Pretending: The brilliant new adult novel from Holly Bourne. Why be yourself when you can be perfect?

by Holly Bourne

  I like to have sex however he likes to have it.

  I reach orgasm through penetration alone.

  No man can believe his actual luck when he meets me.

  Oh, by the way, I’m not fucking real.

  * * *

  The morning rolls around, as it always does. I wake sticky and dehydrated, mangled in my sheet. I take a cool shower but am sweaty again by the time I’ve dressed.

  Megan’s face down on the kitchen table, thumping her head into the wood.

  ‘Looking forward to work?’ I ask her.

  A groan is her reply.

  ‘You’re always fine once you’re there.’

  ‘No I’m not. I can’t believe I wasted all yesterday watching Dawson’s Creek.’ Her hair spills all over her head so her entire face is completely obscured. ‘How are you anyway?’ her hair asks me.

  I smile and find I actually mean it. I take out the porridge oats and start the laborious process of cooking them into the most boring, unsatisfying breakfast food ever, no matter how much agave syrup I shove on top. ‘Dead inside,’ I reply. ‘But in a good way. A useful way. I feel like I’m at the start of something good. Less dramatic.’

  Megan sits up, flicking her hair back like a mermaid exiting the water. She analyses me stirring my healthy sludge. ‘Oh my God, you mean it,’ she says. ‘Have you given up on men? Even despite all those terrible books you bought?’

  I nod and stir. It feels good when I nod. Like I’ve just lost twenty stone of bullshit. ‘Yup. I told you they were for research. You have no faith in me. But, yes, it’s over. It’s all over. I feel amazing!’

  Megan’s out of the chair, pulling me in for a hug. ‘Aww, hon. Welcome to the Happiness Club!’

  ‘You’ve literally just been banging your head against a table.’

  ‘That is true. But job stress is so much easier to handle now that I don’t have stupid man-stress to deal with. Look how far I’ve come with my career since I’ve stopped dating.’

  I nod again; it is not to be argued with. There has been a very definite shift between pre-fuck-it Megan, and post-fuck-it Megan. I scooped her off the floor so many times at university and then all through our early twenties. She made my reaction to heartbreak look like I was competing in the stiff upper lip Olympics. I’ve seen her screaming outside an ex’s house at least twice, sobbing and demanding to be let in. Rumours that she was mental ran amok amongst her posh boarding-school friendship circles, and she was deliberately not invited to at least two fancy-pants weddings a few years ago. After every man-gone-wrong, I’ve picked the pieces off the ground and handed them back to her, and when she’s screamed and said she didn’t want them, I’ve picked them up again and eventually forced her to piece herself together.

  Then we’ve been through Zen periods, where she’s realised that ‘Mikey From The Jubilee Line’ or ‘Connor’s Little Brother’ probably, on reflection, wasn’t the love of her life. During these phases she’s gone to the gym every day, meditated, and started nudging her way up the corporate pole of jewellery PR. Until she’s met ‘Joe’ from ‘this thing’ and ‘it’s just sex, I don’t want a relationship anyway’ and, suddenly, she’s screaming at Joe’s window and work have pulled her in for a disciplinary.

  But, three years ago, when she decided to just stop, she picked up the pieces herself without prompting. She started going in to work early, leaving late. Then she applied for this new position at a jewellery company that was much more her style – all graphic, plastic-but-high-end novelty necklaces worn by quirky celebrities and millionaires who live in East London – and she walked it. It’s incredibly stressful and I’ve seen her bang her head on the table like this multiple mornings, but I’ve not seen her cry since that day. She has consistently remained ‘Megan’.

  I tip my porridge into a bowl and join her at our table, chucking some blueberries on top in a futile attempt to improve the thing. ‘I don’t think I can handle work today,’ I admit, dipping my spoon in unenthusiastically. ‘Everyone is going to ask how Friday went, and I’ll have to tell the whole damn thing all over again.’

  ‘So, don’t tell them.’

  ‘You know I don’t have that capacity. I literally can’t keep anything in. I even told my dental hygienist about him.’

  ‘Why?’ she asks.

