think I’m easy-going and carefree and laissez-faire, but I’m not like that. I can be those things sometimes, but a lot of the time I’m not. I’m neurotic and skittish and exhausting and hard work and so many other unsexy things … I’ve not been lying but I have been hiding the bits you won’t like.’
Joshua keeps shaking his head. He’s not running away but he’s definitely shaking his head a lot.
‘Gretel … I mean April. Shit! Literally none of what you’ve said makes any sense.’
‘What do you mean?’
He lets out an angry sigh and throws his hands up. ‘The bits I won’t like? Like? How do you know what I like and don’t like?’
‘Because you’re a man! And you all want women to follow the rules. Like how you didn’t like your ex-girlfriend because she wanted to get married …’
‘What?’ He’s looking at me in stunned disbelief. ‘I didn’t want to marry my ex because she fucking cheated on me! And when I took her back, she kept pestering me to marry her as a way of proving I trusted her again. But then I found out she’d started sleeping with him again.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah! What? You thought I dumped her because she wanted to get married?’ My silence answers that. ‘Well, it’s nice to know what you think of me.’
‘Come on!’ I hold my arms out. ‘What was I supposed to think when you said that? Men always …’
‘Always what? You don’t know. You can’t assume.’
‘Are you really going to say “not all men” at me?’
‘Yes! Because it’s fucking true.’
I’m crying furiously now. Wipe wipe wipe my face. Out it all comes. He won’t come near me now he’s seen all this. ‘You wouldn’t think they were so great and harmless if you had to do my shifts.’
‘I thought you’d stopped that role? Why?’
‘Stop it!’
‘Stop what? Upsetting you? I’m upset too! I only just found out your actual name.’ Joshua twists towards me, looks at my tears. He doesn’t seem repulsed by them, which is new. He still looks angry though. He lowers his voice again and I can hardly hear him over the rain. I shiver as I listen, digesting the story he just told me. About his ex. Realigning it with the assumptions I’ve made, wondering how many more I might’ve made about who hurt who … ‘Look,’ he says. ‘As this is the surrealest thing that’s ever happened to me and I have no idea what’s going on, I may as well be honest too. I know I’ve been pushing things forward, but, I’ve … There have been moments with you when I have felt really … not good.’
Huh? I jolt in shock. But what about Gretel? Surely he’s head over heels for her?
He holds up his hands. ‘I mean, I obviously like you. I’ve not been leading you on. I don’t do that. I like you, that’s why I’ve carried on seeing you, but Gre— I mean, April. Fucking hell. You are hard to get to know. There are times when it’s great! Like when you sang that song in the Irish accent, or the night of the curry and how you spoke and told me about your job and everything. There are moments where I feel like “Wow, this girl is cool and interesting and clearly really thinks about things”, but then there’s been a lot of … aloofness? Falseness? Like I never know where I stand. Like you’re cagey about meeting me. Holding me at a distance like it’s a test. It’s weird that you brought up Africa, cos that’s not one of the things I like about you. In fact, I’ve never really thought about that. I like the bits that feel genuine. And now your name isn’t even Gretel and I don’t know what the hell to think any more. That I need to go to therapy or something, as I seem to only be attracted to girls who lie.’
His words are almost too painful to hear because they’re confirming what I was too scared to believe: the feeling that it was actually me he liked, not Gretel. That the real bits were pulling us together, rather than my lies. Those moments our barriers were lowered. But it hurts because, after what I’ve done, he should leave. If he has any sense he should leave. For his own sake, I want him to leave. I have revealed myself to be the crazy one they are all so frightened of. Yet, when I