“What is it, then?”
“I just want my room done before the guests arrive.”
After what feels like hours, he finally steps out of the room and picks up the groceries again. “Fine, Mara. I’ll drop the paint in later.”
38
I go to bedalone that night, no films. And the next day, I slip out of the house before Ash wakes. I have filled a backpack with my swimsuit, a brightly colored blue-and-pink beach towel, a book, a flask of tea, and a fully charged phone. I drop the backpack into my bike basket, fix my helmet, and push off down Sandhill Way onto the promenade. It’s early, but the sun is already out. As I cycle down the main road, there is barely any traffic and the whole town seems to be asleep.
I have never done the coastal trail, a long, flat, looped path along the north coast of Kent and back inland. It’s going to take some time, but I have time today. The election is over, and we are waiting to hear if Lynn has won. The gang is gathering at the Star and Anchor in the early evening to wait for the news. And Ash is in bed. I feel a crushing guilt as it dawns on me that when I told him I knew what I wanted, it turned out my foundation could still be shaken by that photo of Joe.
It feels like an insidious toxin moving through me, the bleed of doubt that that one image was able to seed. I used to joke that deliberation was my kryptonite. That I couldn’t even order lunch without crippling indecision. I was the person who preferred, almost to a comical degree, to rely on star signs and serendipity and fate to guide her. And yet, for a sweet, blissful moment, I had gone with my gut and chosen Ash. I had given in to the pull and allowed myself to float, untethered to any kind of permission. It was nothing other than my own feelings pulling me to him. It was freeing.
I turn off a large promenade with sweeping views of the Thames Estuary ahead of me, and onto a small country lane, its thin path curving inland and slightly rising. Alongside me the hedges are glistening with new blackberry growth and the little green buds of the coming berries. It will not be long before the lush green of the birch trees and their teardrop leaves start to fade to yellows and oranges and autumn starts to roll in.
The sun hits me right on the face as I cycle hard to get to the top of a small verge and pull over to slip on my sunglasses. I stop and look back down toward the sea and along the coast to the next village.
As I continue, I think about how my confidence has crashed. How the grasp of doubt has reached for me and found me willing to walk away so easily.
I take a small slope downward toward a bay, nothing but a few cottages dotting the shoreline now. In the distance the wind farms tower and the blue sea glistens. I love it here.
After an hour or so back down along the coastal trail, I find a quiet bench overlooking a shingle bay fixed with timber groins—large wooden walls placed a few meters apart, which act as adefense system against the tides. A structure to prevent the shingle beaches from washing away, essentially.
I cast my eye west, wondering if I should continue in that direction, knowing that at some point I will tire. Then I cast my eye east and wonder if I’m ready to head back to the house. I close my eyes and try to summon my true feelings. What do I want to do?
I want to keep going.
After some tea and a couple of snaps of the view, I jump back on my bike and keep pedaling.
Thoughts of my parents start to flood my mind as I imagine my mother telling me tobe carefulanddid I have enough waterandam I sure that I will be able to make it all the way back?I think about how I fought against her as a teenager and told her she was worrying too much. To leave me alone. That I knew what I was doing. But then at some point I didn’t.
I think about Noah and my time at university. I have this flash of memory—me walking away from my professor’s door, heading back down to the media lab to wait for Noah. I remember being something like shell-shocked. I think about when he came into the room, smiling gently at me. That patronizing tone he adopted. I feel his cold hand as he reached across the table and touched mine and told me that he was going to go ahead and do his idea and I should do my own and that he’d spoken to the professor. I didn’t fight back. I didn’t say anything. I just nodded along while he told me this bullshit version of events.
Then I remember the awful moment when he hugged me and told me that it would be better this way and that we were holding each other back.
I remember telling myself that he was right. I remember thinking that it was probably a good idea that Noah moved forward with“his” project, even though the idea was mostly mine. I remember thinking that it was probably fair because of the small things he’d suggested we change in the plot. I purposefully rearranged the significance of my own input to justify his cruelty. I even felt sorry for him.
I remember spending the next fortnight stressed to the point that I was feeling physically sick. Like at any moment I might faint or throw up. But everyone else was working toward their final project and they were all saying that too. My classmates were allstressed out of their mindsandbarely sleeping. I couldn’t think straight, and I panicked. I handed in an unfinished script that was fathoms below what I was capable of.
I joined some others from the class in a celebratory drink when we were done, and that afternoon I went back to the halls and packed up my things. A little drunk, I decided to go and tell Noah good luck. In my mind, as I walked toward his room, I pictured him seeing my face and remembering all the good times and all the laughter and all the film nights. I pictured him pulling me into him and begging for me to come back. And that’s when I found that he’d already moved on and into bed with someone else.
I brake suddenly, dismount my bike, and start to gasp for breath. I lay my bike down on the grass next to the path and sit again, trying to slow my breathing. How in the hell had I been so stupid? Why did I not stand up for myself when all this happened? Why didn’t I bash down the professor’s door and show him my notebook and my drafts and say that it wasmy idea?
I know why now. It was because of this thing inside me that I cannot seem to shake. This distrust in myself.
It crushes me to consider. I had more belief inhimthan I had in myself. I had faith that whatever he was doing or sayinghadto holdmore value than whatIbelieved to be true. I ignored my anger—my rage—at what had happened because for some deep-seated reason I could not trust my feelings.
I am angry at myself for not standing up and sayingno.
But I am also sad for the insecure young woman I was.
I know that to some degree I turned out like my mother. She’s never traveled. She’s never seen the world. She stayed small, kept tight with Dad, despite some of his imperfections. She is easily frightened by change. And in the end, I am living out my life in the same way.
I resent her for it. It’s like I’m angry at her for not giving me the tools to be stronger. I longed for a mother who was worldly, adventurous, a trailblazer. And instead I got one who kissed me good night and told me, “Everything I needed in life was right here. So why go anywhere else?”
And yet, she helped me pack. She bought me bedsheets and paid my tuition. She put me on the train and told me to“knock them all dead.”That was the truth of it. As much as she didn’t understand why I wanted to go, she supported me every step of the way. I reach into my backpack and pull out my phone.
Hi Mum. I’m having a flat-warming party on Friday. I know it’s late notice, but would you and Dad like to come? XM
