Chapter Two

Maeve

I. Fucking. Hate. My. Life.

At least I do right now. Or rather, more specifically, I hate love and right now I'm fucking surrounded by it at this party held in what I imagine to be one of London's most prestigious venues – the openair courtyard of a red-brick Regency-era mansion house not a stone's throw from Clapham Common. When love is everywhere like this, lit up by the thousands of fairy lights strung up above us, it almost has a smell, a stench. I can't describe it very well but it's potent and it's powerful, although I can't honestly say it smells bad. It's just obnoxious and encompassing and overwhelming and I fucking hate it.

And when I say I hate it, what I really mean is, fuck, I want that. I really want that. But I'll probably never have it, so yeah, it's easier to hate it, thank you very much.

The love I am looking at and feeling things about is in front of me in the form of two men kissing. Two men with their arms wrapped around each other. Two men with their eyes closed and their lips pressed together. Two men who I don't even hate – not at all. One of the men is like a second brother to me – and yet I feel irrationally grumpy at how he's getting his happy ending. Or rather his happy beginning.

While I am consumed with jealousy, I am still happy for Jake. Jake deserves the way Rami is looking at him as he pulls away and lifts a finger to stroke Jake's bottom lip, as if he can't quite believe his lips just touched something so precious and soft. Jake deserves to hear the cheering and whooping from the surrounding guests at his fortieth birthday party as Rami dives back in to take Jake's mouth again. Jake truly deserves that euphoric smile after Rami has spun him around, leaning him back as their kiss deepens. Jake deserves it all, even if it gives me a lacerating kind of pain to watch it play out.

I roll my eyes and tut. I'm about to mutter, "Get a room," to Marty, my brother who is standing next to me, but when I turn to look at him, he's bending down to kiss his partner, Jenna, his hand sliding down to caress her pregnant stomach. Her eyes are on her brother, Jake, and Rami, and the faraway smile on her face tells me she can smell what I can smell too. The love. But unlike me she's filled her lungs with it and is yet to exhale.

"Christ on a bike," I say to myself instead and I allow myself another eye-roll, this one so emphasised and deliberate it makes me dizzy.

I fucking hate my life.

*****

"Will you not just crash at Jake's place with us?" Marty asks as we climb into the back of the black cab a few hours later.

"I have a room in a five-star hotel. Why on earth would I swap that for Jake's box room?" I look at Marty with a lowered chin. "No offence, Jake."

"None taken!" the birthday boy practically sing-songs. He and Rami are holding hands and standing beside the open cab door. "But you are more than welcome to stay there. I have a fridge full of food that Marty can cook for you in the morning."

"And we won't be back anytime soon," Rami says as he rocks his hip into Jake's. They're staying at the hotel Jake's party was held at and no doubt they have a passionate night of love-making ahead of them while I have nothing but washing off my make-up to look forward to.

Ugh.

"What was that, Maeve?"

Oh, did I make that noise out loud? Fuck.

"Nothing."

Jenna leans towards me, squeezing me between her and Marty. "Come and stay with us, Maeve. We can wake up late and watch brain-numbingly awful reality TV while Marty waits on us hand and foot."

"Suddenly sounding like a shit deal for me," my brother mumbles.

"We'll be back in the afternoon too," Rami adds. "And then I can actually thank you properly for all your help over the last few weeks."

I wave my hand in front of my face. "I didn't do anything."

"I disagree," he says with a warm smile. "You made this happen." He holds up his hand that is gripping Jake's firmly. He's exaggerating but I guess there is some truth in his statement. I did help arrange the flash mob dance performance that brought him and Rami back together.

Brilliant. So I can help other people fall in love but I can't make it happen for myself. Fucking perfect.

"I don't like the idea of you being all alone tonight and tomorrow morning when you can be with us," Jenna says, and somehow she has found my hand with hers.

"I'll be grand at the hotel. Really, you're all worrying about me for no reason," I say firmly.

"But we will see you before you fly out?" Jake asks, and when his eyes find mine, I see genuine concern, or maybe it's guilt. He and I have had more than a few half-joking conversations about how we'll stay single forever and now he's very much not at all single. But as grumpy as I am about this fact, I don't want him to feel bad about it.

