N - I can't do this

I can't stay there anymore. I get up from the brown leather stool in
the corner of the pub, summoning dignity with a deep breath and pushing
the handle of my bag back on to my thin shoulder. I push past the
clumps of soggy drinkers, melting into the floor. They are packed
tightly together and I scrape myself on shoulder blades and belt
buckles. I can't breathe, the tears are coming and I'm doing my best to
see but failing. I get to the door and start to reach for my mobile
phone, but my bag is full of things I don't ever need and as I'm
fumbling desperately amongst the tissues and chewing gum and copper
coins I stumble outside and into a group of people coming in. Sorry,
sorry, I'm?I trail off with my words into the chilly darkness of the
street, my ankles rocking from side to side as I walk in my heels on
the cobbles. Fuck! Where is my phone? I lean against the wall and sink
slowly down until I'm sitting on the cool stone pavement. The tears are
here, leaking down my face in black lines - too much mascara as usual.
Then a noise like a dying frog starts to get louder. My phone is
ringing. I look in my bag and see it flashing - Kim's number - I answer
it with:
'I can't do this. It's too hard.' She listens and makes noises in the
right places and then she says:
'You can do this. Hold your head high. I love you.' So I tell her that
I love her too and we say goodbye. I put my phone back in my bag
underneath my purse, wipe my face on the backs of my hands and get up
holding my head as high as I can. I look like a slightly unhinged
ballerina as I totter into the bar and push back through the forest of
bodies until I find my friends and my brown leather stool. I sit back
down and smile, taking a sip from my drink. Simon looks at me. I stick
out my tongue and grin to show him that everything is going to be
alright. He does the same back. Maybe it is going to be alright.

Then later at the club I feel sick. I'm shaking and fighting the tears
again. It's very hot. I avoid eye contact with everyone and stand by
myself behind a pillar so they can't see me. They are laughing and
drunk and together. I get my phone out of my bag again as if just
holding it will fortify me enough to face them. I hear Kim's voice in
my head and adjust my posture so that my head is erect, pushing my
shoulders down and taking a deep breath in through my mouth. The lump
in my stomach is bigger than my own head. Then the phone vibrates
manically buzzing in my hand like an angry bee. I force my way out on
to the stairwell so I can hear Kim.
'It's too hard. I just can't do this anymore'
'Tell me what's happened' she says calmly, but just hearing her voice
has made me want to cry again. I breathe slowly and although the tears
are there I manage to speak.
'Well, everyone ignored me practically after the others got to the pub.
Apart from Becky. She talked to me the whole time and actually made me
feel better. But then slag Gemma was all over him on the walk over here
and she kept walking between us and talking over me and I hate her so
much!' I know I haven't made much sense, but Kim seems to understand. I
feel drunk, but I've had two cokes and a glass of water tonight. Alex
comes out of the downstairs bar and swaggers over to me. I sit down on
the floor and he hugs me silently as I speak to Kim, squeezing my
shoulders protectively and eyeing the people who are by now looking on
the way past this sobbing mad girl on the floor. I sniff loudly and rub
at my eyes.
'How can I stand with a group of people who actively hate me and
pretend that nothing's happened and it's all alright?' I hiccup between
sobs. Again, Kim understands perfectly.
'I'll be back in a minute.' Alex whispers and heads for the
toilet.
The bouncer comes down the stairs and asks me to move upstairs and away
from the fire exit. I walk up the first flight and lean back against
the banister on the landing, openly crying and not giving a shit who
sees.
'I just can't do this anymore?' I whine for the third time that night.
Then I feel someone beside me and turning round I stop talking. It's
Simon.
'Simon's here' I mumble to Kim.
'Be strong. I love you.' She says and hangs up.

