Drive Me Crazy

by Portia MacIntosh

  My words leave a look on Danny’s face that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. He looks at me, sad and disappointed, but only for a second before storming off. Danny has proven time and time again that he’s there for me, but will he always be? He does just disappear when he feels like it, but can I just quit my job and my life without a second thought? Can I risk everything to just see what happens with Danny, who I know has a reputation for getting bored of real life?

  I sit on the floor next to Will, my hand still held securely over his face. I slowly and cautiously remove the cloth and see that the damage isn’t as bad as it seemed now that the bleeding is slowing down.

  Will spits out a mouthful of blood.

  ‘I was going to propose,’ he tells me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was going to ask you to marry me, while we were away. I booked us the honeymoon suite, I arranged us a special dinner, and I was going to pop the question.’

  ‘Are you fucking high?’ I ask in disbelief.

  ‘I love you,’ he says with a smile, flashing me his red-stained teeth.

  ‘You’re still married, crazy person,’ I snap, raising my voice. ‘And you’re lying – stop lying to me. I saw Stephanie. She had the ring on.’

  ‘OK, so I wasn’t going to propose. But we can be together now. Properly. And I did book us the honeymoon suite to make things special.’

  ‘Yes, I was wondering about that. That was so gross.’

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate the surprise – like the dress I bought you. Did you like it?’

  I cast my mind back to the floor-length black dinner dress that Will bought me before we went away.

  ‘No,’ I tell him honestly. That’s when I realise that Will doesn’t know me at all. From picking out boring clothes for me, to telling what I should eat, to ticking me off for drinking and swearing. Danny never did any of that. He encouraged me to enjoy myself, to speak freely, and even when he helped me shop for clothes, he steered me towards ones he thought I would like, and I did like them. I love them. I think I love him and I’ve hurt him.

  ‘And what about Julie?’ I ask, but then I realise I don’t care. I don’t need his excuses. Nothing he can say could fix this.

  ‘She was a stupid mistake. I love you,’ Will says again, in case it didn’t sink in the first time.

  ‘You love me, you loved your wife, blah, blah, blah. Love isn’t done and dusted, Will. Loving someone is a conscious choice that you make every day, not just a phrase you bat around. If you love someone, you don’t hurt them.’

  ‘But I didn’t mean to hurt you,’ he insists.

  ‘But you did. With ease. In a spectacular fashion.’

  I climb to my feet and head for the door.

  ‘Candice, don’t go,’ he calls after me.

  ‘You know what?’ I twirl around and flip him off with both hands. ‘I quit too.’

  Chapter 41

  I’m not saying I’m bad at relationships, but I’ve managed to lose two boyfriends in as many weeks, only cementing my theory that I’m going to die having had more cats than husbands.

  Tomorrow morning I have to be up early for Amy’s wedding, and yet here I am, at one a.m., sitting in Becky’s Diner drinking tea that is far too weak to be even a little palatable. Still, it’s the only place that’s open 24 hours so here I am.

  There’s a young couple – about my age – at the table next to me, although it sounds like they’ve just met. The guy doesn’t seem so bad, but the girl is absolutely wasted.

  ‘What’s your name again?’ she asks him, although it’s hard to make out her accent as she slurs her words and shoves chips into her mouth.

  ‘Simon,’ he tells her slowly, like he’s repeating himself for the millionth time.

  ‘I’m going to just call you Pablo,’ she tells him, hitting him on the nose with a chip before putting it in her mouth. ‘You just look like a Pablo; I think it’s your moustache.’

  I glance up at Simon/Pablo and see that he doesn’t have a moustache at all, and I laugh to myself.

  ‘You want to get out of here, Pablo?’ she asks.

  ‘Sure,’ he replies, taking her hand and leading her out, their food hardly touched, just left on the table.

  I can’t actually think of anything worse than getting drunk and pulling some random dude in a burger bar in the early hours of the morning. In fact, I’d rather have the burger.

  I don’t want to be single. I don’t think I’d be very good at it. I was absolutely crap at it before I met Will, and I don’t know how Danny and I ended up together, but it wasn’t my allure, that’s for sure.