"Here's a compromise. I'll pop around to your place to say goodbye after I check out of the hotel. Should be about lunchtime, that work for you?"

"Will you be finished with me by then?" Jake asks Rami, who narrows his grey eyes at his boyfriend.

"Not exactly, but I'll let you have a break."

"So generous," Jake says and his dreamy eyes betray his sarcastic tone. I don't even try to stop my fifteenth eye-roll of the night.

"Grand, that's decided then," I say and face forward. "Let's let the poor driver get his fare, shall we?"

"Don't worry about me, love," the man in the driver's seat says, his flat cockney vowels raspy and deep. "I've had the meter running since you all piled in and started having a lengthy discussion about who's going where."

"Gotta love London," I grumble and extract my hand from Jenna's so I can pull my jacket around me. It's early September and a mild night so I'm not in the least bit cold and yet I feel a chill in my bones. I know what it is; it's exhaustion. Bone-deep exhaustion from too much work, too much travel, and apparently, too much sulking about being loveless and single.

But can you blame me? It's been nine months since I made the loose New Year's resolution to try and find some kind of romantic love, and it just hasn't happened. Of course, I know why it hasn't happened, but I'm not exactly ready to confront that truth just yet. At least not while I'm sitting in the back of a black cab surrounded by two couples who can barely keep their hands off each other.

"Alright, she's crossed her arms and got that grumpy look on her face." Marty reaches for the car door handle. "There's no changing her mind now. Jake, Rami, we will wish you goodnight."

"And happy birthday again, brother," Jenna leans over my lap. Her stomach presses against my legs and the little tingle of excitement I feel about the life that is growing there is a welcome little surprise that almost manages to melt away some of my bad mood, but not quite. "And have ALL the fun!"

As Jake and Rami share a knowing look and Marty and Jenna chuckle, I just close my eyes and start counting to ten. By the time I've reached ten, the door is closed, Marty has given the driver the addresses for my hotel and Jake's flat, and we are moving away, but I don't feel any calmer or more at ease.

"Maeve," Jenna says my name slowly, hesitantly, and I just know she wants to do the one thing I really don't want to do; talk about it.

"Jenna, I fecking love you to bits, and you know I think it's amazing what you do, being a sex and relationships journalist and all, but I really don't want to talk about it right now."

"That's fine," Jenna says. "I just want you to know you can talk to me, when you're ready."

"I know." I sigh. And I do know. I know I have people, good people, who care about me and want me to be happy, but sometimes that doesn't feel enough. I'm grateful for them, don't get me wrong. Marty, Jenna, Jake and my parents have all showered me with love and support since I came out as queer at Christmas and then further defined my identity by publicly acknowledging I am asexual about three months ago, but I thought the whole point of going on a journey of self-enlightenment, of being curious and questioning about my sexuality and my wants and desires, was supposed to result in some clarity and and maybe something like a conclusion. Something like a happy ending, or a happy beginning, for me too.

It's possibly a lie to say it hasn't brought any clarity. Since I did a spontaneous Live on Christmas Day and came out as queer to my social media followers, which now total nearly three million, I have discovered things about myself,things that are undeniable and true and immovable.

Do I like that I'm asexual? Yes, if we remove the rest of the world, the allosexual world, I really do. I like how it removes a whole world of cloudy, contradictory and complicated connections that perplexingly involve being as close as you can possibly be to somebody physically and yet as distant as strangers mentally or emotionally. I like how being asexual has helped me remove endless aggravating worries and frustrations about how I thought there was something wrong with me. How I thought I was broken. How I thought I was the only one who felt – or who didn't feel – a certain way. Now, I know there are people just like me, or similar enough. People who all speak a language I am fluent in, even if we do not share the exact same vocabulary, the exact same thoughts. Now, I am one of many. Now, I am not alone.

But I don't live in a world populated only by aces. I've been slow to make real friends in the ace community, because I wanted to figure out more about myself first. And I don't have the luxury of not being confronted regularly with how, while my asexuality makes complete sense to me most days, I still struggle to like being asexual in the real world. I still sometimes feel like something is missing. On my darkest days, I still feel like I'm broken.

