Page 30 of Not Falling for the Forward
I sigh and slump back to the table. Not willing to entertain another round of, the-spare-room-isn’t-yours-but-you’re-more-than-welcome-to-stay-until-you-find-a-place, with my sister. Not a minute later, my phone vibrates next to my head. I glance up, incoming call from mum.
“Hey, mum,” I answer.
I am immediately cut off by screeching in my ear. “Jack David Cartwright, why haven’t you told me you are seeing someone? Your mother should know these things. Is she pretty? I bet she is beautiful. When can we meet her? Tell me all about her.”
I groan and slam my head back on the table. Fucking Aimee.
The women in my life are going to kill me.
***
Emily
I should remember that talking to my mum helps nothing. If anything, she has made me feel worse. I’ve been ignoring her calls for a good month but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and answer. I would love to have the type of relationship where I could call her about anything—guy trouble, work issues, a new fabric softener I have found—but that’s not how we are. Our relationship is virtually non-existent. We are less ‘mother daughter’ and more ‘woman who had a baby and the baby’.
I realised this when I was eighteen and in my first year of university. I wanted to come home for the three week Christmas break because the accommodation would be empty and who wants to spend Christmas alone? I got home to find mum had swanned off with her boyfriend at the time on a six month around the world trip. She had packed everything up from her flat, dumped it in storage and left without a backwards glance, to follow a man. She hadn’t even told me she was going. She was disappearing for six months and didn’t even think to tell her only living relative.
I should have expected it really, it wasn’t the first man my mum had stalled her life for, it was just one in a long list. She is a hopeless romantic, she always put everything into relationships. The only problem is that they weren't necessarily the kind of men that you should pack up your whole life and abandon your daughter for.
She had multiple boyfriends when I was growing up, they were always ‘the one’. Until they weren’t. Then, the only person there to pick up the pieces was me. I’m self-aware enough to know my mum’s unstable relationships are the reason I’m so cynical about love. I have always been more practical. I look after myself, always. Even with Chris, the man I was planning on marrying, I bought the house we lived in, but I wouldn’t let him put his name on the mortgage. That place was always going to be mine if we ever broke up. As shitty as the break-up was, being proved right about that tasted good.
It probably started when my dad left when I was six. It utterly broke my mum. She wouldn’t get out of bed for a month. I had to feed us both and force her to take me to school.
But Carol Ryan is nothing but a sucker for love and even after how shattered she had been, she still jumped in headfirst to every relationship afterwards. Brave, but ultimately stupid. It was like she never learned from one man to the next.
I learned though. I learned that relationships leave you shattered on your kitchen floor, unable to provide for your child. I learned that no matter how much of yourself you give to a man, he will throw you away.
I think that’s why I wasn’t surprised when I found out Chris had cheated on me. Hurt, yes. But surprised? No. I had seen my mum heartbroken too many times to believe love was ever a permanent thing.
My phone vibrates next to me from where I am led on the couch decompressing from the phone call with my mum. Jess’s face lights up my screen. “Hey babe,” she says.
“Hey,” I grumble
“How was it?” I had told her I was going to call mum, I knew I would need the support afterwards.
“Apart from the forty minute lecture about apologising to Chris and how he couldn’t have been that bad, and he has needs that I wasn’t meeting or he wouldn’t have cheated? Fine.”
“God, she’s so toxic,” Jess grits through her teeth.
“Yeah. It’s more annoying because she’s actually really good in her life now. She was on her way to Neil’s son’s; he’s getting married soon apparently. She was probably more concerned with the fact that my wedding is now cancelled and Neil gets to be the parent at this one and she doesn’t.” Neil is mum’s current boyfriend. He has been on the scene for about five years now and they actually seem happy and I am glad for mum. Apparently, love is a numbers game, keep trying and eventually you’ll find someone kind of thing.
“Ew,” Jess replies, I’m not sure if she’s ‘ew-ing’ Neil, his son, or marriage. All would be fair.
“Yeah.” I sigh, “She said something kind of, I don’t know, smart?”
“That doesn’t sound like Carol.”
I huff a laugh, “Yeah. So, I was telling her about Jack, without actually telling her. You know?” Jess nods on the other end. “And she basically called me a coward for not wanting to give my heart away again. I can’t help but feel like she is kind of right.”
“That’s a load of bollocks, Em. Men just fuck us up, best to just get what you want from them and ditch.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I sigh. “What if Jack is different though? Like, what if he wants to try?”
“Do you want to try?”
“I think so.”
“Then go for it. Just look after yourself, okay. Be careful. He’s not some random guy you met on the street. He’s famous, it’s a whole other world we don’t know about.” She has a good point there that makes me think of the picture that was taken of us at the bar the other week.
