‘I have to wear contacts,’ she told me once, genuinely traumatised. ‘Because it stresses me out how much babies put smudge marks all over glasses. I can’t cope with it.’
I cringe at Emma’s clichés, at her constant diets, her relationship. If you’re that miserable, just leave, I think regularly. Like it’s that simple. Like I’m not now in an identical situation anyway and what do you know: not left yet.
Then there’s Cora, with her nails like knives, an engagement ring designed for Instagram and a made for Mills and Boon yoga teacher lover. I’ve judged her too, even as I’ve laughed with her, slept next to her, kept her secrets.
You think you are so perfect.
Of course someone would come to that conclusion, I realise with a crash, when the picture I am trying to present is so fraudulent.
When I’ve wiped out my past, my grime, my pain. When I kept my sadness inside. I thought it was better not to expose everything. I thought presenting a strong, cohesive, respectable package was the best thing. But perhaps the world needed to see my weakness to not hate me. And perhaps I needed to expose it, to make real friends; for Scarlett 3.0 to be fully formed.
I shiver, deep in my insides.
Here’s the real picture, I think, sitting now paranoid on the sofa in tracksuit bottoms in a starkly lit living room strewn with toys. Not a perfect mum. No longer a blogger. Not someone who commutes into town to do a cool job in an on-trend midi. Barely, these days, a wife. A friend? I thought so. I don’t any more.
Suddenly, I feel lucid.
Cora. Asha. Emma.
I don’t know them.
I wanted to have real friends, to belong, so I fast-tracked it, emulated closeness that really should take years to build. One minute they were the add-ons, the next I was replacing my husband with them when I needed someone to talk to.
The rest of us.
I let them in, close, without vetting, without time.
I let them in and I shared too much with no idea who any of them were.
On the sofa, I try to breathe and I try out both theories.
The person who has broken me is one of my mum friends.
The person who has broken me is sleeping with Ed.
It feels like my own mind needs a glasses wipe. I see very different things there, minute to minute, like I am at the optician’s. Which is clearer, I’m asked, as the lens is swapped, A or B?
But what if there is option C?
And my body feels flooded with the adrenalin that tells me I am right, I am right, this is it, finally.
Option C: the person who has broken me is one of my mum friends. And the person who has broken me is sleeping with Ed.
The person they want me to leave alone? My own husband.
My fingers slip away, then, from the cliff they’ve been clinging on to.
I feel stupid and sad and livid and in pain.
I feel desperate.
Sweat oozes through my top.
And I pace, like Ed the first day, at our emergency summit in my kitchen.
Asha is beautiful, young; Ed would fancy her. Emma has been going to a gym, possibly Ed’s, and is looking lovely for it. I know Cora has no issue with cheating.
New messages are there even now from them, in our group chat, as they are every day, almost every hour.
Bring me evidence, said Jonathan though, and what version of that do I have?
Think, Scarlett, think.
Tomorrow, a Saturday morning meet-up arranged, I will sit in the coffee shop with Asha, Cora and Emma.
Whoever has derailed my life will be waiting for me. Asking if I want to share a piece of ginger cake. Holding my hand if I cry. Taking care of my baby. Passing me the wet wipes. Being my friend. Ruining my life at the same time.
The circle has shrunk.
And only my mum friends are left in it.
Anon
Bloody wine. I never would have slipped up, if it hadn’t been for wine.
Is it a big enough thing, I think, the us?
Scarlett is sharp. But Scarlett is distracted lately, weighed down, more and more broken. I think of her face when she left the playdate the other day, haunted, hunted.
I delete the message straight away, hope for the best and walk through my silent, empty house to find more wine.
But then, flopping back down onto my sofa with a topped-up glass, I think. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing if she knows. Maybe this is where this is going, inevitably. Maybe I subconsciously wrote the us because I want her to know.
That wasn’t what I wanted at first. I just wanted to watch from afar as she was ruined; as she fell apart.
But now he has ended things, the goalposts have moved.
I can’t take it, him going back to her.
Not when I have lost him.
I start picking up toys from the floor but I need an outlet; a punchbag and I throw them one at a time at the wall. Some break, some begin playing songs that could drive you insane, even on a good day.
This isn’t a good day. I can’t imagine having a good day again. I need more.
I stagger back to the kitchen for more wine.
I need to stand face to face with Scarlett, and tell her what she has done to me.
And then I need to make sure she never goes near him again. Is incapable of going near him again. Ruin her.
I lie there on my sofa and fantastise about telling her.
It was me, Scarlett, it was me.
Gobbling up her shock. Watching her shrink, shrink, right down in front of me. Who’s the alpha now, Scarlett, who’s the alpha now?
34
Scarlett
25 July
And so I walk in to ‘our’ coffee shop the next day, feeling the tickle of sweat. Outside it is chilly for July but in here there are bodies and steaming tea. And fear.
I sweat with the
