bitter? nah

i spent the weekend at adam's. he was so different somehow. well, i know exactly how. he was being so affectionate at times. not all the time. saying nice things and making gestures like moving hair out of my face holding onto me like i was sand slipping through his fingers. but if it's not natural then it's not real, is it?

is it?

i can't look at him. i can't let him see me. and i don't know why. every time i open my eyes my heart jumps when i see him staring right back. but he's my boyfriend. what's wrong with me?

we were in a club last night and we met up with some friends. his, obviously. when i'm sitting talking with them i feel as though i'm dragging the mood of everyone in the building down with me. i've got a smile plastered on my face for the entire duration of the conversation and i laugh in perfect timing over and over. i change my expression now and then; the smile remaining though. if it starts to hurt i go for a toilet break and the second i'm out of sight i'm some miserable looking girl walking up the stairs.

what the fuck could possibly be so wrong with her?

i practice some smiles and angles in the mirror while putting on some red lipstick. and i look into my own eyes and wonder how he can't see it when it's right in front of his face every time i look at him. then it's back down the stairs and on with the smile.

he's bored standing with me by the fire exit so i tell him he can go and play with his friends if he likes. while i sit at the back of the club on a chair by myself i try and find him on the dance floor, but i can't. even after forty five minutes i can't. i start wondering why he gets so bored with me all the time. he's the only person i really talk to now. he's basically my only friend now. and i bore him.

while i was looking for him on the dance floor i suddenly thought: he'd be better off single. and he would. i don't understand why i'm so miserable with him? it actually aches somewhere in my chest when i think about us. and i wish i knew why.

he dropped me off at the train station at ten past eight tonight. i had more than twenty minutes to wait for my train. he got my bag out of the boot and we said goodbye. i started crying before i was even inside. would it have been so difficult to have parked the car just ten metres away and have seen me onto my train? what was the rush to get me out of your house so fast? fucking top gear?

i hate sounding like this. i roll my eyes at people who go on like this. but it's little stupid blows and disappointments like this that bring me right down to the ground all the time. if he actually felt the way he acted (some of the time) this weekend then he wouldn't have said he wasn't going to fall asleep on me on friday - and then fall asleep on me on friday. he wouldn't have left me sitting alone on that stool watching the dance floor for forty five minutes on saturday. he wouldn't have left me downstairs watching tv in his living room on sunday afternoon while he sat at his computer browsing for car parts and opening his weekly newsletter. he wouldn't have fallen asleep for the last hour and a half we had together before he took me to the station, leaving me wide awake on the edge of his bed watching the never ending fucking story on tv. he wouldn't have put me on the 8:31 train home.

i don't believe the nice things you say to me. you don't make them sound real. like you don't even believe them yourself. what proportion of the feelings that prompted you to say you loved me the first time came from lust?

that night in Berlin happened because of what you told me about the party you went to. while you were on your way to that party i was on my way home from hospital. i got scared. i thought i was going to lose you soon.

do you hate me now?

marmite

"are you happy?" he asks, his mouth against the back of her neck. she feels relieved she doesn't have to look at him, and focuses on the wall instead.

"yes," she replies. "you need to buy some more marmite."

he rolls away from her and onto his back.

she doesn't move. she already knows she's good at deflecting questions.

seventeen year old wrinkles

i know, tut tut, when the fuck was my last entry...

i spent the whole weekend with adam again. it used to be exciting getting on trains and catching metros and meeting him at the station and everything. now i think maybe i'm getting a little tired of the 2 hour trek every friday. especially when i know that his car's sitting on his driveway all nice and clean and polished. am i writing this because i know that he'll read it?

we argued quite a bit this weekend. i remember when we used to talk about how we never argued. hmmm. before i go any further i'd like to point out that i'm not really being fair, seen as though i had nothing to write on here when everything was hunkydory. and now because it's not i'm having a bitch.

oh well. anyway...

anyone who's read this for long enough probably already knows that i'm fucked up. or do i just pretend i'm fucked up because i'm boring as fuck? sometimes i don't even know why i go quiet and cold when i'm with him. it's usually when i've seen something or heard something or thought about something that requires a bit more thinking than usual. that doesn't even make sense. basically, when my train of thought crashes head-on into something significant.

like my future. what the fuck is going on with me at the moment? sixth form drop-out? seriously hannah, what the fuck? another time.

my mother. anyone who's got a mum who's always had big boobs will understand that when one gets taken away it's as though that feeling of safety they gave you when you were a kid is ripped away from you. later, to be replaced with a silicon implant. it's hard to act big and brave when you're spoon feeding your morpheine-fuelled mum jelly in a hospital. or when you're scrubbing her blood out of a carpet. nuff said.

my social life. because i'm seventeen and shallow. i'd be lying if i said that in the past few years i''ve felt like a normal teenage girl. or am i just pretending i'm not? i find it really difficult to hold a conversation with someone my own age. i find myself literally taking a step back. literally sitting in the nearest corner. finding that try as i might, i just can't seem to get a word in half the time. as though i'm physically incompetent in conversing with a seventeen year old.