  I can’t do nights out, flirting, dates! The thought of signing up for something like Tinder, putting my face out there for guys to swipe through, judging me on my hair, the size of my nose, the colour of my eyes. Even something like Plenty of Fish, where you fill out a profile, doesn’t inspire me with much confidence. I mean, Danny and I had nothing in common, and yet we were perfect for each other. I fucked that up though, didn’t I? I should’ve just left Will to bleed out.

  It’s back to nights in, eating my sad little dinners for one, watching Netflix and stroking my cat to stave off the loneliness. No, that’s not a euphemism, although give it a few months and I’m sure it will be.

  I consider ordering another cup of tea, because this one has gone cold, but then it occurs to me that I’m unemployed now. I don’t have any real savings, I already kind of live from cheque to cheque, and I don’t see last month’s wage lasting me very long at all, not after my little splurge in Brighton. Spending one pound on a cuppa might not seem like much, but I’m not sure how many cuppas I’ve got left in my account.

  My phone buzzes on the table in front of me and I quickly grab it, hoping that it’s Danny. I’ve been trying to call him since earlier, but he isn’t answering. It isn’t Danny; it’s Amy.

  Amy: So nervous. Can’t sleep! Xxx

  Me: Don’t be nervous, you’re going to be so happy together. Xxx

  Amy: Didn’t think you’d be up… Are you with a boy? ;) xxx

  I glance at the drunk dude next to me, who’s decided he’ll share my table with me. He’s hunched over eating a cheeseburger, the burger grasped so firmly in both hands that he’s squashing it to a pulp. He keeps looking from left to right, like one of the other drunk dudes might try pinch it from him.

  Me: Not quite. Sitting in a diner on my own, just thinking about things. Spectacularly fucked up the boy thing. Xxx

  Amy: Which one? Xxx

  Me: Danny. Xxx

  Amy: No, which diner? Xxx

  Me: Oh…haha. Oxford Street. Xxx

  The next I hear from Amy, she’s standing right in front of me. Her long brown hair is wound up in a bun on top of her head and she isn’t wearing a scrap of make-up. The thing I love the most about Amy is that she probably doesn’t care either. She’s got the kind of self-confidence most girls could only dream of.

  ‘Holy shit,’ she gasps. ‘Look at you!’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  I’d forgotten about my makeover, and it only reminds me of how happy Danny made me.

  ‘Let me grab a drink. You can tell me all about it.’

  ‘Aims, you’re up early tomorrow – you’re getting married! You can’t sit here with me and the other losers. You should be sleeping,’ I insist, causing burger boy next to me to flash me a momentary look of being hurt and offended, before getting over it and getting back to his meal.

  Amy looks at him and wrinkles her nose.

  Becky’s at this time of night is wild. People are coming here after their nights out, and they are animals – something about alcohol just does that to people. They’re eating meat, dry humping (at least I hope that’s as far as it’s going) strangers in the not so dark corners of the room, everyone has their volume turned up to maximum as they squawk at each other and bark their orders and you can forget about any kind of queue – it’s every man for himself. I mean, they actually have a bouncer on the door. At
a diner. Need I say more?

  ‘It’s fine. Two seconds, OK?’

  I smile and nod.

  While Amy is at the counter, she looks back at me and smiles.

  ‘Here, I brought you another tea,’ she says, plonking it down in front of me. ‘Shit, Candice. You’re hardly recognisable. You look fucking incredible!’

  ‘Danny’s hard work,’ I tell her.

  ‘Well, the boy has taste. Your hair is going to look cracking with your blue bridesmaid dress. I’m even changing my plans,’ she says excitedly. ‘You rock the big, sexy curls, so I think we’ll go with that.’

  I smile weakly.

  ‘OK, what happened?’ she asks.

  ‘Well, you were right about Danny. He’s the most amazing man I have ever met…but then – ’

  ‘Oh, let me guess… Will stuff?’

  I nod. My friend is used to hearing this phrase.

  ‘Fuck mother-fucking Will,’ Amy rants. ‘You might not think it’s as bad, but he was cheating on you with his wife. End of. You deserve better than that.’