  My spoon full of porridge stops on the journey to my mouth. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, why do you tell everyone everything?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just do.’

  Megan gets up and stretches her arms over her head, leaning left into it and making a small straining sound. ‘I just wonder what you get out of it,’ she says, ‘compared to what they get out of it. All these helpful advice givers.’ She bends down and touches her toes. ‘I just worry sometimes that you come out of it confused, and they come out of it feeling much better about themselves.’

  The porridge sticks in my throat. I take a sip of tea and force myself to swallow. ‘It’s a bit early for Megan psychotherapy, isn’t it?’

  She pats my head, then picks up an oversized plastic rainbow-necklace from the side and shoves it unceremoniously over her head. ‘Probably. I’m just using you as a distraction from how much shit I have to get through at work. I dunno though. Be careful today, April. At work, I mean. Don’t fall into that trap of being the untogether one whom people care about deeply, but whom they also use to feel more in control of their own lives. Even if they don’t mean it, don’t let them put that on you.’

  Then, with a collecting of handbag, a muttering of ‘why do back-to-back meetings fucking exist in this fucking world?’ and a kiss blown in my direction, Megan is out of the door. Leaving me with my half-eaten breakfast and too many thoughts to be having at this time of the morning.

  The heatwave is hanging on and nobody in London can believe their luck. This morning BBC News threatened it could last the whole summer, but everyone’s still seeing it as a treat rather than a warning. I walk through the red-brick streets towards the Tube station, dodging a collection of teenage schoolgirls giggling in navy uniform, and smelling of sun-lotion mixed with vanilla perfume.

  The Tube is too full to get onto. The doors clunk open to reveal a comedy sketch of commuters stuffed into the carriage, like that clowns crammed into a car trick. Despite this, people are still determined to force their sweaty bodies into the impossible situation. I stand back and watch the spectacle, and, somehow, space is found for most of them. The doors slide shut and the Tube rattles off, leaving just me and a few other stragglers waiting.

  Do people really use me to feel better about their own lives?

  Am I really that person?

  When the next train whirrs in, it’s much emptier, and I feel smug at the tiny win against London. I even manage to get a seat, putting my blazer down so my bare skin doesn’t touch the gross cushion. The stench of one man opposite is so putrid that he could be used as smelling salts. Sweat’s already drenched his business shirt, and he’s eating a cereal bar so aggressively that crumbs of desiccated oats are spraying from his mouth like a whale’s blowhole. He finishes it with a chomp and dusts off his remaining mess like a rhino scent-marking a river with their own shit.

  I hate you, I think, as I look at this man.

  Once I get to Baker Street, I treat myself to a coffee, so I’ll be slightly late and won’t have to handle all the ‘how did it go’s?’ I stand outside Pret and watch everyone scurry to work in a haze of self-important Tasmanian Devil tornadoes. Simon once said ‘Pret coffee is shit’, when it literally all tastes the same to me.

  ‘Fuck you, Simon,’ I say out loud, taking a hearty swig. ‘It’s just fucking coffee, you tosser.’

  This anger is new, the bitterness fresh out of the box. I have been many things in my life – frantic, desperate, obsessive, silly, motivated – but never cynical. Never angry. But it’s like I’ve only been pushing it down, letting it form pockets of hatred in my body like undetected tumours, and now they’ve all burst and the
cancer of it is spreading rapidly.

  I finish my perfectly-adequate coffee and check the time on my phone. It’s 9.34. I toss my cup into the rubbish bin next to the homeless man, fibbing when I say I don’t have any change, but feeling like I’m still a good person because at least I didn’t ignore him. I walk up the street to our office, punch in the entry code and climb the dingy steps. I take a breath and stand outside the door for one moment, composing myself. Something I’ve never done before. I draw the curtain shut on my personality and push through into the keyboard clacks and furrowed brows of Monday morning.

  ‘Hi April.’ Mike, our CEO, nods as I walk past and slide behind my desk, pushing aside all the unfinished crap I’d abandoned there Friday evening. Matt and Katy nod ‘hello’ too and I nod back. I never just nod back. Usually I bowl in, dramatically unveiling my latest drama in the swirl of my coat being taken off, and letting everyone in on the hilarious mess that is my life. Today, I just nod.

