Page 56 of Actually Yours

I throw a towel at her. “Shut up!”

“Honey,” she says, her voice serious now. “If you want chemistry…” She points at the door. “Well,thatwas combustible.”

I don’t reply, because I can’t argue with her. What just happened with Jake was the steamiest thing to happen to me in a long time. Perhaps, ever. And we didn’t even kiss.

“Drea,” I whine. “What am I going to do?”

She hugs me. “Your heart knows what it wants, Millie. You just need to be brave enough to listen to it.”

And with that wonderful piece of useful but scary advice, she turns on the music and starts the final clean-down of the day. Leaving me in a puddle of indecision. And mess.

She’s right. My heart knows what it wants, it’s just the rest of me that is too terrified to reach out and take it. Too damaged by my past to believe I could ever have something real with someone as special as Jake.

So, I’m stuck.

I have no idea where to go from here.

*****

To a gala dinner. Apparently, that’s where I’m going from here.

This is according to Bella, who is forcing me to get all dressed up and attend a fancy charity ball when all I want to do is curlintoa ball and shut out the world.

It’s been a week since the sexiest haircut of all time, a term coined by Andrea and now adopted by my friends, and apart from a few casual text messages and funny memes from Jake, it has been wholly uneventful. No random run-ins at the café or salon. No flirty banter or inquiries about my dating experience. No anything, really. And it’s maddening.

“What does he want from me?” I ask Callie the Cactus, hoping for some sort of clarity. Some way to move forward.

When she gives me nothing, because fair, she’s a plant, I pick up my phone to text Bella that I’m not going tonight. I’ve had enough peopling for the week; I need to recharge my battery. Munching on a handful of Tiny Teddies, I’m typing a long, very detailed explanation of why I won’t be attending the fancy gala ball, even though it’s for charity and probably a good place to meet a man (her words, not mine) when my phone rings.

It's my mum.

“Hi Mum.” I keep the groan out of my voice, but really, I don’t have the energy for this conversation right now.

“Amelia,” she says, sounding ready to launch into a whine or a rant, “you haven’t been over to visit in a while.”

So, she’s settled on a guilt trip this time instead.

“Sorry, Mum.” I put the right amount of contrition in my voice, hoping this will stem the tide of her displeasure. “I’ve been really busy.”

“I know you have a full life without needing me in it.” I wince at the mum-guilt she’s dripping all over me. “But you know this time of year is difficult for me.”

Every year, like clockwork, as soon as the Christmas decorations go up in shopping centres and on street lamps, my mum’s mood descends with it. Any celebration that reminds her of what she once had, what my dad now has with someone else, another family, sends her spiralling downhill into depression. Most years, she drags me along with her.Maybe it’s time to change this pattern?

“Sorry,” I repeat, not having anything more to add. I am sorry to have neglected her, but sometimes being around her energy takes me weeks to get over. And I don’t have it in me to wade through that at the moment.

“Have you heard from him?” There’s no mistaking who she’s talking about. Her voice changes whenever she speaks about my dad, taking on a bitter quality before the sadness reclaims her.She never got over him leaving her the way he did. I’m not sure she even tried.

“No, Mum,” I tell her huffily. I have no relationship with my dad and she knows it. Apart from the obligatory birthday card he sends every year, I haven’t had any meaningful contact with him since he left us eleven years ago.

“I heard his wife is pregnant again.” Mum never gives his wife the courtesy of calling her by her name. She’ll forever be the ‘other woman’.

“That’s nice.” I keep all emotion out of my voice, walking a fine line here with my mum. If I sound happy for him, she’ll blow up. If I sound overly upset, she’ll take it personally. It’s hard work, these conversations.

“He never had time for his family when you were growing up. Now he’s happily popping out baby after baby.” What she’s saying is true—she did the bulk of the child-raising with me—but the bitterness in her voice reinforces the feeling that I was a burden to her. To them both. Especially now that my dad seems to be a doting father to the two, almost three, step-sisters I’ve never met.

“Maybe he’s changed?”

“That man will never change. I just feel sorry for that woman. What he did to me—to us—he’ll do to her too.” My mum continues ranting, and I attempt to tune her out. It’s best to just let her say what she needs to say, but as her anger and her hatred wash over me through the phone, I can clearly see now how much of this attitude towards men and relationships has seeped into me and my ability to be in a healthy one. The sentences “married to his job,” “men are never faithful” and “all men are the same, they’ll hurt you in the end,” echo through my brain, and I realise they’ve always been there, bouncing around while I’ve been navigating my way through the dating scene.

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