Mad About You

by Mhairi McFarlane

Harriet said nothing. She wanted to believe Cal, but she’d been here before.

“Before you go on,” Harriet said, “have you ever been to Portofino?”

Unnamed fears are the worst fears, I think.”

Harriet wasn’t simply offended on a point of honor at overhearing Cal say he wanted her to go. It was personal. She’d, against sense and logic, developed some kind of feelings for him. What an idiot.

She liked the version of herself she was with him.

Jon, she had come to realize, couldn’t help but make everything about him, even at moments when he thought he was being exceptionally caring.

Crying a lot, obviously. Missing her. Which I do anyway, always, at some level.

You were doing what felt right. How do you know if it’s the wrong decision, until the day you read it?”

What if it’s not what’s written in the letter that matters to you?” “How do you mean?” “Until you’ve read it, there’s always one more thing to be said, something left between you.”

I’ve never admitted that to myself. It’s good to have someone else’s thoughts.”

I like having that insight. It makes me feel better. I’m saving it as our last thing.”

I’m a very shit Yoda, but about your letter. Let the time to read it arrive. Maybe it’ll be the night before you get married or something. But it’ll come. You don’t need to force it.” “If you’re Yoda shouldn’t you say, Come, it will?”

That’s comforting. Except I’m never getting married.” “You and me both, sweetheart,”

“I honestly can’t ever imagine feeling whatever I’d need to feel, to want to try that again.” “Exactly same.”

Her insecurity was a deep hole I could never fill, but it was made clear that I had to try anyway.

She needed constant reassurance, promises from me.

I don’t care, because I won’t be scared anymore. I want to speak up for all the people who’ve had their heads fucked with, and haven’t known where or who to turn to, or how to talk about it.

When narcissists can no longer control you, they try to control what others think of you.

At first, I thought, If only they knew it isn’t true, and then I worked out that they don’t care if it’s not true. It’s just a vessel.

We’ve all lost respect for the fact there’s things we don’t know, and I fully include myself in that.”

His self-righteousness is like a mind-altering drug.”

What I hate most about Scott is what he turned me into.

“What if he just is, exactly what he seems?” Harriet said, remembering Sam’s ode to Cal. “I guess so. It’s the hope that kills you!”

As the saying went, the lie was halfway around the world before the truth could get its boots on.

Only time would tell whether she could weather the whispers, or if she’d have to fold her firm and phoenix it from the ashes, under a different title. It’d take years to rebuild. How could he take so much from her, at this distance? It shouldn’t be possible.

it had been about unmaking her own choices.

Maybe Scott was right—maybe she couldn’t bear to see him thriving and had senselessly lashed out.

This was what she yearned for: nights in front of the television, talking about nothing in particular. Comfort, and company.

Everyone knew. This was going to follow her everywhere.

She’d thought Cal might be an island away from it, a place of escape. She’d even thought they might have a newfound affinity.

Harriet breathed into the material in the darkness and felt a despair that was new, a hopelessness that felt all-encompassing.

She had moved on from him but she’d never really got past him, and it turned out to be a very meaningful distinction.

It wasn’t only that he’d followed her here. He’d never been fully out of her life.

her job was in jeopardy, and she’d been tarred as the perpetrator of the very thing of which she was victim.

She had been resigned to the fact no one would ever know what went on between herself and Scott.

A narcissist has empathy, she once read, they know it affects you—they just don’t care.

She knew her behavior was unbecoming, but somehow she had to go through it to get to the other side.

when I read it, I felt protective of you, but also a bit . . . possessive, I guess?”

“Hahaha. Yet you didn’t even want to meet me?” “I liked your voice,” Cal said, shrugging, and smiling, and, in some small way, helping to mend Harriet’s heart.

Life always got in the way, friends shouldn’t act like they were trying to catch friends out,

The trouble is, Roxy genuinely wouldn’t understand why you’d do something out of nobility, to help someone else. It’s not a feature in her landscape.

Harriet has a way of making herself the victim.

She covered her eyes with her hands and let it out: the isolation, the hopelessness, her own sheer ludicrousness.

She’d lost Roxy, or at least, there was now a distance between them that was likely permanent.

She needed her closest friends to understand—or if not understand, respect—that

The man with no past. Divide and conquer.

No continuity. For a reason.

Are you OK?

Harriet had solid practice in her life at being alone, feeling alone, and yet she had never experienced such aloneness until these last few weeks.

And then a complete stranger strode through the crush, stuck out her hand to her, and pulled her out. A good Samaritan.