time alone with him. He’d tap my stomach and say, “How many pasties did you have in Sheffield then?” then call me “oversensitive” when I got upset. He increasingly got rough when we had sex – he’d even called me a slut.

  “Reese,” I’d said, covering my apparently disgusting body with his duvet. “I don’t like it when you call me a slut during sex. Not ever, really.”

  “I didn’t call you a slut!”

  “You did. Just now.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He stood up and wriggled into his jeans. “You hearing things again?” When he turned, a smile was on his face. He leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips. “Hearing voices is the first sign of madness, my little crazy cuckoo.” Another kiss, a really sweet one. Then he got out his phone. “Shit, the band are about to arrive for rehearsal. You better go.”

  So I collected my things and pretended I didn’t mind that I wasn’t welcome at rehearsal any more. I pretended we’d had a most marvellous time.

  “I love you,” I said, as he piled me out of the door.

  “Yeah, whatever, slut.” I gasped, and he laughed and wagged his finger. “Now that time I really did say it.”

  He was joking with such conviction that I started to wonder if I had actually imagined him saying it the first time. Oh god. Maybe I really was going mad? Poor Reese, for having such a pathetic crazy girlfriend, I must be such a burden.

  I really did feel like a burden. I stopped trying to talk to anyone, because I just assumed they wouldn’t want to talk to me. I stopped even being that nice to my parents, who kept asking me what had happened and why I was being like this and where their nice daughter had gone. Reese was the only one who wanted me, and even he didn’t want me around very often. Crazy, pathetic me.

  So the snake of my self-hatred continued to eat itself. I was so twitchy and nervous and filled with self-loathing that I almost didn’t blame him for wanting to spend so much time with Eden.

  Here, in the classroom, I shake my head, because – for the first time today – I think about Eden. Does she know about your message? Or that you followed me to school? Have you even broken up with her yet?

  I bet if she does have any suspicions, you call her crazy. Like you did to me.

  “This is Eden,” he said the next day, bringing her to the table and introducing her to the band. She went around hug-patting everyone hello, like self-confidence wasn’t a big deal.

  “Greetings, earthlings,” Eden said, laughing at her own joke.

  Immediately I hated her. She was everything I was not – cool, edgy. She had a nose piercing and wore ripped jeans and this red crop-top thing with bat-wing sleeves. Who can wear red without feeling like it’s wearing them? I’ll tell you who. Eden.

  I, of course, was introduced last.

  “This is my girlfriend, Amelie,” Reese practically mumbled, gesturing to me before slumping on a chair the other side of the table. She waved hello unenthusiastically.

  “Hi,” I said, trying my best to come across well. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Same. I saw you win the talent show. You’re really good.” It didn’t feel like it was a compliment. Reese sniggered as she said it, for one.

  I pressed on, determined to be a good example of a girlfriend. “So you write songs too? I’ve not seen you around the music rooms.”

  She rolled her eyes. “God, no. I think studying music ruins music. You know? I do philosophy, economics and photography.” She sat down easily, the boys moving their chairs to make room. “No one
can analyse music. I mean, it’s art. Whoever became a proper artist by writing an essay about art?”

  “This is what I’ve been trying to say.” Reese leaned over, his eyes wide with agreement. Meanwhile, my jealousy was so putrid I could’ve spat and it would’ve burned a hole through the table.

  “I mean, I know I’m a good songwriter,” Reese continued, “but that slag Mrs Clarke keeps giving me Cs because she says I can’t keep within the marking criteria. I mean, did John Lennon write songs that followed a list of freakin’ criteria?”

  Rob took the last chip. “You’re comparing yourself to John Lennon now, Reese?” he interrupted. “That’s healthy. Totally healthy.”

  “Oh fuck off.”

  “Calm down, mate,” Rob said. “I was only joking.”

  My stomach started sloshing from side to side again. Somehow this was my fault. Even though Rob had said it, I knew Reese was somehow going to make it my fault.

  As I predicted, he nodded his head towards me. “Of course, Amelie here is the perfect A-grade music student. Aren’t you, bubs? Your songs match all the criteria.”

  I flinched and smiled through it. This was one of his special attacks. One that – when I go over it afterwards, trying to prove that Reese WAS angry and he WAS attacking me and I WASN’T imagining it – makes me feel like I’m trying to pin down a butterfly. Because he didn’t technically actually say anything bad.

  “Criteria songs? Great!” Eden chirped, making it clear she thought it was anything but. She twisted her of-course-perfect body towards the band. “So, your name, dudes! It’s such a good name for a band. Who came up with it?”

  “Reese will claim it’s Reese,” Johnnie said.

  “It was me! How many times do I need to say it?”

  “Totally me,” Rob argued. “I remember it perfectly. We were in Chicken House, and I had an epiphany. It was the most amazing moment of my entire life – even though I got food poisoning afterwards.”

  “Dude, you keep telling this story like it’s true or something,” Reese said, laughing.