ever fucking does anything. Thud thud thud. I see your face thudding into the sofa. I imagine it’s concrete. Your nose breaking. Blood everywhere. Why did you do this to me? Why did you take what wasn’t yours? You were supposed to love me. I let out the largest scream of my life. It’s not even a scream, more a primal grunt of pain. My vocal chords tear in my throat at the effort of it. I don’t know how to stop making this noise. Then the cushion has exploded. Feathers are everywhere. Falling like snow. I keep hitting it until every last feather is out. Still yelling ‘I hate you’. Then there’s just an empty skin where there used to be a cushion. A bit like how I am just an empty bit of skin where I used to be a person. A person who trusted in love and didn’t think she would be one of those unlucky people whom bad things happen to and who thought the best in people and didn’t ever think love could hurt as hard as it hurts now. Irrevocable hurt.
The skin of cushion drops to the floor.
Small hiccups of scared sobs.
I collapse onto my side.
I curl up my legs into a ball.
The tears fall so heavy and strong. I let out a small mew of pain.
I wish my life wasn’t this.
I cry until my body runs out of water. That’s the only way to make it stop when this happens.
Then I sleep.
I sleep like I have the flu.
? Love Sick – Gretel’s Guide to Dating Self-Care
* * *
It’s so easy to lose sight of yourself in the initial exciting hormone flurry of early dating.
Don’t.
Remember you need to keep your independence and high-value worth and all the other things he’s fallen for. Yes, your body basically feels like you’re snorting twelve lines of cocaine every twelve minutes, but override all those natural human impulses. I do.
While it’s easy to get carried away, make sure you spend some time looking out for yourself. Dating can be exhausting, even if it’s going well, so get well-rehearsed in the empowering act of self-care. Run yourself a bubble bath; put on a facemask; light a candle; treat yourself to some cashmere-covered stationery and write lists of everything you feel grateful for. You deserve it. I mean, there’s no significant trauma with resulting long-lasting mental-health issues that can’t be fixed with a sheet mask and writing you’re glad it was sunny today in calligraphy.
* * *
I sleep till eleven on Sunday morning, and even then I’m only woken up by the stifling heat. I need to pee, and to drink all the world’s water, but the thought of getting up is unbearable. I lie on my side in yesterday’s clothes and whisper ‘get up get up get up’ to myself for at least five minutes before I do. I force myself to take a shower. I smell Joshua all over my body and I exfoliate and loofah him off my skin, wondering if there is ever going to be a part of my life where I don’t find existing so very hard.
Joshua: How was your shift this morning? I’ve been out jogging. In this heat! Are you impressed?
Joshua: Happy Sunday. What do you want to do tomorrow, O Gretel, Gretel, wherefore art thou Gretel?
I stare at my phone and the post-sex-reassurance messages I didn’t even have to worry into existence. In fact, I’m the jerk who hasn’t replied. I shove my toothbrush in my mouth and reply while I dozily shove it around my teeth.
Gretel: Battery died! How are you not dead after that run? I am impressed, but also scared you are doping. Are you doping, Joshua?
He replies before I’ve even spat out my toothpaste.
Joshua: Sometimes I ask for two shots in my coffee? Does that count?
Gretel: Most IT worker version of doping ever.
Gretel: Also, movie tomorrow instead of dinner? I need air con in my life right now.
We are to meet at seven in Leicester Square. We are to watch that summer blockbuster with all the special effects. We are to go back to Joshua’s afterwards for yet more sex. Though that bit’s assumed rather than verbally added to the agenda. With that all organised, Gretel leaves my body and I slump onto the sofa and stay there until Megan comes home.
‘It stinks in here,’ is how she announces her arrival. ‘And why are there fucking feathers everywhere?’ She stops and looks at me, lying sideways and