Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Effie

I cried myself to sleep on Thursday night, and I couldn't face Dexter on Friday. Not when my face was swollen from crying all night and I was so tired I could barely string a sentence together. I knew I would have to see him eventually. There was no avoiding him when we had the same English lessons but I needed to see him when the hurt was less raw. I needed time to tend to my wounded heart. He'd texted me more times than I cared to count throughout the night. I read all of them, each breaking my heart more than the last.

I hated that I was hurting him but sometimes pain was for the best. It was like resetting a broken bone: it was agony but if you didn't do it, it was messed up forever.

In the interests of a clean break, I left my house early on Saturday morning. Dexter had warned me that he would come back so I needed to escape before he did, otherwise I would cave. Or cry. Probably cry.

I grabbed a healthy breakfast on my way out of the house—a can of Coke and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch—and headed to Chantelle's house. She wouldn't be up yet but I had a key to the house and she wouldn't mind if I invaded her space a little. She was a loud person by nature, but with her I could handle it. I loved her like she was a sister. I remembered meeting Dexter for the first time at primary school but I couldn't remember a time where Chantelle hadn't been there. Without her, my grip on life would spiral. Where Dexter cushioned the world for me and made it livable, Chantelle forced me out of my comfort zone and left me with no choice but to acknowledge that I could handle things if I actually gave myself the chance to. She didn't let my anxiety rule me when I was with her.

I let myself into the house, knowing my Aunt Sylvia would be at work, and tapped softly on Chantelle's bedroom door.

"What?" Her voice was muffled and thick with sleep.

"It's Effie. Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

I walked in and slipped my shoes off before I crawled into the bed beside her like we'd always done since we were toddlers.

"What are you doing here?"

"Dexter said he'd come back today, so I'm hiding." Her eyes were still closed but I could tell she would have been rolling them if they weren't.

"You don't need to hide from him. Just talk to the poor lad."

"I can't, not yet."

"Why?" She shuffled closer to me and pulled me into a cuddle that I instantly relaxed into. I loved her hugs—they felt warm and comforting, like going back to childhood before my mental health took a nosedive and the anxiety reared its ugly head.

"It's too raw. I need a bit of time to sort myself out before I can face him."

"You can stay here, but I need to kick you out at two." I let my eyelids flutter shut. The warmth of the blankets was pulling me under and after such a little amount of sleep, I was powerless to stop it.

"Rude, but okay."

"I have a job to go to, and you have a friendship to sort out." Her soft, sleepy voice was firm but still loving enough for me to know she was giving me good advice. I just wasn't sure I was ready to take it.

When I woke up again, Chantelle was sitting next to me, scrolling through TikTok. I shimmied up to the headboard beside her and rested my head on her shoulder.

"Did sleeping help?"

"Not especially," I replied honestly. "I feel less tired, but I still don't know what to do."

"You know I messaged him after we talked last night."

"What did he say?"

"Mostly that it was a big misunderstanding that got out of hand very quickly." She put her phone down and faced me. "He's hurting too, you know? You shutting him out is hard for him."

"I know." I shook my head and looked down, ashamed that I was hurting him.

"So stop it."

"It's not that simple." I sighed. She was a great person to have in my corner but sometimes I wondered if Chantelle would ever understand how my anxiety crippled me at times. "I wish I could just talk to him, but the thought of what he might say to me, it makes me feel like I can't breathe properly. What if he tells me his mum is right, or that he hates me, or-?"

"Babe, if all he wanted was to say that to you, do you really think he would be begging you to talk to him?"

"I don't know. That's the problem. If I knew, I could prepare myself for the conversation and think about what I want to say to him."

"You can't script out every conversation you have, you know? That isn't how life works."

"I know it isn't, Channy, but it's how I need it to work. Look at the state of me." I held out a trembling hand in front of us.

"Has Dexter ever in his life done or said anything to hurt you?" It was absurd of me to even pause when the answer was so obviously no, but I did it anyway, letting myself think back to every time he could have easily said something cruel while I was vulnerable but never did.

"No, never."

"So what makes you think he would start now?"

"His mum said-"

"Fuck his mum. This isn't about her." She gripped my shaking hand as if it wasn't slick with sweat and, quite frankly, yucky. "Let him have his say, Effie. Don't lose a thirteen year friendship because you're scared of a conversation."

