“I don’t believe you!” She snapped loudly.
I looked around, but there was no one nearby to hear her. It was so rare to see her display any kind of temper. She was one of my closest friends, and I was somewhat blindsided.
“Leonora, what is with you?” I whispered, urging her to lower her voice, but losing all sign of compassion. “If I don’t want to talk about something, I don’t have to.”
“No I guess you don’t.” She looked away, casting her eyes that had now filled with water to the horizon. “I told you something that only the three of you know.” Her words came crashing down on me, I felt my posture slump. “I trust you three with a secret I couldn’t ever tell anyone else.”
“This is different –”
“Is it?” She still wouldn’t look at me. “It’s something you refuse to talk about, sounds just the same to me. Why do you draw ladybugs?” She pointed back down at my hand. “You have to see that you’re actually damaging your skin when you do it. It’s always red raw, I’ve seen you bleeding before.”
“It’s nothing-”
“How can you keep saying that?” She snapped her head back as a single tear fell from her eyes.
“Leonora, please.” I was torn between anger at her invasion and sadness I was the one to make her cry.
“Why can’t you tell me? You know everything about me. I’m one of your closest friends and yet…”
“I can’t talk to anyone about this!” My temper snapped. How could she dare do this? I waved the hand in the air as if it were foreign from my body. “It’s weird!” I waved it even more manically. “It’s just me being ridiculous, it’s a way of coping is all.”
“Coping with what?”
“Nothing!” I practically shouted the word.
She stayed silent.
I lowered my eyes to the ground and leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. There was only one person in this world who I told everything to, and she was gone. I hadn’t been able to speak to her for six years.
That thought suddenly ripped open the hole of grief again. Years ago, when it had first happened, I had imagined my stomach was a black hole, everything disappearing down it. Now, it was there again. If those little people that I embodied as my nerves were there, they were all quickly disappearing down it, struggling to hold onto the very edge with their tiny fingers.
“I can’t talk about it.” The words were barely audible as I shook my head, refusing to look at Leonora.
“Fine.” She said eventually, standing slowly to her feet and wiping the tears away. “I guess we’re not the friends I thought we were.”
I didn’t try to stop her. I just watched her gym shoes walk away from me, feeling that black hole grow worse.
What had just happened?
By the time dinner came round with my mum on the Friday night, there were so many ladybugs on the back of my hand that they looked like they were crawling up my wrist, fighting over each other to be the first one to reach my elbow.
When my mum’s pale blonde bob appeared through the doorway of the restaurant, I felt a sudden outpouring of relief and love. I missed her. No matter how weird it was at the moment, I missed her. She must have felt the same because when she reached the table, she hugged me so tightly I thought she was going to leave an indentation of her arms across my back.
“Oh sweetheart,” she whispered as the waiter bustled round us with menus. “I’ve missed you so much. We left it too long.”
We really had, the blackhole in my stomach felt like it was gaping further open now that she was here. She was still my mother, I loved her, yet she wasn’t the same ever since Rosie had died. I sometimes wondered where my mum had gone.
As we talked, I suddenly remembered why I had left it so long from seeing her. Though we did talk about uni and other things, the chief topic of conversation was the divorce. I think it must have felt like torture for both of us, it certainly was for me.
Who ordered torture for two? A main course of bitter anger followed by a dessert of tears? Over here!
She had also lost a lot of weight. It was too much than could be healthy. The only topic that did appear to bring a smile to her cheeks was the upcoming holiday, so every time she started mumbling with bitterness or her voice rose with rage, I would steer the conversation neatly back to Lanzarote. It never lasted long, she was addicted to talking about the bad stuff.
“He’s just being so selfish,” she complained again as she stabbed at her New York cheesecake. “Did you know they are going on holiday too? Him and his tart?”
“No,” I abandoned my crème brulé, feeling it was just too sickly to face. The truth is that my dad had kept ringing me. Nearly three times a week and yet each time I had just let it go to voicemail. I couldn’t let go of the fact that he had started up with this woman when he did. When mum and I were at home. The thought of it made me sick.
“I heard it from the solicitor. To Scotland. She apparently has a holiday home there.” Her cheesecake was now smeared across her plate, she had stabbed it so many times with the silver prongs of her fork. Oh my mum was bitter – more so than a basket of lemons.
“When did he exactly start… seeing this woman?” Even the words were hard to say. I sipped water carefully, trying to wet the sudden dryness.
“Last year, I think,” she
