this really nice blue dress. And some yellow shoes; I remember really liking those yellow shoes.’
We howl. We point. We find ourselves chanting ‘CHUG CHUG CHUG’ as Chrissy screeches, ‘I can’t believe he remembered!’ before downing her shot compliantly.
I watch her as she looks at the screen. It’s frozen again – Mark’s mouth slack and odd in the paused moment. ‘Oh, Marky,’ she whispers at the screen, and my eyes are not as dry as they were ten minutes ago when I hear her say that.
They both remembered their first kiss at the number eight bus stop when Mark lunged first. Mark’s most disgusting habit is clipping his toenails into the loo and then not flushing it. Chrissy’s is picking her feet in bed. Mark does not know Chrissy’s bra size. ‘Umm, E?’ he stabs. We all hee-haw-hee-haw because Chrissy has never been more than a B her whole life. ‘I fucking WISH mate,’ she yells, getting up and slapping the projector screen. ‘CHUG CHUG CHUG.’ But he does know exactly how she likes her tea: white with two sugars. And how she will order her eggs when she goes to brunch: poached and on sourdough. And that her favourite movie is unashamedly Titanic. And that her favourite sexual position is on top. And they both correctly guess that her most annoying habit is using caps lock in messages. They both tell the proposal story in exactly the same way, including the bit where they had to smuggle the ring back through customs as Mark didn’t realise you had to declare it. As question bleeds into question, my throat tightens, my eyes prickle, emotion inflates my stomach. Mark’s chin doesn’t look so chubby now, his eyes not so sad. I picture him scheduling the filming of this into his diary, secretly liaising with Janet to pick a time when Chrissy was out of their flat. Chrissy’s equally bewitched. She reaches out at least twice to stroke the projection of her fiancé. She’s doing hardly any shots as they keep syncing answers.
I cannot take any more of this.
I impatiently wait for Chrissy to get one wrong and use the ‘CHUG CHUG CHUG’ excitement to make my exit, my stomach swirling, hands shaking. The restaurant corridor whirls as my drunkenness catches up with me, and I stumble, half holding the wall, into the toilets and lock myself in a cubicle.
Here I try to digest the pure shameful envy it’s sparked in me. The longing in my gut that won’t leave, no matter how much I try to push it away. I sit with my knickers gathered around my ankles, peeing with my body bent forward so my head rests on my knees.
It’s not that I’m not delighted for Chrissy – I am.
It’s not that I want to marry Mark – I don’t.
It’s not because she has a diamond ring on her finger, or a white dress to wear in two weeks’ time, or the honeymoon of a lifetime around the corner.
It’s the knowingness that hurts.
Because no one romantically has ever known me the way Mark knows Chrissy and Chrissy knows Mark. I want to be known, all of me known. All of me loved. All of me accepted. I want to have someone in my life who completely and utterly knows me, and has earned the knowing of me by their unwavering willingness to stick around while I slowly reveal it all. It only grows with time and commitment and dedication, and that only comes with someone deciding you are worth the investment to become knowable. Someone who believes the bits they will learn about you will only make them love you more, not less. I don’t have that. I’ve never had that. I don’t think I ever will …
Megan’s quick to answer the phone. I didn’t even realise I was calling her until she picks up. ‘Hello? April?’
‘He … he doesn’t know me,’ I slur out. ‘He doesn’t know anything about me.’
‘What are you talking about? Are you OK? Where are you? Are you still at the hen do?’
‘Joshua!’ I shout, my voice bouncing off the metal encasement of my cubicle. ‘He doesn’t know me at all.’
‘Who the hell is Joshua? Hang on, is he that guy who was in our flat the other day?’
I nod.
‘April?’
‘He doesn’t know me, Megan.’ My voice keeps catching. ‘He thinks I’m Gretel. He only likes me because he thinks I’m Gretel.’ Snot pours from my nose, tasting bitter as it seeps between my lips though