  I switch on my computer, put my headphones on, and open up my emails. There’s the usual quicksand to wade through, sent by the people who check their inboxes over the weekend, to prove to us all how much harder they work. I roll my eyes and bash out my responses. We’re about to recruit a new batch of volunteer advisors, so I lose an hour to tweaking the wording of the advertisement.

  At ten thirty, Katy waves her hand to distract me away. ‘Coffee?’ she mimes.

  I shake my head, even though I’m desperate for more caffeine. She doesn’t mean ‘coffee’, however. She means standing in the kitchen and debriefing our lives. My life, mainly, since I usually have the most drama to tell. I’m bashing too hard on my keyboard and clicking the mouse button like it disrespected my mother. I feel like there’s a million tiny Bunsen burners in my veins, slowly bubbling my blood, and I’m not sure where this anger is coming from but it’s really demanding to be felt.

  I wait until Katy sits back down with her drink before I go up and get my own. I close my eyes as I wait for the kettle to boil, focusing on my stomach going in and out with each breath to see if that helps dislodge all the putrid rage.

  ‘April, happy Monday,’ Matt says, joining me with an empty mug.

  I flicker my eyes open and smile with closed lips. ‘Morning Matt.’

  ‘Good weekend?’ he asks. ‘More importantly, good date?’ The kettle clicks off and he pours the water into his cup even though I was here first and I was the one who put the kettle on.

  I blink for a long time before opening my eyes again. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I say, taking the kettle from him.

  Matt almost pauses in mid-air. I don’t think he’s ever heard me say that combination of words together. I don’t offer further explanation either. I smile tersely again, tip some milk into my drink, hand him the bottle, and return to my seat. Apparently, no, you don’t have to share your life’s dramas. You don’t have to play the part of ‘poor little April why can’t she make it work’. You can just make coffee and go back to your desk, without vomiting up your vulnerability as a way of making people like you.

  Matt and Katy’s side-looks make me angrier throughout the morning. In fact, everything makes me angrier. It’s like I’ve only just discovered the emotion. I always thought anger was something to suppress and squash down and make peace with. I think I knew, somehow, that if I tapped into that particular reservoir, it would be the undoing of me. But it’s now time to unleash it.

  ‘You all right, buddy?’ Matt’s head pops up from above my computer monitor, before my shift starts at eleven. He is clearly taking the tactic of pretending I’m not being difficult today. ‘I’m here if you need me.’

  ‘I’m fine, cheers,’ I tell the computer screen, still click-click-clacking, entering all the various passwords and security codes I need to get access to the inbox. I sense, rather than see, his head retreat back down again.

  There are ten questions to get through this shift, which is quite a lot for midsummer. Swallowing my mouthful of coffee, I open the first question and read it under my breath.

  Message received: 23:07

  I’ve just moved to Birmingham for my job and I’m feeling really lonely. I’m too shy to go out and make friends and so just spend my time looking out of my flat window. I’m too proud to tell people how hard I’m finding it. How do I make friends?

  I click into our shared folder and get out the ‘I’m lonely’ template, personalising it for this yet-another-victim of modern life. I fire it off, and open up the next one.

  Message received: 01:23

  am i pregnant? my period is late

  This question is standard despite the fact it’s impossible to tell if someone is pregnant, a) without a test, and b) through a computer screen. I open the relevant template telling them to go to the doctor, while emotionally supporting them, and hit send.

  I fly through the next couple. Someone has chlamydia and is too scared to message his past partners. One is not sure if they are gay or not because they watch gay porn but don’t want to have gay sex in real life.

  It’s question number six that gets me.

  Message received: 11:32

  I’ve never used a service like this before, and I’m worried I’m being silly. It’s just my boyfriend did something weird the other night and it’s really upset me but I’m probably just being stupid. We went out clubbing at the student union and he came back to mine. We were both completely wasted and all I wanted to do was pass out but he wanted to have sex. I said ‘no’ and pushed him off a few times because I just wanted to sleep but he kind of held me down with his body and we had sex. I was so drunk I couldn’t really push him off and just kind of froze. Then we went to sleep. I’m really confused. Is this normal? I don’t mean to make a fuss. I love him. He’s my boyfriend …

  I shake my head and throw my head back to the ceiling. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I mutter as my stomach liquefies.

