The Secret Girl

*

EX-BOY.

*

She’s keeping herself together, she’s thinking straight, which is unusual. Under normal circumstances, she is distraught when she calls him, crying her heart out into the receiver, begging him to take her back. However, she is keeping herself together this morning, she’s thinking straight.

Ex-Boy is in currently in Canada, a five-hour time difference away. Secret Girl has called him many times over the past eleven days, usually a couple hours after she gets out of bed and the pain begins to settle in her stomach again, so Ex-Boy is awake at four o’clock in the morning, waiting for her to call him. When his cell phone rings and her name appears on Caller ID, he is not surprised.

He accepts the call but says nothing. He doesn’t normally say anything; he just listens to her cry and beg and plead. He doesn’t know what to say and she knows he doesn’t know what to say and he knows that she knows this and it makes him wonder why she calls (but really, he knows that too). But there is no crying, no distraught voice, no begging this time. For the first time in eleven days, he is listening to her silence, waiting for something to happen.

Something happens; a shuffling noise and music begins to play softly in the background. He knows the song, perhaps better than he knows himself. It’s still his favourite song, though he doesn’t listen to it anymore - or at least, he has not listened to it in eleven days. Ex-Boy thinks that this kind of torture is worse than listening to her cry and beg and plead. He wants to hang up, but he doesn’t, because he is intrigued.

“I miss you all the time.” There is no ‘sometimes’ or ‘every now and then’; she misses him all the time. Ex-Boy misses her too, but he doesn’t say so. “I think about you all the time. I talk about you all the time, though usually to myself. You’re my every waking moment, the very air I breathe, you’re the ground beneath my feet. You’re also the monsters underneath my bed, the darkness in my night times and the nightmares in my sleep.”

There’s a hint of familiarity, he ignores it because he knows what it means. Ex-Boy does not want to go through this again, if he does, he knows it’ll be worse this time. He can already tell that there’s no going back for her, she’s decided on what she wants to do, and when she gets an idea in her head, it’s impossible to convince her there’s another way.

Ex-Boy finds himself speaking anyway, regardless of the fact that it is an obvious bad choice to make. He says, “I’m sorry.”

On the other end of the (until now) rather one-sided conversation, Secret Girl finds herself cracking. This was not in her plan, although she had had a feeling that something like this might happen. But something like this, not this. She opens her mouth to say something but closes it again, almost immediately. She opens her mouth again and closes it - open, close, open close. She looks like a door or a fish.

Climbing up her throat, like a monster that has seen in a gap in the fence and is going to make the great escape. Secret Girl tries to swallow it down, but stopping the tears is about as easy as drowning a mermaid. They come anyway, slyly creeping out of her eyes and sliding down her cheeks. The cry rips through her chest, tearing up her throat - she can’t hold it in.

Canada has never seen such a regretful boy, Ex-Boy feels ready to bang his head against the wall when he hears her cry. Instead he stays very still and waits to hear what happens next.

“Why her and not me?”

This question is easy. Ex-Boy knows the answer instantly. Secret Girl is unstable and totally unable to look after herself. Ex-Boy can picture her now, sitting in her bedroom with several bottles of beer lined up neatly on her bedside table. The soles of her feet covered in scars, old and new, whilst the scars on her chest and arms have faded almost completely. There are bags under her eyes and she feels endlessly tired, because she has not slept in several days. Her collarbones stick out from the rest of her body, her face looks hollow and her skin looks waxy and has a yellow-ish tinge to it.

Ex-Boy is almost right, he just doesn’t know about the bandages. He can’t handle always having to look after her because no matter how hard he tries to make her happy, something always brings her down again. That’s the answer right there; he needs stability. But he doesn’t want to hurt her any more than he has already so Ex-Boy lies and says, “I don’t know.”

*

SILLY BOY.

*

Secret Girl doesn’t know why she asked him, she already knew the answer. She thinks that perhaps she just wanted to hear him say it, as though hearing him say it would be enough motivation to get better.

