Page 35 of How Not to Be A Loser
Cool-down be damned, I fell onto a kitchen chair and yanked open the gift bag, pulling out a sky-blue T-shirt. Size medium. I examined it for a moment, feeling a mix of I don’t know what at the realisation that Nathan had thought about what size clothes I wore. He’d written on the bag’s tag:Welcome to the Larkabouts. Great to have you on the team.
Well. Of course it wasn’t a personal gift, a ha ha! Ha ha ha! Nathan was my son’s coach, sort of my coach now. That would be utterly unprofessional. AND TOTALLY NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY, I reminded myself, catching sight of my drooping reflection when stepping into the shower. Ugh. Please. Nathan spends all day with women who have self-respect. And confidence. And…perk.
Get over this stupid attraction to Nathan,I ordered my mind, body and emotions, trying to scrub off the growing crush along with the morning’s mud and grime. Being starved of human connection meant I had homed in like a traction beam on the nearest male. Lots of Larks flirted with Nathan, it was natural to be attracted to an attractive man. But those women had other lives going on, maybe boyfriends or husbands or wives. For them, it was a silly bit of fun. I added a new task to the Programme:
Talk to more human beings. Male ones, in particular.
Who knows, once I was well again, I might even end up genuinely connecting with one of them.
What I hadn’t anticipated, and should have been more prepared for, was the next available handsome man I spoke to being the ex-lover, first-lover, heart-breaker, life-ruiner, father of my child.
A sure-fire guarantee to end in trouble.
But in the meantime, I had a whole lot of blubbing to be getting on with in the shower about that T-shirt. Putting the giver of the item to one side for a moment (harder than it should have been), I had ateam shirt. I was part of a team. For better or worse, in fitness and in health, for fitter for poorer… I belonged to a squad again. I dried off, buried my head in the shirt and wept some more, finally able to acknowledge another layer of the harrowing loneliness that had scraped against my heart like sandpaper for the past thirteen years.
I wasn’t going to mess it up this time.
I hoped.
* * *
Later that day, once he’d dissected his training, spent two hours in mortal combat with his friends on the Xbox, eaten his own body weight in cereal plus lunch and dinner, Joey came to find me. I was lying on the sofa, pretending to read while ignoring my muscles wailing and thinking black thoughts about cool-downs and stretches.
‘Can we talk about me contacting my dad yet?’
I tried to sit up, instantly regretted it, lay back down again. Joey waited patiently for me to stop yelping.
‘Maybe we should start with me emailing him, work up to a phone call. Take it steady,’ I suggested.
‘Why? You sending messages isn’t going to change who he is, or what he wants. Why string this out any longer? I really want to talk to him.’
I tried to think of a decent reason for waiting, other than everything else was changing, shifting under our feet, and I needed more time, more chance to get my head straight, get strong enough to deal with speaking to Sean again… tried to think of a reason that didn’t revolve around me, and actually put my son’s needs first. I came up with this stunner:
‘I just need a bit more time, Joey.’
‘Time to do what? Freak out? Change your mind? Watch me suffer?’
I whipped myself upright, then. ‘That is not fair. Taking a week or so to adjust to this, me making some initial contact can’t do any harm. If he’s serious about forming a relationship with you, he’ll wait.’
‘Oh, so that’s it? You’re hoping he’ll give up and move on to something else if you can put this off long enough? Maybe one of his other abandoned kids, which we don’t even know if he has because you won’t let me talk to him.’
‘No! I just don’t want you to be disappointed. We don’t know what he wants yet.’
‘Maybe he doesn’t know what he wants! Maybe we don’t have to have everything for the next twenty years figured out, either! We aren’t discussing where I’m going to spend Christmas, or whether I go there for my summer holiday! It’s one email! And why does what he wants decide what happens anyway?’
I took a deep breath. Tried not to clutch at my hair.Christmas!‘I would feel much better once I’ve spoken to him first about his intentions, what’s made him get in touch now. Then, depending on his reply, we’ll make a decision about the next step.’
‘You can’t do this!’ Joey was shouting now. It was the first time he’d yelled at me since his voice had broken, and given the subject matter, it rattled me how much he sounded like his father. ‘He’smydad. You have no right to stop me contacting him! I’m not a little kid.’
‘I’m not going to.’ I tried to keep calm but had to raise my voice to be heard above his yelling. ‘I just want to wait a bit, that’s all.’
‘Well, screw what you want!’ he threw back at me. ‘This isn’t about you for once.’
‘Joey, I know that.’ I stood up, reaching out to take his arm, but he jerked it away, face twisted with fury.
‘You’re jealous. Just like with Cee-Cee. You want me all to yourself because you have no one else. However bad my dad is, I bet he’s not a screwed-up, selfish bitch.’
While I stood there, reeling as if my own son had punched me in the face, which honestly would have been preferable, Joey grabbed his rucksack and stormed out of the house into the frosted sunshine, where he knew his screwed-up mother couldn’t follow him.