He stands there looking at me and I can't bring myself to look at his
face. His arms reach out and pull me to him. He is warm and solid and
just the smell and the feel of him is oddly comforting especially under
the circumstances. I look up at his face, so familiar, every line and
freckle and hair is mapped out somewhere in my mind. The curve of his
nose and the thickness of his eyelashes and his beautiful blue eyes
that are looking down at me are definitely there too and then he
smiles. It's the most precious smile - I want to put it in my bag and
take it home to keep forever.
'It's alright, Em, It's alright' he says in his deep smiley voice. I am
still shaking and uncontrollably crying. He looks a bit surprised to
see how upset I am and for a second I feel embarrassed. His black shirt
has wet patches on it from my tears.
'I'm sorry' I manage as I try to wipe them off. I can feel the muscles
on his chest as I do so and suddenly I want him naked and inside me
right there on the stairwell. And if it were last week then I'm sure
something like that would be happening. But it's not last week and a
lot has happened and he just stands and holds me close making soothing
noises.
'Everybody hates me' I sob and he rubs my back gently.
'No they don't' he soothes.
'Yes they do. They all hate me because of what I did. I hate myself. I
mean what kind of a person does something like that?' I shrug and raise
my hands.
'It's alright.' He says again and tries to cuddle me but I push him
away.
'No, it's not alright. How can it be alright?' I say and I've stopped
crying. 'I upset you and you don't want me anymore'
'I wish I could say it doesn't matter, but it does.' He says and his
tone is serious now. 'It makes a difference' he says and I look down at
my shoes - two points of denim - I want to take them off and push them
far up into his rectum. But I can hear Kim's voice saying that no man
is worth a good pair of shoes.
'Well, I'm sorry' I say quietly and I let him hug me again. From the
muffled safety of his embrace I smile to myself because right now I am
in his arms. This is how pathetic I have become.
'I cried at work on Tuesday' I tell him. He seems genuinely
surprised.
'At least you're upset about it. If you weren't I would think much less
of you.'
It doesn't matter now anyway, I think to myself. I look at him. He is
tall and muscular without being bulky. His hair is messily styled at
just the right length to grab hold of without being long. His stubble
is as soft as his lips and his eyes sparkle brightly blue in the dim
half-light. I want him to love me as much as I love him. I want him to
hold my hands in his and look me in the eyes and tell me he can't even
breathe without me. I want him to scoop me up and take me home with him
and ask me to stay forever. But he just gives me one last tight hug and
I follow him back down to the bar.

Two weeks later and we are sitting in a pub overlooking the green only
it is dark outside so all we can see through the windows are
reflections of ourselves. They are discussing my love life as if it is
an episode of Neighbours or Eastenders. I have given up trying to be
alright and pretending to laugh along so I sit looking at my reflection
in the window. I hardly recognise myself as the blurry shape stares
back - jeans and a black spaghetti strap top - short hair flicking up
at the bottom - painful look in dark eyes underlined by insomniac grey
circles of puffy skin. I have become miserable and sad. I want to be
eighteen again. I want to be happy. I finish my coke and get up to go
to the toilet.
'Are you alright Em?' So I do exist after all. I have not become Libby
Kennedy or Kat Slater. I nod and smile and squeeze past the backs of
the chairs, my steel heeled shoes clacking noisily on the wooden floor.
I make it to the toilet, go in the first cubicle and sit down with my
head in my hands. There can be no more tears, especially not tonight,
not on a Monday night in the pub with my best friends. He isn't even
here. I would look a fool. But I am already a fool. I sigh and blow my
nose then get up and go to look at myself in the mirror above the
sinks. I look tired and pale, like a junkie, but not quite as thin. My
hair is all over the place sticking up at crazy angles at the back. I
push it behind my ears for something to do. I practise a smile, which
looks fake; it wouldn't fool my mother, but makes me feel a bit better.
The relationship was a non-starter anyway. We were never going to end
up anywhere at the end of it. I knew I was going to get hurt and he
knew he could never give me what I wanted. But he had said that he
cared a lot about me and he hadn't been drunk when he told me or naked.
He thought about me too much and rang me because he was missing me. He
wanted me to cuddle him in bed. But he didn't want a girlfriend -
places to go and people to shag - he wanted someone who would be there
when he wanted them to be and not get in the way of his life. And I was
fine with it. I really was. Then suddenly I was in love. Reason, logic,
pride, integrity were put into a box and thrown to the back of the
cupboard. And I told him. And he said we didn't have to keep sleeping
together because he didn't want to hurt me. The thought of that made me
as sick as the thought of him with other women. Other women touching
his body, stroking him, digging their nails into his back, the thought
makes me retch. I said I was ok - hormones - tiredness - let's forget I
mentioned it. And we did. We carried on with things as they always had
been, not developing into anything but happily circling waiting to land
and for us to disembark. Only I had secretly stowed a lot of baggage,
none of which I was willing to declare. Even when he pulled slag Gemma
in my face on his birthday and I cried all night, I forgave it all,
because the thought of not being near to him made me panic.