Page 80 of The Layover
Gemma scoffs, and lifts a playful eyebrow at me. ‘I could’ve told you that, Fran. I think Idid, in fact, when I pointed out that he was breadcrumbing you with those texts.’
‘Well, you deserve more, too. And you’re worth more. Your so-called best friend took the apartment you found, manipulated you out of a job that you created, even swanned in and stole the boy you were messaging before you could meet him. I know your relationship with Kayleigh goes back a long time, and there’s more to it than just those things – and maybe that used to be the case, but it doesn’t sound like it is anymore. When you talk about her, you don’t sound happy, or like you’re talking about someone you love so you accept them, faults and all. I think you should see that you’re worth more, too.’
I think, for a moment, that I’ve gone too far. Gemma’s teeth are gritted, and she’s refusing to look at me.
Then she sighs, and it all starts spilling out.
‘Yeah,’ she begins, ‘but Fran, if I don’t have Kayleigh, I don’t haveanyone.’
She tells me about how her dad walked out when she was little and her mum blamed her for it; how her mum was busier dating than looking after Gemma, so Kayleigh was her lifeline; how, when they left for uni, that was the end of her relationship with her mum and she and Kayleigh both had their sights set on a bigger, better, more glamorous future than the one they’d had growing up. She tells me that while she craved success because it meantstability, Kayleigh just wanted a swanky lifestyle, resentful of the ‘small’ life she’d had growing up – which Gemma always envied, and which Kayleigh was too materialistic to ever really appreciate.
‘As if the latest trendy top in River Island or the cool new bag from Topshop that was inCosmothat month was worth more than having your mum there to pick you up from netballpractice, or a dad around to take you to the cinema on the weekend,’ she snipes, wiping away a tear.
She tells me that she and Kayleigh built their glamorous new lives like they dreamed of and Kayleigh was always there with her, so did it really matter if they weren’t good for each other? And she tells me about Brittney, the ex who said she wanted all the things Gemma did – a home, a partner, a life together with some cats or maybe a dog, and a nice holiday every now and then, and no kids … And called her ‘exhausting’ and ‘clingy’ and broke up with her, when Gemma thought it was going so well.
‘I probably was exhausting and clingy,’ she tells me with a crooked grin. ‘I amveryhard work. I’m kind of a lot, I know. And FYI, I do not need the psychoanalysis work of you telling me I don’t want kids because my childhood was so rough, thank you very much.’
‘Oh! I wasn’t going to.’ It hadn’t even crossed my mind.
Gemma blinks in shock, and I can see a pre-prepared rant dying on her lips. ‘Right. Okay. Well. Sorry, it’s just – I’m used to …’ She swallows. ‘The girls always say I’ll change my mind when I’m older or it’s just that I haven’t met the right person to make me want kids, and Kayleigh likes to point out it’s my “childhood trauma” that prevents me from ever being a mother. Like it’s a personal failing or whatever. And not like I just think kids are kind of gross and a lot of hard work and, like, you know, I’m hard enough work on my own, thanks. It’s not for me.’
‘They do haveverysticky hands,’ I say, and Gemma laughs.
‘Right? Thank you! Why are they alwayssosticky? Why? What are they doing? I don’t want to know.’ She fidgets a bit. ‘I, uh … I do realise that it’s a toxic friendship. For the record. And I know the obvious answer is to walk away.’
‘But it’s not that easy. I know.’
I think it’s about time to take off the eye masks; I peel them away to rub in the left-behind serum, and am astonished at how well they’ve worked. I look halfway human again. It’s a miracle.
I study my reflection, and it’s hard to recognise myself in it. I no longer look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, but I do look like I’ve been throughsomething– in a way that’s squared my shoulders, has me standing a little bit taller, steadies my gaze.
This girl – she’s someone who looks like she’s worth more, and knows it.
Time until ‘I Do’
5 ½ hours
Chapter Thirty-seven
Gemma
It’s a big question:are you worth more?
It’s the sort of thinking that gets you down if you give in to it too much; the kind of thing that sends you spiralling into an existential crisis.
But sometimes, you have to give in.
You have to finally acknowledge how you’ve carried around the weight of your parents’ failures, or the blind eye you turned to your girlfriend’s non-committal nature in favour of her breezy, borderline flaky personality that you thought would balance out your own inherent need for control … Or your best friend treating you like dirt for most of your adult life, telling yourself that as long as you found petty ways to return the favour, it didn’t matter in the end, because you were just as bad as each other.
Because deep down, you believe you’re a bad person, and this is exactly what you deserve.
This kind of thinking will bury you if you’re not careful.
It buries me now. Presses down like a physical weight on my shoulders, my chest. It’s leaden and suffocating and inescapable and I know,I know, that I can’t keep running away and pretending it’s not going to ruin me in the end.
Fran and I end up fannying about in the loos for ages, primping and preening so we aren’t immortalised forever inwedding photos looking like we spent the night getting drunk and crying in an airport. We run out of time before we’re able to do our makeup; our boarding gate is finally announced.
I could almost cry – with relief, or dread, or mostly just the fact thatthis endless night is so very nearly over at last.