She sits in her bedroom, pretend-pondering what to do next. She knows what to do, because she has her entire morning planned out. She’s had this entire morning planned all night, but so far, the plan is failing. She wipes her eyes angrily. It is his entire fault that the plan is failing, he didn’t give her an answer and he made her lose it. Secret Girl can’t keep it together anymore. It doesn’t matter though, because she is going to Silly Boy’s house. It’s nine o’clock in the morning and parents aren’t fully awake yet so she is going to walk. It’s a forty-minute walk to Silly Boy’s house but she doesn’t mind.

Secret Girl pulls on her coat, trying not to notice how it hangs off of her frame. In comparison to her it looks like a giant’s coat and that bothers her. Outside is colder than she expected and her Wellington boots don’t do a very good job of keeping her warm. She pulls her thick red socks up as high as they will go and they reach the top of her thighs. Secret Girl tries to force the coat’s hood over her head but her hair is so messy and unkempt that the hood will not stay. The walk begins.

There are no cars on the narrow, one-way road this early on a Monday morning. It is the middle of August (although it is cloudy and wet) and everyone is sleeping. The only vehicles Secret Girl sees are the tractors in the fields or the quad bikes chasing after the Border Collies who herd the sheep. She waves at a couple of the farmers she knows, forcing a happy smile.

When she reaches Silly Boy’s door, she hesitates. She knows he’s home alone, his mother will be visiting his grandmother in the hospital and his father is living in the south of England with his new Secret Girlfriend. She hesitates anyway because what if he doesn’t care anymore? She wouldn’t blame him; she’s not a very good friend or a very good person for that matter.

“Coming in?”

Secret Girl didn’t even notice the door open or the boy standing in the doorway. He does this sometimes because he wakes up before she gets out of bed and he sees her walking across the road towards his house. Silly Boy looks tired but happy to see her. She smiles and slides in through the doorway.

This house is far warmer than outside and Secret Girl relishes in the heat for a moment before taking her coat off and hanging it on the rack. Like Silly Boy, she is still in her pyjamas and she’s got Mister Piggy tucked into the top of her PJ bottoms.

“Did you sleep last night?” asks Silly Boy.

Secret Girl shakes her head and starts to move towards the stairs but stops. “Did you?”

“No.”

Upstairs is her favourite part of the house. It’s cosier, with fluffy carpets and colourful paintings and teddy bears galore. It’s warmer too and the warmest room is the study (it’s also Secret Girl’s favourite room) but they don’t go into the study, they go into Silly Boy’s bedroom.

It’s as messy as usual and it smells of all sorts of boyish things, mainly Lynx Africa deodorant, a deodorant that Secret Girl particularly likes. She sits on the desk chair and looks around the room, trying to figure out how it has changed because something looks different. Several minutes pass before Silly Boy says, “The walls.”

Secret Girl feels stupid now. Why didn’t she notice it before? Because the room used to belong to his older sister, the walls were purple. Now they are three are blue and one has a black and white paisley design on it. She likes the walls better now.

“They look nice,” she says, “Purple didn’t really suit you.”

Silly Boy grins. “No, not really.” He tries to think of something to say to keep the conversation upbeat but Secret Girl speaks before he can.

“I don’t think I’m getting anywhere,” she says. He knows what she’s talking about. “Like, I could be so much closer. I must be doing something wrong. It’s just... I always feel like it’s never going to happen.”

“I feel like that sometimes,” says Silly Boy. She knows what he’s talking about. “Like, I just need to figure out what I’ve been doing wrong and then everything will be okay. Everything will turn out the way I want it too. I don’t think I’ll be happy until it does.”

Secret Girl looks down at the white carpet, feeling guilty. “Yeah, exactly like that.”

Silly Boy won’t say what he wants to say because he’s told her a million times before and she won’t listen to him, so he keeps his mouth shut. Neither of them say anything because they’re thinking of something to say. Secret Girl can’t remember her plan at all now, other than the next step, which is making the telephone call. She doesn’t want to make that call yet though, she knows that there was something in between.