  ‘Are you OK, April?’ Matt’s head appears.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘That one literally just came in, otherwise I would’ve given you a heads-up. I’m really sorry.’

  My teeth are gritted and I smile through them, forcing myself to look at him. ‘No need to be sorry, I told you I’m OK.’

  Matt won’t relent. ‘Two shifts in a row though, that’s not fair.’

  ‘It’s not like it’s unusual.’

  ‘Let’s have a proper debrief in the park when you’re done … I insist, come on. Any excuse for ice cream.’ He’s humouring me, which is both endearing and frustrating at the same time.

  I nod, stand, and spend way too long doing a wee before returning to my desk to send my reply. I close off my anger, as it is not appropriate to let that seep into my response, and I push the pain down deep into the slosh of my tummy until it is absorbed into me. I pull out the template from the ‘favourites’ folder, I personalise it, I check it through, I hit send, I wish this would stop happening.

  Why won’t it stop happening?

  ‘Ready?’ I say, a bit later, once I’ve dealt with the last message on the list.

  Matt takes off his headphones. ‘Can I meet you there? I need to print some stuff off first.’

  I nod, desperate to get out of the office. ‘I’ll see you on the bench.’

  I don’t say goodbye to Katy as I pick up my bag and leave. I’m still mad at her after what Megan said to me this morning. She looks a bit hurt as I swish on past, but she’s stuck in a volunteering spreadsheet, trying to sort out all the shift changes due to people taking summer holidays. I rush down the stairs, my breath not quite filling my lungs each time, and run out into the chaotic London street, the heat smacking me like a sucker punch, making me sweat within seconds.

  I want to scream.

  Why is there nowhere in London to scream? Surely there must be some pop-up fucking primal screaming booth? I’m five minutes from Regent’s Park and stumble towards it with too many emotions and nowhere for them to go. Heat drifts up from the pavement, cooking my skin, making my bloo
d boil hotter. I can hear my phone going in my bag but I ignore it. I reach the park entrance and dart through the wrought-iron gates. It’s quieter in here. My phone goes again. Again I ignore it. I do not know what to do with my rage. It’s consuming me. Eating up my stomach like a hungry parasite.

  I sink onto a bench dedicated to a lady called Gladys who always loved this place. I try and let the ducks quacking on the pond distract me from myself. They scuttle about, picking at nothing on the ground or dousing themselves in the sludgy black water.

  Soon enough, Matt arrives with strawberry Cornettos. ‘Be quick, they’ve almost melted.’ He hands me mine and sits alongside me.

  ‘Cheers.’

  The only noise for a while is the sound of us rescuing drips off our melting cones with our tongues. The syrup in the sugar hits my blood and I feel it rejuvenating me, kicking me back into myselfness.

  ‘What did you need to print off?’ I ask, once we’re done. I hold out my hand and take his sticky wrapper.

  ‘It’s cheesy, but I reckon it will cheer you up.’

  ‘Not like you to be cheesy, Matt.’

  His eyes laugh behind his glasses as I return from the neighbouring bin. He is a proper wotsit, it has to be said. He once showed me the Valentine’s Day card he’d spent two weeks making for his boyfriend. It was a hand-sketch of all his favourite things. Though it would’ve been more romantic without the butt-plug.

  He gets out a stack of papers from his pocket, unfolds them, and rustles them like a newsreader. ‘I just thought, after another tough shift, you could do with some affirmation about why we do this.’ He coughs as I sit down, and starts to read off the page:

  ‘Dear Are You There, thank you so much for your reply. I was feeling really lost and scared, but now I feel less alone and like I know what to do next.’ I resist the urge to roll my eyes at how … Disney this all is, because I don’t want to hurt his feelings, and I let him move onto the next page. And that’s the one that gets me.