loser.
I walked to the good sushi place and bought miso soup and some sashimi I hadn’t had before and tried not to think, Eel! I’m actually eating eel! and drank a beer, then lay on my bed, flicked through the channels and pushed away thoughts of other things, such as what Sam was doing. I told myself I was in New York, the centre of the universe. So what if I was having a Friday night in? I was simply resting after a week of my demanding New York job. I could go out any night of the week, if I really wanted to. I told myself this several times. And then my phone pinged.
You out exploring New York’s finest bars again?
I knew who it was without looking. Something inside me lurched. I hesitated a moment before responding.
Just having a night in, actually.
Fancy a friendly beer with an exhausted corporate wage slave? If nothing else, you could make sure I don’t go home with an unsuitable woman.
I started to smile. And then I typed: What makes you think I’m any kind of defence?
Are you saying we look like we could never be together? Oh, that’s harsh.
I meant what makes you think I’d stop you going home with someone else?
The fact that you’re even responding to my messages? (He added a smiley face to this.)
I stopped typing, feeling suddenly disloyal. I stared at my phone, watching the cursor wink impatiently. In the end he typed, Did I blow it? I just blew it, didn’t I? Damn, Louisa Clark. I just wanted a beer with a pretty girl on a Friday night and I was prepared to overlook the feeling of vague dejection that comes with knowing she’s in love with someone else. That’s how much I enjoy your company. Come for a beer? One beer?
I lay back on the pillow, thinking. I closed my eyes and groaned. And then I sat up and typed, I’m really sorry, Josh. I can’t. x
He didn’t respond. I had offended him. I would never hear from him again.
And then my phone pinged. Okay. Well, if I get myself in trouble I’m texting you first thing tomorrow morning to come get me and pretend to be my crazy jealous girlfriend. Be prepared to hit hard. Deal?
I found I was laughing. The least I can do. Have a good night. X
You too. Not too good, though. The only thing keeping me going right now is the thought of you secretly regretting not coming out with me. X
I did regret it a little. Of course I did. There are only so many episodes of The Big Bang Theory a girl can watch. I turned the television off and I stared at the ceiling and I thought about my boyfriend on the other side of the world and I thought about an American who looked like Will Traynor and actually wanted to spend time with me, not a girl with wild blonde hair who looked like she wore sequined G-strings under her uniform. I thought about ringing my sister but I didn’t want to disturb Thom.
For the first time since I had arrived in America I had an almost physical sense of being in the wrong place, as if I were being tugged by invisible cords to somewhere a million miles away. At one point I felt so bad that when I walked into my bathroom and saw a large chestnut-coloured cockroach on the sink I didn’t scream, like I had previously, but briefly considered making it a pet, like a character in a children’s novel. And then I realized that I was now officially thinking like a madwoman and sprayed it with Raid instead.
At ten, irritable and restless, I walked to the kitchen and stole two of Nathan’s beers, leaving an apologetic note under his door, and drank them, one after the other, gulping so fast that I had to suppress a huge belch. I felt bad about that damned cockroach. What was he doing after all? Just going about his cockroachy business. Maybe he’d been lonely. Maybe he’d wanted to make friends with me. I went and peered under the basin where I’d kicked him but he was definitely dead. This made me irrationally angry. I’d thought you weren’t meant to be able to kill cockroaches. I’d been lied to about cockroaches. I added this to my list of things to feel furious about.
I put my earphones in and sang my way drunkenly through some Beyoncé songs