  I bite my lip, scared to tell her the full story.

  ‘What?’ she asks, reading my mind.

  ‘As up for debate as the wife thing might be, the fact he was knocking off the office cleaner too is pretty clear cut.’

  I watch a rush of colour tint my usually pale-skinned friend’s complexion.

  ‘So, I’m going to go and punch him in the fucking face,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Save your hand,’ I tell her. ‘Danny already did it.’

  ‘Good for him. So, what’s the problem?’

  ‘Me. I’m the problem. I should have left with Danny but I didn’t. I stayed to help Will, to hear him out…and when Danny was helping me, one thing he always said was that he wasn’t going to be my intervention, the one who had to forcibly stop me interacting with Will. I shouldn’t have needed stopping; I shouldn’t have given him the time of day.’

  ‘Bit hard when you work for him,’ Amy reasons, rubbing my hand.

  ‘Yeah, I quit.’

  ‘You quit?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘But…you’re you,’ she replies, clearly struggling with a way to get her point across without offending me.

  ‘Yep. Well, now I’m single and soon to be unemployed.’

  ‘Well…at least your hair looks nice.’ She laughs, and even I crack a smile. ‘Candice, you’re going to be fine. Don’t worry about any of this tonight. Come back to mine, get some rest and just have fun tomorrow. Don’t think about any of this.’

  I glance at my phone to check the time (and, if I’m being honest, to see if Danny has texted me) but I only catch a glimpse of the screen before my battery dies.

  ‘OK, sure,’ I tell her. ‘I don’t suppose you have an iPhone charger, do you?’

  ‘You know how I feel about Apple,’ she frowns. ‘But Ted will, I’m sure.’

  I knock back the last of my tea and climb to my feet.

  ‘Damn, girl,’ Amy calls. ‘Look at you. I can’t believe this is you.’

  ‘I might look different, but I’m still the same fuck-up on the inside.’

  Amy grabs me and hugs me. ‘Yeah, but you’re my fuck-up.’

  Chapter 42

  Remember that kids’ game show Finders Keepers? Well, if you were to cut Amy and Ted’s big house down the middle today and peep inside, it would look like that. Rooms busy with people, frantically searching for Amy’s something old – a necklace that her gran gave her for her eighteenth birthday.

  I’m in Amy’s bedroom with her, going through a chest of drawers that is full of various pieces of jewellery, weird little knick-knacks and all kinds of hippy gizmos and gadgets that I couldn’t begin to identify.

  ‘What the hell are these?’ I ask, examining the tiny wooden dolls I just found in a little yellow box. They’re like minute scarecrows, with their rigid bodies and their arms and legs stuck out bolt-straight. They have a pained look on their faces, one that I noticed looking back at me in the mirror this morning.

  ‘They’re worry dolls. You can borrow them if you like,’ Amy says, peeping out from inside her wardrobe before getting back to hunting for her necklace.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I tell her. ‘They look like they’ve got enough on their plate.’

  One of the hairdressers shuffles awkwardly into the room. ‘Erm, Amy, I really need to start your hair,’ she says softly.

  ‘I need to find my necklace,’ Amy says, raising her voice slightly at the poor girl.

  ‘OK, bridezilla,’ I say gently, pulling her out of the wardrobe. ‘Go get your hair done. I’ll find your necklace, I promise.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Amy asks. ‘Because I can’t get married without it.’

  ‘I’m sure. Go, go.’

  Amy reluctantly leaves the room, leaving me alone, surrounded by mess, with the impossible task of finding the silver locket her gran gave her. Her gran passed away not too long ago, so I know how much it means to her to be able to wear this today.

  Where is this bloody necklace? Nothing annoys me more than a question that I can’t google to find the answer to – not that I could google this anyway. My phone is completely flat and Ted has taken his iPhone charger with him. Do you know what? It’s kind of liberating, this forced break from technology and social media. Not that anyone was going to contact me anyway.

  OK, universe. I don’t ask you for much but this is for Amy. Please, tell me where to look. Just give me a sign or something – ideally a sign that doesn’t involve a tattoo that I’ll be stuck with for the rest of my life.

