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I’ve never seen the point of fancy dress parties. You have two choices: either you make a massive effort and wind up looking like a dick, or you make no effort and wind up looking like a dick. And my problem, as always, was not knowing what kind of dick I wanted to be.
There should really be a word for the feeling you get when you do a thing you don’t particularly want to do to support somebody else but then realise they didn’t actually need you and nobody would have noticed if you’d stayed home in your pyjamas eating Nutella straight from the jar.
“You really do own your illiteracy, don’t you?” “Yeah, I’m thinking about moving to America and running for public office.”
Truth be told, I’d never been the best at self-care. Self-recrimination, I had down. Self-loathing, I could do in my sleep, and often did. So here I was, a twenty-eight-year-old man suddenly feeling an overwhelming need to call his mother because he was sad.
“Someone else’s actions may affect you. But what other people choose to do is about them.”
We were both quiet for a moment.. “Will it…will it ever stop hurting?” “Non.” Mum shook her head. “But it will stop mattering.”
“Luc, I think you are very rude about my special curry.” “Yes, because I prefer my arsehole not on fire.” Mum was pouting. “For a gay, you are far too sensitive about your arsehole.”
“I can’t tell if I’m more disturbed that you’re recommending I solicit a prostitute or that you apparently already know thirty prostitutes.”
This was why relationships sucked: they made you need shit you’d been perfectly happy not needing. And then they took them away.
“Are we really bad at this?” I asked. “We’ve been fake dating for three days and we’ve already fake broken up once.” “Yes, but we fake resolved our difficulties and fake got back together, and I’m hoping it’s made us fake stronger.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want to know him at all. And if I do have to know him, it’s deeply unfair I have to know him as a bloke with a cancer.” I snuffled in the darkness. “He opted out of being my father. Why does he expect me to opt in just for the shit bit?” “He’s probably scared.” “He was never there when I was scared.”
I knew I was going to regret this. But I said it anyway. “I thought she was called Miffy?” “Yes.” Alex gave me a what-is-wrong-with-you look. “Miffy, short for Clara.”
“Where I am going with this, mon caneton, is that I don’t give a shit. It is my curry, and I will make it the way I fucking well want to. And that is the way Oliver should live his life. Because the people who matter will love you anyway.”
And if we let happy things make us unhappy when they stopped, there would be no point having happy things.”