“Did you call him this morning?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How did it go?”

“Badly, as usual.”

“Maybe you should stop.”

“Stop what?”

Silly Boy wants to say, all of this. Maybe you should stop calling him every fucking day. Maybe you should stop obsessing over him every single moment of your life. Maybe you should stop not eating. Maybe you should stop being stubborn and get some medication to help you sleep. Maybe you should stop hating yourself because you’re beautiful.

“Maybe you should stop calling him. He’s an asshole and assholes aren’t really worth this.”

“I think you’re right.”

*

PRETTY BOY.

*

Secret Girl drags the Chapstick along her lips several times before putting it back in her pocket. She’s sitting in the study now and she loves the warmth. Silly Boy is sitting in the kitchen downstairs, watching television and eating his breakfast. She wonders if his heart is beating as fast as hers. She likes this feeling best, out of all the feelings in the world, and she wonders if she likes it too.

But amongst the excitement and lust, a tiny part of her hates herself even more. She pushes it down and buries it, trying to not feel the tiniest ounce of regret.

Secret Girl picks up the telephone dials the number. He’ll probably ask how she got his number, after he asks who she is and if he knows her. Then he won’t say anything for a while and she’ll start speaking instead. That’s the way it goes in Secret Girl’s head.

He picks up after a few rings. “Hello?” He sounds groggy; he must’ve been asleep.

“Hello.”

“Who’s this?”

She tells him her name.

“Do I know you?”

“No, not really. Or at least, I shouldn’t think so.”

“How did you get my number?”

“From a friend of yours.”

“Oh, really? Which friend?”

She tells him the name of which friend of his gave her his number and he groans and swears loudly. Secret Girl doesn’t really feel like telling him why she called now, she feels embarrassed and she knows that he’s going to reject her. He has a girlfriend and she’s awfully pretty. His girlfriend is intelligent and fun and endlessly talented and she leads an exciting life and she’s popular.

Secret Girl’s plan fails yet again. She doesn’t start speaking begins her mouth refuses to open and the words refuse to come. Instead, Pretty Boy speaks.

“I know who you are,” he says. “Are you okay?”

That’s a funny question! Such a funny question in fact, that Secret Girl laughs out loud.

“Yeah,” she lies, fighting down her laughter. “Are you almost there?” Pretty Boy knows what she means.

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

“Oh. I’m not. I’m nowhere fucking near almost there.”

“One day, you will be.”

“Well ‘one day’ is too fucking far away.”

Pretty Boy chuckles. “I used to think that and now ‘one day’ is almost here. Be patient. It’s worth it.”

“I’m not very good at waiting. In fact, this morning I decided I was sick of waiting. I mean, I didn’t even know what I was waiting for, really.”

“But now you know. You’re waiting for ‘one day’. Everyone is, even if they don’t know it. Don’t stop waiting, it’s not worth it to stop.”

Secret Girl paused. She didn’t know what to say to this. Had he recognised the way she was talking or her tone of voice? She knew what he was referring to, but how could he know?

“I think you’re amazing and a genius and infinitely beautiful.” That’s what she said instead.

“Thank you.”

There was an awkward silence. Secret Girl watched the analogue clock in the study tick away the seconds. Ten seconds went by... twenty seconds went by... thirty seconds went by and just as the clock was about to tick away forty seconds, Pretty Boy cleared his throat.

“Where are you now?”

“Wales.”

“Oh.” Pretty Boy clears his throat again. “I hear that Wales is home to some of the world’s prettiest girls.”

Secret Girl laughs and blushes. She’s glad this is just a conversation over the phone.

“Please don’t do it.” Pretty Boy says. “Please. It’s not worth it, I promise. And I know I sound like a huge hypocrite but please, please don’t do it.”

“Okay. I won’t. I - I promise.”

Pretty Boy sighs audibly. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No. I lied earlier. I’m not okay at all. I want to rip love out of my chest. It’s killing me.”

“That’s what it does,” replies Pretty Boy. “Love kills.”