Page 88 of Glitterland
“I didn’t know.”
“It ain’t a secret, honey.”
There was another gruelling silence. Chloe’s gaze was as unwavering as a spotlight. “You really hate me, don’t you?”
She considered it. “I don’t fink I hate you. I just don’t fink you’re a very nice person. And that ain’t got nuffin to do wif being bipolar depressed.”
“I know. And you’re right.”
“I fink you really let down Stephen Fry.”
“I did. Also probably Robbie Williams.” Her eyes narrowed, like insincerity-seeking laser beams. I quickly changed tack. “And I hurt Darian, I know. I’m not trying to make excuses—”
“You better not.”
“I’m not. I have no excuses. Just a world of shame. But what I was going to say was that—” I paused, twisting my fingers painfully together, my nails catching at my skin. “—it’s difficult, sometimes, for me to understand that I have the power to hurt someone. You see, it requires me to accept that somebody might like me in the first place.”
She blinked, the coal black fronds of her lashes drifting up and down like palm leaves stirred by a desert storm. “I fought you was okay before you was a dick for no reason,” she said gently. “And Darian finks you’re some kinda super-genius sex god, so you must be doing summin ahwight somewhere.”
“He…he what?”
“But,” she pressed on, refusing to indulge me with more enchanting stories about what Darian used to think of me, “what are you saying all this to me for?”
“Well, you still haven’t told me his address.”
“Suppose I ’ave to.” She picked up a pink, sparkly business card, turned it over, and scribbled on the back with a pink, fluffy pen.
I escaped a few minutes later, Chloe’s final warning tolling in my ears: “You better not make me regret giving you that glardigan, honey.” Safely out of sight of the shop window, I leaned against a wall, gasping a little, clutching the card in a sweating hand.
Now would be a really bad time to have a panic attack.
Unlike all the really good times to have a panic attack, which were myriad.
All I had to do was find Darian, try to make him understand why I’d done what I’d done, tell him I was sorry, listen to whatever he wanted to say to me (most likely “fuck you”), and leave again. And, somehow, in the middle of it all, find an opportunity to throw myself at his feet to prove that, in my hopeless, ramshackle way, I truly cared.
That did not require the courage of Ajax.
So, why was I about to collapse in the middle of Ropers Yard? I slipped the card into my breast pocket to keep it safe and tried to steady my breathing.
The truth was, Chloe had shamed me, not so much with harsh words, but by her actions. She’d given me Darian’s contact details because she believed in his right to decide what he wanted. When had I ever done that? Even in Cambridge, I had put my pain above his and run away rather than face his anger or his hurt. I’d used him, and hidden myself from him, and finally betrayed him. Partially, yes, in the solipsism of depression, unable to see beyond my illness into a world in which other people were something more than hazy shadows cast across my sky. But mainly out of selfishness and fear, ingrained habits of self-protection turned in upon themselves like septic toenails.
The worst of it was, I was still doing it.
If I truly wanted to be with Darian, it had to be his choice, as much as it was mine. I couldn’t keep manipulating him and deceiving him and trying to present myself as better than I was. I had to stand in front of him, in all my ugly, twisted selfhood, and tell him I wanted him. And hope, against everything I believed possible, that he could want me back.
Thatdidrequire the courage of Ajax. And my heart was spinning like a Catherine wheel.
I simply couldn’t imagine him saying yes. It had taken far too long, but I was, at last, capable of recognising that what I felt for Darian was real, not just a delusion born of madness or sex or loneliness or despair. He truly made me happy and, perhaps, I had the power to do the same for him. Not long ago, the idea that I could affect someone’s life would have terrified me. Now I merely wanted to deserve that trust. Darian had treated me as though he’d had no fear of any pain I might cause him. Or, rather, that he believed I was worth it. And I had been too afraid, too lost, to see either his courage or his generosity.
What had he said?Sadness is just a fing what ’appens. Well, now it was my turn to open my heart and let him reject me, if that was what he wanted. I could bear a little pain for him, surely? For someone who—for a few shining moments—had helped me remember what it was like to feel human, happy, and hopeful.
I closed my eyes. Breathe, Ash, breathe.
And slowly, slowly, like watching toothpaste miraculously fold itself back into the tube, I pushed away the panic.
Then I walked towards High Street and hailed a taxi.
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