I would never be his family again.
So I didn’t hear her out. I said it was nice to see her and stubbed my cigarette in the bin and walked away. I went back into the venue, where everyone was dancing, and I watched the world having a good time with a fresh fake smile on my face for as long as I could stand it.
And then I left.
I bailed out of there and called a taxi back into town and I jumped out at the Neptune fountain. I let out all the tears I’d been banking up as I tossed a whole handful of coins into the water from the bottom of my handbag, and then I made my wish.
I made the same wish I made a decade ago, with the same tracks of tears down my cheeks and the same broken throb in my stomach.
I wish that I could forget about Lucas Pierce for the rest of my life.
But even Neptune would never be that strong.
He hadn’t been that fucking strong last time around.
Nicola and Vicky stumbled into the apartment late that night, long after I’d bailed from the wedding. I heard them singing party songs and clattering around in the kitchen, and then I heard the inevitable rap of knuckles on my bedroom door.
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t face it. I pulled the covers up and hid my face in the warmth and prayed they’d fuck off and leave me in my own pit of misery.
“Anna… Anna are you awake? Where did you go?” Nicola’s slurred voice sounded out.
Like they didn’t know where I’d have gone, and like they didn’t know why.
“You know it’s only cos we care, right?” Vicky called. “We care about you! That’s why we’re so bothered! Lucas Pierce is a cunt, and we’re saving you! Believe us! We’re trying to save you!”
“We love youuuu!” Nicola sounded out again.
“Come and talk to us!” Vicky said. “We spoke to Yasmin, you know… and we get it more now, and we’ll talk. We promise we’ll talk!”
“Yeah, come on,” Nicola tried. “Do you wanna hear? I mean, you must wanna talk about Lucas, right? And he’s a cunt, but we know you’re sad, and we know you love him, and we care!”
I knew it was right. I knew it was true they cared. I knew everyone had nothing but my best intentions at heart when they were cursing and damning and calling for destruction, but it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter.
My heart was broken. And my heart was failing.
The worst I could do now was talk about Lucas a whole load more, and chat about Yasmin, and Maya and what a bitch she was, and dredge up a whole new whirlwind of shit with people who wouldn’t get it, no matter what.
I ignored the girls, and tried another shot at sinking into sleep, but it was another shit attempt at normality to add to the failure pile.
I felt so torn up and so lonely I felt sick. I was barely sleeping, and the seizures were coming back, and I didn’t want to eat a bite.
I was missing Lucas so much it felt like round one all over again, and I guess that’s why round one started repeating.
I guess that’s why I felt like I needed someone to hold me tight and tell me it was all going to be ok.
I had nothing but the barrage of people telling me what they thought I needed, and nothing but the pain in my chest telling me I’d never have what I wanted, and it was blurring into one long, fucked up, miserable string of days that were going nowhere.
I pictured Lucas happy with his wife and little girl – just like his mother’s pictures had shown me.
I pictured his mother grinning happy now he was back in his real life.
I pictured Lucas and Maya renewing their vows, and making it work this time, and making another little brother or sister for the treasure they’d created already.
And I couldn’t stand it.
Not anymore.
I couldn’t stand everyone on loudspeaker telling me just how much I should be back in my real life, to match his. I couldn’t keep fighting it, because I wanted to believe it too, just to believe in something.
So when that regular text message came through on that regular Monday morning, a few weeks after I’d been trying to do it all by my myself – through blanking out useless with my seizures in the meeting rooms at work, to waking up in pools of my own piss and tears, and the epilepsy nurses trying to insist I put my medication levels up all over again – I did it.
Have you come to your fucking senses yet?
I stared at the text message for three hours straight until I sent my reply to the man who’d picked me up from this pain last time around.