And I still also find it so, so confusing thinking about how I crave the intimacy, the closeness, the trust of a romantic relationship with someone, and yet I don't want the physical act that comes with it.

Because even if I am capable of a romantic relationship, who is going to want one with somebody who may never want to have sex?

This is why I hate love. This is why I hate wanting love. I hate wanting what I'll never, ever have.

When I surface from these busy, ugly thoughts, I realise we're approaching the River Thames and in less than ten minutes we'll be at my hotel. A soft rhythmic rumble pulls my eyes to my brother who has his head tipped back and his mouth slightly open, fast asleep and snoring. When I turn the other way and give Jenna a quick half-glance, I see she's awake and staring out the window as we start to go over Battersea Bridge. Looking ahead again, I see the cabbie is going to town trying to get something out of his teeth with one hand while the other grips the steering wheel. The radio is chattering away to him, although it's a muffled sound to me because of the glass panel that separates us. I sigh and I'm not wholly surprised when it pulls out a small hiccup and my eyes get warm with tears.

"Jenna," I say when I know I have only a few more minutes before we are pulling up at my hotel. The air in the cab is too quiet and yet also too full, too heavy and I know I can't hide my tears anymore. Not when I am cursed with hiccups whenever I cry.

She turns to me immediately. "Yeah?"

I don't say anything, but my eyes meet hers and I know she sees it – my sadness – and I know she'll notice the tears.

"Oh, Maeve," she says and her face crumples in sympathy.

"Can I..." But I don't finish. Instead, I lean my head on her shoulder. A second later, we are bumped by a dip in the road, a pothole or something, and my body falls forward. I find myself letting gravity take me and I lay my head on Jenna's lap. Behind my head, I feel the warm, firm curve of her pregnant belly, and her hands come to comb my hair away from my face.

"It's going to be okay, Maeve." She doesn't know why I'm upset – we haven't spoken properly in months about my queerness, my asexuality or anything deep – but she knows me, she knows I've struggled in the past, and she knows I wouldn't collapse on her in a sobbing heap unless I really had to.

"I don't think it will be," I say, finding it easier to admit this because she doesn't know what exactly I'm talking about. She doesn't know my deepest, darkest fear feels closer and more solid than ever. That I'll never find love like others have. I'll never know what it's like to wake up next to somebody who wants to do life with me.

"It may not be okay how you think it will be," Jenna says after a few seconds, her fingers still stroking my hair. "But it will be okay, I promise you that. We will make sure that it is okay."

"You and Marty?" I ask with a hiccup.

"And Bubba," she says.

"Bubba," I repeat, and I smile despite it all.

"There are so many good things to come, Maeve. Not just Bubba but also..." Jenna sighs but it's a light bridge of air. "Everyone, everywhere."

"Everyone, everywhere," I repeat and it's not because I believe her. It's not even because I'm comforted by her words. It's because I'm so tired and I'm so sad and I'm so fed up with trying to feel better about what I'll never have, what I've lost before even experiencing it.

"Stay with us, Maeve," Jenna says a minute or so later when the taxi stops moving. "Go grab your things and then come back down and we'll go to—"

"No," I sit up and interrupt. "No, I want to be alone tonight."

It's not the truth, but being alone is my reality and I may as well start getting used to it. I give Jenna a quick peck on the cheek, then open the taxi door and climb out, careful not to disturb my snoring brother. I take a few steps towards the hotel's entrance, then look back and wave at Jenna as the taxi pulls off again. Then I look up at the sky and pull in a deep breath of the mild night air. As my lungs deflate on my slow exhale, I watch clouds part above me, revealing a sprinkling of a few tiny, glittering stars. There are so few that I can count them. Seven stars. Suddenly nothing feels more depressing than the fact I can only see seven stars in the sky. Their low number only makes me feel sadder, and makes them feel further away. They feel a million miles away. No, I feel a million miles away from everything and everyone.

Unanchored. Unrooted. Unhinged.

And then I bring my eyes back to my feet, and I watch them turn and walk into the hotel, alone, so very alone.