We were silent for a while, and the quiet allowed me to sift through my thoughts and take in what she'd said. I knew she was right, as much as I was loath to admit it. She usually was.

"Can we stay in bed and watch movies for a bit before I go home?"

"Only if you promise me you'll talk to him soon."

"I promise." I looked at her and stuck my pinkie out like we were seven again, and she wound hers around it.

"Good, now pick a film while I go and make us popcorn."

I felt a little better after spending most of the day in bed with Chantelle watching films from when we were kids. I really wished she could come to school with me, but she was much cleverer than I was, and went to the grammar school. She would be going away to university soon, too, to do some kind of absurdly difficult degree in maths or computing.

My cousin was a triple threat: beautiful, intelligent, and hilarious. I would have killed to be any of those things. She was confident in herself and had every right to be. We were like night and day, but that was what made us so close. Although her smile was sympathetic, she all but kicked me out of the car when we got to my house and told me to "sort my shit out, babe" before blowing me a kiss and heading off to her job in town. I watched the car disappear and shook my head, not quite able to keep the smirk off my lips.

Before I headed upstairs, I raided the kitchen, bringing an absurd amount of snacks and cans of Fanta upstairs with me so that I wouldn't have to leave my room other than to use the bathroom. I knew my mum meant well when she came to talk to me, but what I needed was to be left alone with my comfort show and my blankets.

Around three o'clock I heard the front door close and I assumed Mum had gone out to her weekly lunch slash gossip club with her sisters, until I heard a lot of thumping on the stairs and something barked outside my door.

Of course I knew it was Wren. I would have known her bark anywhere, but I was reluctant to open the door. If Wren was here, so was Dexter, and I wasn't ready to see him. I hated to leave her outside in the hallway so when she started whining after a few minutes, I opened my door a crack so she could slip through and slammed the door shut before Dexter could wiggle his way in, too. I heard him sigh through the door but to his credit he hadn't tried to barge in and invade my space.

Wren made herself at home on my bed and when I went to snuggle with her, I felt something attached to her collar. After a fiddly detachment, I was holding a rolled up piece of paper.

Effie,

I know you're upset, and so am I. If you just let me in, we can sort this out.

I know what my mum said sounded bad but she didn't mean for it to come out that way. Maybe if you came over and saw her she could explain? Even if you won't come over, please at least see me. I'll be waiting outside your bedroom door until you do. I know it's a bit weird and stalkery, but I can't leave without seeing you.

I love you millions,

Dex

xxx

The note sent me on another crying jag, and I left wet patches on my pillow. I should have let Wren out of my bedroom and sent the pair home together, but a selfish part of me loved that he was refusing to budge right now.

Rereading the note, I felt another shred of self esteem peel away from my already fragile sense of self. To think that after all the time I'd spent with him and his Mum, Sandra saw me as a weight holding her son down from being his best self. More than ever, I wished that I could have slid myself right down the spectrum until I was right on top of him. Maybe then I could have been good enough, but probably not seeing as my anxiety would still have been there. I'd always thought Sandra accepted me for who I was but as it turned out, I was just shit at reading the room once again.

Believe me, I had tried to be more normal. I spent so much time trying to cram myself into a nice little neurotypical box. I made every effort to hide my fixations, to force myself to handle social situations and talk to people, even when it felt like doing so would make my lungs collapse. I fought against myself so hard but it was never enough and I was learning to accept that it never would be. Or at least I had been. Having it shoved in my face that my anxiety was going to cost me the boy I'd been in love with since I could read had thrown me right back down to the bottom of the mountain of self acceptance.

A knock on the door interrupted my pity party and Wren let out a soft warning bark.

"I've made you a cup of tea." I didn't want to be rude so I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and sent him a text:

Effie: Thanks

"You're welcome." His voice wobbled with uncertainty that was very unlike him. "Can I bring it in?"

Effie: Okay

I pulled the blanket tighter around me when he came in like it would hide the messed up parts of me from him. He put the cups down in the empty space on the dresser and came to sit on the edge of my bed. For a second, I thought he was reaching for me, but his hand fell into Wren's coat and I heard him whisper, "Good girl, getting her to warm up to me."

I took advantage of his attention being elsewhere and studied him. He looked exhausted, the kind of tired that would usually have had us curled up in bed together watching something we'd both seen a hundred times and falling asleep before the first advert break kicked in. His usually neat brown hair was messy and rumpled, like he'd run out of the house this morning without so much as a glance into the mirror.

