Chapter 1: Oh, God
May 27, 1978.
Location: Emma's.
Stress level: Very high
How can one person handle so much stress? On top of everything else, I'm baby-sitting for my friend Emma. She has a three-year-old and a two-year-old--Isabella, who's always got some demand, and Sophia, the baby, who constantly rearranges and breaks her mother's knickknacks.
Presently, Isabella--or Bella, as most everyone calls her--is trying to convince me that a chocolate muffin is a suitable substitute for her dinner.
"But I don't like chicken nuggets," she whined. "I want a big piece of that yummy muffin."
"Sorry, kid," I said distractedly while snatching a pen from Sophia's hand; she'd nearly colored on Em's antique wooden chair. "No muffin until you finish your real dinner. Your mum said so, remember?"
Sophia climbed into my lap and began playing with my hair.
"Why do you get a muffin and not me?" protested Bella again. "That's not fair."
"I ate my dinner," I pointed out. "Besides, I'm grown up. I'm my own boss."
"I'm my own boss too," decided Bella with a smile. "So can I have some muffin now?"
We stared at each other for a second or two. She looked so determined.
"Nice try, Bella," I said, smiling. "Eat your chicken."
I will never procreate, ever. Not even if they paid me. The only reason I agreed to watch the girls in the first place is that Emma has an inventorying job to do. She makes about 150 quid a store, which isn't bad at all considering she does about fifteen of them a month in addition to her regular job. Emma's doing wonderfully for a newly single mother. Lately, she's even stopped her weekly meltdown in which she goes over every reason she and Doug split up, and wallows in self-pity while I offer what words of comfort I can and put on the kettle.
She should be glad Doug's gone, I always tell her. He had a terrible gambling problem and we're nearly certain he was cheating on her. Em told me how differently he behaved toward he after the babies were born. It made her feel really unattractive. But she's not. She's gorgeous; she only needs to lose some of her baby weight.
I'd never ever tell this to anyone, but I set the numbers back on her scale to lift her spirits a bit. When she weighs herself now, she comes out 2 kilograms lighter. What else are friends for? I wish I had someone dogging my steps and making me feel better. I could really use it right now.
You see, my love life isn't exactly healthy either. It's quite near run its course. At least that's how I feel. Irving, on the other hand, seems to think our problems are perfectly mendable. That's his name, by the way. Irving Gallagher. Hearing his name used to make me so happy. In the beginning of our relationship, I'd rush home from work to call him and we'd chat for hours. We could talk about anything--our parents, useless people, good books, our favorite restaurants, and even sex. Not that we ever had sex. Seriously, though, I wasn't joking and I'm very glad for that. I would've regretted it.
Recently I found out some pretty scummy things about Irving. Things I wish I'd known earlier, before I'd wasted so much of my time trying to be his girlfriend. Two years ago when were eighteen and met, he'd felt nervous about kissing me. Well, after three months of nothing, I'll admit I was frustrated. I began to worry if it was because I wasn't pretty, or if he'd stopped liking me. So I pressured him, along with a few of my friends, who decided to join in.
This made the situation much worse, until he told me a week later about a childhood experience that had supposedly contributed to his anxiety. He said he'd known this girl when he was eight who'd convinced him to snog her. Later, she went and told her father that Irving had forced her into the whole thing, and her family then took him to court. Upon hearing this, I felt like a complete ass for bothering him so much about it. I even pitied him for this girl's actions. Everything between us was all right for a while after that, though we've always fought 70 of the time.
But two months ago when we were on the phone, he mentioned me being his first kiss. His whole story unraveled then. He'd lied about the girl and the lawsuit. The story was only a cover-up, meant to make me feel guilty for nagging him and to buy him time to ease his nerves about snogging me. When, between urges to both vomit and scream at him, I asked him why on earth he'd never told me this before, he replied with, "There was never really a time I could've mentioned it."
BullSHIT, I wanted to retort. Two years! He couldn't bloody find time to mention it in two years? Now don't get me wrong, I don't care if he ever did snog the girl; his lie broke my heart. This man, who I thought was my best friend, who I'd invested so much time in, into whom I'd poured my soul and my love, was a liar. A liar with a horrible excuse, I might add. I've never looked at him the same since.
My parents believed him too. I didn't feel that I could lie to them about Irving's lawsuit, so when they asked the usual, "He hasn't been to jail, has he?" I told them. At first, they thought he was some sort of rapist, and advised me to break up with him. But I trusted him. Still, they demanded an explanation from him, so I brought him home and he threw a story together. I told mum that the story was a fake the night I found out about his lie. She gave me the most pitying look I've ever seen and said, "Honey, you don't really believe that do you? He's a liar and a delinquent. I warned you about him."
He's been trying so hard to rekindle our flame lately. I can't count the number of times he's apologized and cried and spewed out these long, redundant speeches with phrases like, "I can't change what I've done, but I can improve our future." Yeah. How many times have I heard that one?
Sometimes I come so close to just yelling, "We're through, Irving!" because we fight more than ever now. We've lost our sparkle and friendship. We're too polite to one another, too afraid to act like we used to that we piss each other off. But I never pluck up the courage to open my mouth. I'm too scared to be separated from him. I've built my entire adult life around him. I'm completely unhappy with him, but part of me feels I'll be worse off if I leave.
You want to hear the worst part? I'm in love. That's the only thing keeping me sane. The man in question is the most amazing person I've ever met. He shares most of my interests, unlike Irving who likes to pass his evenings watching wrestling matches, finds my writing hilarious and deep, matches my sense of humor, and behaves all-around identical to me that it's uncanny.
I bet you're wondering, why don't you just run off with this man, then? He's loads better suited for you than Irving.
I wish I could. I face, however, two problems:
1. He's my boss
2. He's engaged
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