Can’t sleep so I made a list of my favourite pictures of us, that he so coldly detagged. Because we did have a relationship, it did exist and I am not hallucinating. I am not hallucinating.
| 4) | Us doing our best smize. (November.) We put it up for people to vote on and I won, 82 per cent. It was raining A LOT and my eye make-up was running down my face in a way which Leon said was ‘haunting’ and gave me an unfair advantage. He demanded a rematch. |
| 3) | Us lying on the school field. (March.) Our faces are red and puffy because a football had just hit me in the face (thanks Steph). After laughing for about a zillion years, Leon stood in front of the goal and let a football whack him in the face, too. |
| 2) | Us in Gracie’s garden the night he asked me to ‘go out’ with him. (June.) Gracie did a barbecue (or her parents did after she caused a smog). The sun was going down and we were lazing in the back garden, choking from leftover fumes and laughing. I can’t remember ever feeling so happy. (Apart from maybe when I won that magazine competition for designing my own red carpet outfit. They made the dress and sent it to me, and put a picture of me on the back page. It’s pretty sad that these are the best moments I can pick out in my life – in one I was eleven, and one has been completely ruined.) |
| 1) | Us at the end of term, before summer break. (July.) We are TOGETHER in this one. (I am not hallucinating.) We have been together for two weeks. We are lurking outside the Sixth Form Centre, peering in the windows and scoping it out for next year. I remember being excited by the new beanbag chairs, and Leon saying, ‘Good luck getting out of those when I sit on you.’ We laughed. I threatened to protect myself from suffocation by stabbing him with a snooker cue. We kissed. And now I’m in this place, and I’m not sure how I got here. |
Wednesday, 3 September i.e. Day 46 of Despair
posted by MissH 11.30
Sitting in the living room, steaming my stye with a bowl of boiling water. My hair has not been brushed for three days or washed for six, unless you count dry shampoo. There is a dark stain on my pyjamas from where I was too eager with a tub of chocolate mousse. According to all the TV shows that ever cast glamorous twenty-five-year-old women to represent me, this is NOT how my teenage life is supposed to look.
It also seems a little unfair that I get dumped, and grow a big, red, painful lump on my eye from the stress of it. Still, maybe it’s an important life lesson to learn. Give someone your undying love, they give you a stye.
posted by MissH 11.32
Not even dumped. Avoided. I had to work out for myself that I was dumped.
posted by MissH 13.03
I can’t seem to get off Anna’s profile. There are lots of pictures of her doing sports (I think she is the Hockey Captain). Should I have paid more attention in Games instead of using the time to chase Gracie around with my stick? And she has… wait for it… a baking blog. It’s called, I kid you not: Scrumptiously, Anna. There are lots of videos of her whisking cake mixture whilst looking, quite seriously, into the camera. Should I have paid more attention in FT?
I want to say she’s not, but she’s indisputably pretty. I have named her Apple in my head to make her less threatening.
posted by MissH 17.48
Still, she might be pretty, but there’s something really bland about people who always have the same expression in photos. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. Boring face. I mean, yes, we all have our standard poses (I am a fan of the tongue-poke), but seriously… PHOTO after PHOTO of that insipid smile. She may as well just have one photo. The only way you can tell it’s even a different night is because she’s changed her cardigan.
posted by MissH 18.56
APPLE AND EMMA: THE PRO/CON LIST
NB: evidence gathered only from photos (not totally solid) and self-reflection (notoriously difficult)
APPLE
CONS: She can’t quite smile properly. This may or may not mean something very significant about her personality.
PROS: She’s all nice and pretty and wins sports tournaments and things for the school. She has a baking blog and makes cakes for her friends.
EMMA
CONS: I have been told my smile is ‘demonic’. I can’t do ANY form of sports (though I have been told watching me fall over provided ‘light comic relief’ on Sports Day. Should this go in the Con or Pro list?).
PROS: I’m not not nice. I’m not not pretty, when I bother to brush my hair. I have an encyclopedic knowledge of rubbish TV shows. I have a blog, too, though it’s mainly dedicated to self-pity, and it never results in cake.
Looking at it this way, I think I know who I’d choose, too.
posted by MissH 21.14
God, look at me. I have now, officially, wasted the entire day staring into the vacant eyes of my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. Still, as Jennifer Lawrence once said, ‘You try being twenty-two, having a period and staying away from Google! I once Googled “Jennifer Lawrence Ugly”.’ If J-Law isn’t strong enough to resist the self-destructive charms of the internet, then what hope do I have?
posted by MissH 23.58
Going to sleep, stroking the plaster under my pillow.
The plaster under my pillow
It is, obviously, Leon’s. One night, Mum went out and in a very thoughtless act of selfishness she left ingredients in the fridge, but failed to put them together into a shepherd’s pie. So, I was VERY hungry and wondering what I was supposed to do with this pile of meat and vegetables, and I Snapchatted Leon a picture of me holding a peeler, looking confused. He sent back a picture of himself holding up his hand, with a message that I remember very clearly because I screen-shot it and had it as my background for a month,
‘PUT THE PEELER DOWN. I’ll be there in 5. I quite like your fingers and I’d hate to lose one to a pie.’
(Message to Steph ten seconds later: ‘He likes my fingers! He likes my FINGERS!’)
I stood around dithering, hopping from one foot to the other and shaking my arms above my head. I kept trying to position myself in ways that felt natural, but I seemed to have forgotten how to stand. Then there was a knock that vibrated through the house. My heart pounded like it was Jack Nicholson at the door holding an axe, and I slowly edged towards it. When I let him in I was so nervous I couldn’t even look at him. I turned round, and he collapsed in a fit of laughter.
‘Thanks for the warning,’ he spluttered, pointing at my shoulders.
I completely forgot I was wearing my pyjamas that say, ‘I Fart. What’s Your Superpower?’ on the back.
‘What? Oh… Steph bought them for me as a joke!!’ I turned to face him, dying a little inside.
‘So you don’t fart?’ he asked.
‘I… No,’ I said, carefully walking backwards