  As I laugh at myself for being so ridiculous, something catches my eye. The corner of a blue scarf falls from the top shelf of the wardrobe and hangs in the air. That was spooky. I know Amy was just in there a few minutes ago but this just fell, just now. I walk over to it cautiously. Is the universe really offering to help me for a second time? I reach up and tug the scarf, only for it to send a box full of CDs crashing down on me. One CD in particular lands on my bare foot, corner first.

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’ I rant in pain.

  I pick up the offending CD, and it’s a compilation of karaoke classics. Of the five tracks it boasts proudly on the front of the box, the first one it lists is ‘Love Shack’, and it makes me think of Danny.

  ‘Fucking universe. Fuck you!’

  I look down at my foot and see that it’s bleeding. It might not be as bad as a tattoo, but I’ll certainly have a scar to show for my second attempt at cosmic ordering.

  I hop to the bathroom, desperately trying not to drip blood on the cream carpet. (I mean, seriously, who has a cream carpet?) Once inside I grab some toilet roll and hold it on the cut until the bleeding stops before examining the nasty gash. This is definitely going to show in the shoe I’m wearing today. Perhaps if I stick a plaster on it, maybe a flesh-coloured one, it might not look so obvious.

  I limp towards the sink and open the door on the medicine cabinet in front of me. I spy a box of plasters and grab them, and what else is underneath but the necklace we’ve been hunting for, just sitting there on the shelf, all alone.

  I laugh and shake my head. The universe really needs to work on a more gentle approach.

  I prance downstairs victoriously, where I find Amy having her hair curled. Lea, Amy’s bitch-bridesmaid that I hate, is sitting next to her. They’re flicking through a copy of The Daily Scoop.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tabloid in your hands,’ I can’t help but blurt out. Amy has many causes, opinions and good fights to fight, and I know that reading tabloid news does not fit any of her agendas.

  ‘I’m redirecting my anger,’ she tells me. ‘Their Bikini Babez feature is the objectification of women.’

  She throws the newspaper across the room.

  ‘It’s nice to see it’s working.’ I laugh. ‘Anyway, be angry no more, because I found it.’

  ‘You found it?’ Amy squeaks, jumping up from her seat m
id curl, causing her to have one piece of hair that is very straight. I notice the pained look on the hairdresser’s face and can’t help but feel sorry for her. Amy is such a chilled person, but this wedding is making her loco. ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In the bathroom cabinet.’

  ‘What? That’s so weird. Well, thank you. You’re a lifesaver.’

  I smile and shrug my shoulders, to let her know it was nothing.

  ‘So, we get to meet this mysterious boyfriend today then,’ Lea says to me. There’s a tone to her voice, like maybe she doesn’t believe me. Typical that I really am single now, so no boyfriend is going to be here. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction though.

  ‘He has to work,’ I lie, but it’s a waste of my breath. The look on her face confirms that she doesn’t believe me.

  ‘Oh no, does he?’ Amy says, continuing the lie, but in a not particularly convincing manner. ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe next time,’ I joke, giving my friend a playful push back towards her chair.

  ‘Oi, there won’t be a next time.’ She laughs, sitting back down.

  I head back upstairs, to make a start putting Amy’s room back to normal while I’m waiting for my turn to have my hair done. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s tidying. It’s just a shame I can’t clean up my own mess.

  Chapter 43

  Amy and Ted tied the knot at the Woodland Park Estate, just outside Manchester. They exchanged their vows down by the lake, in front of their family and their closest friends. They couldn’t have hoped for better weather. It was neither too hot nor too cold, without so much as a hint of breeze, and the sun shining brightly in the sky. They have a beautiful wooden altar for wedding ceremonies here, with a stunning archway covered in perfect white roses, and both Amy and Ted looked cool as hell in their alternative outfits: a big, cream floaty dress for Amy and a Ted in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, with grey trousers and a grey waistcoat. I have to admit, for a hipster, Ted wears the look well. They look great together, like one of those cool couples everyone is jealous of. You just know that they’ll be happy together, having so much fun doing super cool, eco-friendly things. Jealous? Moi?