Ghosts

by Dolly Alderton

How easy it was for him to play this game. How enjoyable it must be, to throw these hypothetical scenarios into conversation, knowing the primal panic it might ignite in a woman over thirty. How powerful he must have felt.

The whole thing felt unnecessarily ceremonious, like I was the wise, elderly leader of a tribe and Lola had returned with a partner for approval.

she would look to me with an expectant smile as if to say Isn’t he amazing?! and wouldn’t break my gaze until I gave her a grin or a nod to confirm that, yes, he really was amazing.

I get it

They loved explaining things about each other to me:

Lola kept finding ways to join us together with tenuous links,

Real

Renting is the best money you can spend, you get a home in return.”

In a classy move that proved to me that Jethro really was desperate for my approval, he paid for the bill without saying anything on his way back from the loo.

Hell ya

She was my only close friend from childhood—one day I would be the only member left of my triumvirate family and she’d be the one person who could travel into my memories with me.

when someone stands at the end of an aisle aged twenty-seven and says ‘in sickness and in health,’ and they mean it with all their heart, no one specifically imagines this.”

“I know that clever women aren’t meant to worry about having a family. And I know I still have time. But I’m scared that if I don’t plan for it, it will never happen.”

“It might not ever happen.” I found the starkness of this fact strangely comforting.

He can do what I WANT for a change. And what I WANT is to make him worry I’m DEAD. That’s what I want! That’s my new favourite hobby!”

SOOO real

“If we have to pretend to each other like we pretend to the rest of the world, then we might as well not bother with the effort friendship takes.”

“I don’t know if he loved me. I think he thought he did. But it’s like he imagined me—I provided him with a feeling that he enjoyed. But he couldn’t quite see the actual outline of me. I don’t know if it counts as love if it was genuinely felt on my side but imagined on his.”

“I think I have to accept some responsibility with what happened. I wonder how much I really wanted to actually get to know the real him, and how much I wanted a storybook hero.”

I think I’ve created a version of him too. Or maybe that’s all love is. So much is how we perceive someone and the memories we have of them, rather than the facts of who they are.

“You two are so solidly on the same team.” “We are,” she said, closing her eyes. I turned off my bedside lamp. “Sounds pretty romantic to me.”

We celebrated her first hangover in nearly four years by behaving like we did every weekend afternoon of our early to mid-twenties. We put on tracksuits, I made us toad-in-the-hole with peas and mash, we heaved the duvet on to my sofa and watched three musicals back to back.

He pushed me back towards the sink as he kissed me.

I knew they were gonna fuck

“Real human people can’t be deleted. We are not living in a dystopian science fiction.”

these men cared so little about their actions towards the women they hurt, but so much about what people who knew about those actions might think of them.

“You said you wanted to marry her. Do you know how mental that is, Jethro? How wildly inappropriate it is to say that so early on in a relationship even if you meant it, let alone if you didn’t.”

“You have to take your chance, it’s not like you fall in love with someone every week. How arrogant are you, that you think you’re going to feel like this again about someone whenever you decide you’re ready on your terms?”

he would be able to decide when he wanted to fall in love and have a family and it would happen. There would always be a woman who wanted to love him. He didn’t have to take this chance at all—he could wait for another chance. Then another one. The female population was just an endless source of chances and he could wait as long as he wanted. There was so little risk involved when it came to who and how he loved. Nothing meant anything to him.

AAAHHHH

“Don’t date until you’ve sorted your shit out.”

He wanted to exist in a liminal state, like everything was just about to begin. He liked contemplating what our relationship might be like, without investing any time or commitment in our relationship.

They preferred a relationship to be virtual and speculative, because when it was virtual and speculative, it could be perfect. Their girlfriend didn’t have to be human. They didn’t have to think about plans or practicalities, they weren’t burdened with the concern of another person’s happiness. And they could be heroes. They could be gods. It was pathetic.

HEEEELP

“I want to show my age. I’m thirty-fucking-three. My age is an accumulation, it’s an asset. It’s a furnishing. It isn’t a loss. I’m a CATCH. Why don’t they understand I’m a catch?”

“If I were a boy, everyone would want to be with me. I have a great career, lovely teeth,”

“I was so much happier before this year. I don’t want to think about it or look for it any more. If it happens, it happens.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to love someone,

love is being the guardian of another person’s solitude. Maybe friendship is being the guardian of another person’s hope. Leave it with me and I’ll look after it for a while, if it feels too heavy for now.”

“I couldn’t be less of an advocate for relationships right now. But, for what it’s worth—I know there is a love ahead of you, Lola. Grander than either of us can imagine. He might not be a celebrity magician. He might not be anything like the sort of man we thought he would be. But he’s on his way.” “I know that, Nina,” she said. “I’ve always known that.”

“I think I might have gone back to the desert,” I said. “And taken more.”

“In A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The happy ending is about two couples who are all in love with the right person. But Demetrius only loves Helena because he’s under the cast of an earlier spell.”

“I hope he didn’t wake up,”