Page 82 of The Happiness Blueprint
Google: Should I text the man who hates me?
I call Alex five times and listen to his voice mail sayingHello, it’s Alex. Then I decide to send one last message to him, despite my better judgment and my search engine’s advice.
I write as if he’s dead:Thank you for everything. Gone but never forgotten.
The rumor of my once-again failed love life has spread—surprise, surprise—all the way from Sweden to Marbella.
“It’s Mum.” Why do parents do this? Your children have your number and can see who is calling. You should know this since you also all have smartphones that show a name when said person calls. Oh, and hang on. This is an actual video call so your face is filling my screen as I press the accept button.
“I know it’s you, Mum.”
“How are you, my love?” No sunset or blessed hashtag to share today? That’s a first for Mum. Maybe it’s raining in Spain. Mum is wearing her glasses, and her hair is swept back. Her hands are still and not fiddling with anything.
“I want to say sorry to you. There has been a lot of pressure on you. Some of that pressure Saga and I put on you by coercing you into helping your dad. We always assumed that you could handle it. You are so strong and resourceful.”
“What choice did I have?” I am trying my best to hold back tears now. Somehow technology makes me more vulnerable: I must keep my head in the square, but in real life I can look away, move my body and hide my emotions. Here I’m exposed. I hate video calls with a passion.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
“The man I love now hates me. When it comes down to it, no one wants me in the end. And yes, we only just met, and no, we’re not married, and yes, I will probably get over him, say, sometime next year. But I don’t want to get over him. And I shouldn’t have to. This wasn’t supposed to end.” Words flood out of me as if my mum had opened an invisible dam.
“If he is the one for you, he will find his way to back to you. Don’t give up yet, Klara. Don’t start to hate him just yet. He is hurt, correct? Time gives people perspective. Anger doesn’t last forever, no matter what someone has done to you.”
“He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Now.You may be right, but all you can do is wait.”
The corner of my mouth moves into the smallest of smiles. I can’t remember the last time she gave me relationship advice. I think it was in kindergarten when Oliver the Brute was biting me all the time. I get a sudden urge to hug her, or rather for her to hug me.
“Once I’ve got myself sorted with a new job, I could come and visit you. I need some sunshine,” I say.
“I’d like that.”
I realize that despite Mum’s chatty, dizzy nature, she is also lonely, not in the traditional way but with the type of loneliness that only comes from having your children far away from you.
It seems I have a full day of FaceTime ahead of me. Saga is next. She is back in Germany and has revised a plan to improve her mental health. But today she’s not talking about her challenges but mine.
“IELTS. You have to try, Klara.” Her face fills the phone square.
“I have tried. There is a fine line between optimism and stupidity. Between hope and ignorance. What difference will a few math lessons make?” The confidence I had started to build up left when Alex did.
“Things will be different now. There is help. You can have extra time. A quiet space where you sit alone. It’s not stupidity trying again when the circumstances have changed.”
I ponder this.Of course.A seed may not grow in a dry, waterless soil, but if moved to the muddy soil of Skåne it may peek out ready to see the light for the first time. I love Saga for saying things I would never have thought about but that become obvious to me once she says them.
“Apply for your course. If you get an offer, you have the summer to book and prep for the test. You will have received your formal diagnosis by then, meaning extra help. You may make it this time, K. In fact, Iknowyou will,” Saga says.
That evening I fill out my application. It was four years since I last did it. When I’m finished on the UCAS website, I book an IELTS test. I’m not going to wait until the summer. I hesitate at the disability box, then tick it and writeAutismnext to it, feeling a strange and unexpected sense ofbelongingas I do. I enter it in my calendar and on a whim decide to share it. I want him to know that I’m trying, thatI’vemade the decision to still try. That I won’t just give up.
Shared Calendar?
• NEW EVENT:IELTS test
The day after I land, I will know if I can do this or not.
ALEX
Personal Calendar