to be honest i'm lonely. i don't feel like i'm living anymore. today, i feel as though the only person who can make me feel valid simply 'doesn't give a fuck'. and doesn't care that he 'doesn't give a fuck' either. i don't want to be a corner shop: there for your convenience. and yet i jump before he even gets his hand out of his pocket to click his fingers.

when we're driving in his car i look at my reflection and wonder why the fuck i've got a smile on my face. it's there all the time like a fucking tattoo. giving me wrinkles at seventeen. when he falls asleep next to me i feel so unbelievably lost. as though he knows i'm floating around in space and is too tired to care.

things can be so perfect for an hour or two. i'm all that he thinks about and nothing distracts him. i'm beautiful and amazing. i can feel him loving me. i put my arms around him and i feel like i'm actually connected to him somehow.

and then he gets up and puts his clothes back on and walks away from me.

i know what the consequences of you're reading this will be.

the circus

been two weeks since i moved into my new house now. it sucks that i don't see adam during the week anymore. when we do see each other it's so much better now though.

anthony contacted me on monday. i let him talk and waited to hang up. he's called out a mental health worker for his mother. i know what she's like - she's got severe paranoia, but she's harmless.

i just smile and nod when she talks about the people who come and inject fat into her thighs and the cameras on her eyes and the people who come and steal from her in the night.

she ties her windows and doors shut with rags and super glue. if that's what makes her feel safe then why not just let her get on with it? but no. anthony knows best.

on wednesday adam came down to my new house and we went for a meal at this carribean restaurant called ochis. then we went to the circus and drank a bottle of red wine. we've got this way of talking about feelings without mentioning them. it's strange. confusing too. when the converstion ends he seems satisfied and i'm left puzzled.

i wouldn't change him for the world. not a thing. i really want to take things further. i know it'll be so special. like he is.

moving on

i'm guessing it's wrong that while sitting on my patio step having my last cigarette in my old house, all i could think of were the memories of anthony and i. it made me very sad.

the primary one was of the new year just gone, when i sat in the very same place, smoking the same brand of cigarettes, crying uncontrollably. that was meant to be mine and anthony's anniversary of the night we met. we didn't quite get there though. ironically, he was with alison that night instead.

i phoned him. we talked for hours. he got out of prison on his birthday. he's on sick leave again with more pills for his depression. him and victoria are over. she said she couldn't cope with his shit anymore. i sympathise with her.

if he'd just sort himself out he wouldn't be such a loser. cos that's what he's turned into. should i feel guilty that this happened to him while he was with me? oh well. oops.

and there's adam. i don't ever want to do anything to hurt him. i care about him too much to jeopardise what i've got with him. it's too special. he is too special.

i said goodbye to anthony knowing very well i'd never ring him again and i'd never make an effort to see him. i won't tell him my new address.

i'm sick of this lingering feeling when i know that all i really want is to be with adam.

adam the teacher/lover

the whole time adam's parents were away, we spent the time together in his house. i loved it. i think it brought us a bit closer together. it definitely helped move things forward a bit. physically speaking.

every single morning i woke up next to him, i smiled. and he smiled. and we moved closer to each other and closed our eyes again, together.

it was beautiful. i wanted to lie with him all day. sometimes i did.

i feel like he's teaching me so much. i'm learning to be myself with him, and in turn, i'm learning a lot about myself. stuff i never thought i needed to know. but i do. and it makes me see things differently.

he's so special.

i've never met anyone like him.

the asylum

when i got home last tuesday - the day of my last entry - i opened my front door to find a letter with my name and address written across the front sitting on the carpet, waiting for me. it was familiar, but i didn't recognise it.

i remember picking it up and turning it round with my fingers; intrigued. the postage mark said Anglia. whoever sent it knew that my middle name is May. i sat down at my dining room table and looked at it for a while. i started to feel ill. i wasn't sure why though.

i opened it.

Hello Hannah - sorry, Princess Hannah. Guess who? Anthony. Guess where I am?

Colchester Prison.

he has this cruel way of making me feel so bad for him when he's in trouble. apart from the phone call a few weeks ago, this was the only time he'd contacted me for months. now, though, he needed something. you see? now, he's lonely. now, he doesn't have victoria there. now, he's bored.

the next day i went out and bought the magazines and the stamps he asked for. after my english exams i sat in a cafe in durham waiting for my bus to arrive. i wrote him a letter. then ripped it up. and another. and ripped it up. i was so angry in those letters. i talked about me and him and victoria and adam. and dalziel. i was so angry.

in the next letter i stuck to safe topics. my exams. the moving date. my dog, lucky. his mother. his uncle. it was all so fake. he'll know that when he reads it. when i send it, of course.

the night before i received his letter i dreamt about him. he was in a mental asylum and he asked me to visit him. i did. everything was grey. it was raining outside. he was crying. he couldn't stand up because he was so weak. i sat down beside him.

he told me i had to prove to everyone that he wasn't crazy. they'd made a mistake. i should have been there instead. he begged me to confess. i stood up and walked away. and left him there. my footsteps echoed and his wailing pierced my ears. and i smiled.

he deserves everything he gets.