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Chapter 49
Brody:Just wanted to let you know I sold True Materials! Too late to get you that plane ticket? ;-)
Chapter 50
Helen sat on the train back to London, watching Ish struggling to put her (admittedly slightly full) case into the top luggage compartment. He lumbered down the aisle towards her, clutching a sharing size bag of Twirls in his hand. Helen hadn’t seen him making any strange green shakes in a while, she was a bad culinary influence like that.
Ish brushed some crumbs off the radioactive blue coloured seat, and slumped down next to her, his too long legs awkwardly resting against the tray table. He automatically propped out his arm for Helen to slide underneath and snooze against his chest for the journey. She had a bad habit of falling asleep on him in such a way that managed to give him pins and needles. He’d gently have to shake her off an hour later.
Ish opened up a heavy tome of a book and rested it against one knee. He was vehemently against Kindle. Helen now knew the source of his wise comments (and historical raps) came from a voracious appetite for reading: he’d read standing up brushing his teeth in the morning, when he paused at traffic lights on his bike, and even after they … Well, that was also nice, Helen was asleep so fast afterwards that she didn’t get annoyed by the flick, flick, flick as he turned the pages.
This would be the last week she was spending in her bachelorette apartment, her and Ish having both agreed that it was silly to keep paying rent on two separate places, ten minutes apart from one another. So his flatmates were moving out, and she was going to move in with his house plants, and the samurai sword. Although the BJJ mat would definitely have to go.
They’d talked about a lot of things they could do together: should they remote work from Cornwall? Do a joint video series with a travel theme as a tax-deductible excuse to go on a world tour? They could start in Europe, then go to Asia? Their YouTube collabs had been surprisingly popular, but ironically Helen wasn’t as glued to likes and followers as she had been. Though it was nice to have more than a month’s rent in her savings account, her moods weren’t that closely correlated to how many likes she got. Instead she was successfully channelling her anxiety into planning potential itineraries for their travels. Ish had already made them a shared google docx of their savings goals, which was probably the most grown-up thing Helen had ever done.
Ish was always helping like that. Lightbulbs had been replaced in the run up to her moving out, he’d organised a man and a van, and had been very patient when it came to turning out her under the stairs cupboard. (Helen had made an impassioned argument as to exactly why she was never throwing her butterfly wing prom dress out.)
As the brown removals boxes started piling up in her hallway, she felt like she was slowly packing away an old, beloved identity that she’d slowly grown out of: the stupid faux leather leggings that were a mainstay of her girls’ nights out, the sangria jug that was slowly getting less use, and all the self-help books she’d bought with best intentions but never read. On the other side, single life no longer felt like the austere, scary place that it had done when she was actually single. It was no longer something to fear, to hide, to avoid at all costs.
It was like a good old friend who she was gradually losing contact with. She felt like she could blink her eyes, and be back to that life again: jangling the keys in her front door, cursing the wine she drank, the guy she kissed, the yoga class she skipped. Like it was yesterday, she would be skidding across her floor in her sweatpants, listening to Destiny’s Child, a chicken satay stick in hand. She would be calling Sophie about a disastrous date; or Elle would flop down on her sofa, throwing her stilettos onto the floor. The memories of single life weren’t depressing, they were perfect. A beautiful episode of her life, that she would look back and smile about when she was ninety. She’d probably end up saying, ‘those were the days’.
The hard and lonely times of wondering (and worrying) if she was ever going to meet someone were slowly drifting out of focus, like they were being carried away on some strange tide. They’d been replaced with a slow crunch of nostalgia for all the memories she’d made, and the woman she’d become, from the time she’d spent alone.
Epilogue
@helenbakes
A blender, whisk and food processor spilled out of Helen’s suitcase with the broken wheel. The location was tagged as Heathrow Terminal 5.
Having a few issues packing #highqualityproblem #wheresmypassport
@sophiewuwu
Sophie had taken a mirror selfie of her petite frame dwarfed by a huge baby bump.
Last day before mat leave – we’ll see you on the other side xx
@elleshhhxxx
Elle was backstage somewhere, a men’s leather jacket draped over her shoulders, red plastic cup in hand. An access all areas lanyard hung around her neck, she had a coy smile.
Here for a good time, maybe a long time, but that would be telling ;-)
Lots of women had commented underneath her picture with the broken heart emoji.
@martixxxx
Marty/Martina had just got their toenails done. A pair of incredibly well toned legs stretched out against a leopard print couch.
With legs as good as these, don’t expect to see any more of me today.
(@dk113 had already made several admiring comments about what he could do with his pennis if he got the chance.)
@aliceimagines
Pikes Bar in Ibiza. Alice wearing a wide brimmed hat, black sheer maxi dress and holding an espresso martini. Gaggle of cool friends all tagged. Brody takes one step off the side of the pool, about to hit the water below, smiling, his pendant swinging around his neck.
Ibiza with these creatures. #wedidntmakeourflight