"Why didn't you come to school yesterday?"

Effie: Couldn't face it.

"Please talk to me, Effie. You always talk to me. That's not changed, surely?" All I could offer him was a barely there shug and a grimace as I tried to ignore the prickling in the back of my eyes. "I missed you."

Effie: I missed you too.

"Then why have you been ignoring me?" I stared at the screen. I didn't know how to say it without sounding like a cliché. I tapped my nails on the screen without actually pressing anything for a few seconds.

Effie: I thought it would be easier for you.

"In what world would it be easier for me to have you ignoring me, than it would be for you to just talk to me?" His voice was laced with frustration and I could see the tension in his jaw. "I'm sorry about what my mum said. She just doesn't understand us. I'm trying to make her get it but it's hard to explain it to her. She's so blinded by her own mistakes that she won't even consider that you're the right thing for me."

Effie: She's right. You can't just hang back with me all your life. There are going to be things that I struggle with forever. Anxiety disorders don't just go away when you get older, even if I can get past the selective mutism, the anxiety will probably still be there.

"What does that have to do with anything?" He looked genuinely puzzled, and I felt my brows shift.

Effie: That's why you mum wants you to get away from me?

The confusion on his face shifted to horror. "My mum does not want me to go off to university without you because of your anxiety." He grabbed my hand and held it so tight I wondered if he'd cut off my circulation. "Oh my God, Effie, I'm so sorry." My hand clearly wasn't enough, so he manoeuvred around the dog until his arms were around me, my head tucked under his chin.

"It was never about that, I swear." I tried to readjust myself so I could text him again but he grabbed the phone out of my hand and shoved it down the side of the bed. "No more texting, Effie. We need to talk properly." I must have looked anxious because his face softened and he shifted us into a more comfortable sitting position. "Okay, I need to tell you something. I was planning on telling you anyway but I wanted to do it better, and preferably not while you're upset."

He squirmed beside me like he was uncomfortable being with me. I tried to move so he had more space but he held me close to him.

"My mum went to university but she didn't stay. In her second year she got pregnant with me and dropped out. My dad kept on at his degree but by the time I'd started school he'd been offered some bigshot job, so he fucked off and we never saw him again. If she had just gone off and got her degree, she could be doing anything right now instead of working for a crap wage in a supermarket. Now she's scared I'm going to make the same mistake. Do you see where I'm going with this?" I shook my head and a wry smile tipped his lips. "Effie, I love you but I am also in love with you. I think I've always been in love with you. I just didn't realise it until recently. The reason my mum is worried is because she basically ruined her life for someone she loved, and she's scared I'll do the same, or even that you'll end up ruining your life for me,"

"You think you love me?" I was a little awestruck, and not convinced I was understanding him properly.

"I know I love you."

"But you can't."

"Why not?"

"Because it's me."

"I know it's you. I love you because you are you."

"I'm difficult to love." The thought fell out of me without permission. "There's so much I can't do, and so many things I'm scared of. I make it too hard to love me."

"Effie, that's absurd." He squeezed my hands. "You're easy to love, so easy I've been doing it nearly my whole life."

I shook my head, my voice retreating back inside as I remembered the day that had made me realise no one but Mum could love me. When Dad had said what he had to say, Mum went ballistic. She screamed so much that I couldn't make out most of the words and I hid under the covers with my hands over my ears until I fell asleep.

"Why don't you believe me?"

"If my own father can't love me, how can you?"

I tried to shuffle away, back myself into a corner where I could hide in the shadow, but he wouldn't let me. He held onto my wrists, pulling them to his chest and pinning them there.

"I love you. I have loved you for so long that it is almost impossible for me to hide anymore. I've spent years loving that I had your full attention and knowing that was selfish but not quite being able to make myself feel bad about it. I love how funny you are, how gentle you are with my big dumbass of a dog. I love that even on days when you can't talk to her, you still help my mum make tea. I love how clever you are, how you can always beat me at Scrabble even if I try to cheat. Every time we snuggled up on the sofa together under a blanket, I have taken that blanket up to bed with me because it smells like you. I love that you challenge yourself with difficult situations, and knowing that I'm the person you want around for those things, that you always speak to me, and let me touch you, it makes me think that you might love me, too. Now if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. We belong together, Effie. I've always known that. Haven't you?"