Out of Love

by Hazel Hayes

The last photo I took down was a Polaroid Theo took of me just a few days into what would become our five years together. In it, I’m lying in his bed half-asleep, my body tangled in his bedsheets, back exposed, one leg jutting out, and a mass of auburn hair spilling out across the pillow like warm honey.

He kept those sheets, the ones with the big green, red, and black circles

I found this all incredibly awkward, and I find awkward situations incredibly funny. I don’t know why.

“Great.” “Yeah?” “No, Theo. She’s upset, obviously.” “Oh.”

“Oh God,” I say, suddenly realizing, “have you been fucking women on a blow-up mattress?”

And so I prayed. Not to God—I don’t believe in God.

I wondered how much of the feeling of love is chemicals and cravings and dependency, and how much of the act of love is habit.

Eventually, loving someone becomes muscle memory. You don’t even notice it happening.

prepared to throw away the tea I made for us, and then I see it there, on the counter: I only made one cup of tea.

Babies are absolutely useless and incredibly gross—all that shit and piss and puke and crying—it’s no wonder nature had to trick us into loving them.

I am effectively just an incubator on legs, with a built-in milk machine.

The phrase “I don’t want children” is met with everything from confusion to hostility, and there usually follows a sermon on the wonders of motherhood. I loathe the assumption that I will “come to my senses” someday or—worse still—that my status as non-mother means I’m somehow lacking in emotional range;

I love my mother with all my heart. She’s the woman you call when your heart’s been broken or your car’s been stolen or you’ve accidentally killed someone and you need help burying the body, no questions asked.

When you have kids, they tell me, you don’t go to the cinema anymore. This makes me feel both sad and selfish. Sad that they’ve given it up. Selfish that I don’t think I could.

Theo’s type is what I like to call a Horse Woman.

They are plain but pretty. They wear very little makeup. They never dye their hair. And they always order salads in restaurants. Horse Women come from money. They vote Conservative. They study at prestigious universities. And then they settle down with a nice Tory boy and throw their degree out the window in favor of raising his bratty Tory children. Basically, a Horse Woman is everything I’m not, and Lesley is one of them.

start by removing the dead leaves. “Do the same with all the others. Cut them right back,” she says. “It’ll feel like you’re killing them but you’re not. You’re just getting rid of what they don’t need to help them grow.”

we settle on 500 Days of Summer. It’s been years since either of us has seen it.

“Fuck’s sake, Tom,” he says. I’m only half-awake. “Hmm?” “Well, he’s making a right tit of himself, isn’t he?” “Mmm.” “She’s not into you, mate—get over it!” says Theo to the TV. I’m smiling to myself as I drift off to sleep.

Forever frozen in the moment of deciding if you’re still mine. Are you? I can’t tell.

And without words I don’t know what I am. Organs crammed inside a cage of bones. Limbs and skin and teeth and hair and toes.

music*

To be perfectly honest, I couldn’t care less how she died. Theo’s grandmother Augusta was a cruel, carping, racist old bitch who spoke with great fondness of a postwar Britain, where “people knew their place.”

I’m not really a fan of dead bodies. That is to say, I actively dislike them.

Not only could I not find love for it; I resented it, this thing that looked like her but wasn’t her. I could see it, touch it, even talk to it, but I wouldn’t be talking to her. It felt like a cruel joke.

My nana had been ill for a long time and I, of course, found solace in the fact that she was no longer suffering, but on a purely selfish level I wished there was some relief from the pain I felt in losing her.

I found myself wishing for the comfort blanket that is faith.

When you were gone and I was alone, it made sense. You’re supposed to feel lonely when you’re alone. But I felt lonely when we were together.”

Suddenly I felt light-headed. Not in an unpleasant way; it was like I had downed a glass or two of champagne and my senses were just slightly dulled.

People appeared flimsy and incomplete, as though an important feature were missing from their faces, but I couldn’t figure out which one.

They all looked like crude pencil sketches of what they should be.

I heard Theo’s voice in my head reminding me to rehydrate.

As far as I know they’re trying for a baby again, which to my mind is one of the bravest things a couple can do together after suffering a loss like that.

:')

This is the moment I know that Theo has fallen out of love with me.

I will never forget the look on his face when he sees her; I’m expecting panic and despair, but all I see is love. Darren looks at Maya like a groom looking at his bride, like he’s seeing her for the first time, maybe the only time.

He doesn’t get it. How could he?

how could he? when he doesn't even really see her

I wonder how many women carry the memory of a child nobody knew but them.

Also, I think we have mice.

I’m simply averse to any place or event where I’m supposed to feel a certain way—that includes Christmas, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day.

I thought that was incredibly profound, but then everything Omar says seems incredibly profound. I think it’s his goatee.

“You’re more my type anyway,” says Lena.

AAAAAAA

“Oh. Well, you should do this instead.” “Noted,”

I could get drunk on just her laugh.

he mentioned maybe having a threesome.”

“Are you happy?” she calls out. “I’m not unhappy.”

“Sure! Later,” he says. “Lemon and sugar?” Lena’s opening the passenger door. She’s about to get inside. I want to call out to her. I want her to look up. And with that, as though sensing me somehow, she does, and I smile.

Isaac, of course, who we’ve already established is a bit of a twat.

“It was lovely to meet you, Gina,” I called back over my shoulder. “Gemma,” she corrected. I knew.

they all turned out to be crazy bitches, apparently.

red flag

I spent the rest of the night on Theo’s arm,

:(

Theo unzipped my dress and kissed me on the back of the neck.