Pretending: The brilliant new adult novel from Holly Bourne. Why be yourself when you can be perfect?(2)

‘It’s been five dates! Five! Do you have any idea what a milestone that is? I googled it, and it really, really is.’

‘Didn’t we talk about googling relationship stuff, April?’

‘I can’t help it. We work in an office with unrestricted Internet access and I’m not Gandhi. And even he, I am sure, would google “what to expect after five dates” if he was in my position.’

She laughs loudly enough that heads jerk up around the office. I shh her as I pour the coffee out of the cafetière into three mugs. She splashes in the milk equally and I giggle with her, but I can’t help but feel a twinge of hurt at her amusement. Katy’s been married for four years, to a man who completely and utterly adores her. She’s all smug and I-wouldn’t-be-like-that and chilled, which is so easy to be when you’ve been married for four years, to a man who completely and utterly adores you. I would be just as chill if I was married to a man like Jimmy. Bored as fuck, but chill.

We clatter back to our desks, through an office fizzing with Friday energy. The end of the week is tauntingly in sight. Shoulders relax as people tap at their keyboards, meetings are laced with jokes, and the radio’s been cranked on. No one is working quite as hard as they should be and their Monday-selves will hate their now-selves for being so lax. But that is then and this is now and I have a sixth date and a whole weekend and the hope of the beginning.

I attack my phone the second I’m sitting down. The sweet agonising apprehension of waiting for a red blob containing a message alert – my future mood totally dependent on it. For a millisecond, as I wait for my screen to unlock, I imagine it all disintegrating. Maybe I’m overhyping the connection, maybe he won’t have replied, maybe I’m delusional and mental and he’s figured this out and will now ghost me without explanation. I’ll have to start over again. Pick myself up and out of the dust again. Try to find the faith again. A dark chasm yawns open in my stomach … but wait!

There’s a message!

He’s replied!

I’ve been rewarded for leaving my phone at my desk while I made coffee. I successfully tricked the Love Gods with my trip to the kitchen to make a hot drink. They thought I was ambivalent about Simon’s reply and therefore sent it to me, but the joke is on them because I didn’t even want this coffee. I just needed a reason to be away from my phone.

‘Your phone buzzed,’ Matt tells me unnecessarily as I stare at it in my hand. He’s peering at me over his monitor, his eyes kind through the thick black rims of his glasses. ‘Is it Simon?’

I nod. ‘I think so. Can’t open it to tell yet though, can I?’

‘Why not? Of course you can.’

Katy plops his drink down in front of him and he nods a thank you. ‘Google probably told her not to,’ she says, taking her seat next to him. She pulls her keyboard towards her and starts clacking earnestly.

‘It’s not just that,’ I protest. I open my top drawer and put my phone in there so I can’t see it. It nestles in on top of some used-up notepads and promotional postcards we give out at student unions. ‘I just don’t want him to think I’ve spent my whole day checking my phone to see if he’s messaged.’

‘Even though you have …’ Matt puts forward.

‘Yes, but I’ve done other interesting things and had other interesting thoughts too.’

‘Like …?’

‘Well, we just had that meeting.’

‘Which you brought your phone to … and spent the whole time looking at your lap.’

I shake my head and take a slurp of my unwanted tricking-the-Love-Gods coffee. ‘OK, OK, so I’m a pathetic mess and Simon’s going to find out how crazy I am and dump me and then I’ll die alone in my flat, and my cat will eat my face because cats have no loyalty.’

‘You don’t have a cat,’ Katy reminds me, still typing.

Matt points at me. ‘Write all that out to him and send it back.’

‘What? Say “please don’t dump me when you find out I’m crazy. You’re the one chance I have to not have a cat eat my decomposing face”?’

He points harder. ‘Yeah. Go for it. Stress-test it. See what happens. If he’s the guy, he’ll get it.’

Katy and I shake our heads at one another. Katy has been with Jimmy so long she’s completely out of the game, but even she knows that’s wrong.

‘You know that’s not how it works.’





Here’s the thing: I really don’t understand why love has been so hard for me. I am pretty. I am smart. I have a goodish job. I have friends. I have hobbies. I am funny. I am self-actualized. I dress well. I don’t have particularly high standards. I am not expecting to be rescued. I am realistic about what relationships are like. I know they take work. I know nobody is perfect, let alone myself. I know I have to ‘put myself out there’ and I have been doing that. I am a good conversationalist. I am happy on my own. I am.

But, like, I still want a relationship.

I really want a relationship.

Not because I think it will complete me or solve all my problems. Not because I want a big wedding and to look pretty in an expensive dress. Not even, really, because I want to have children because, if I had to, I could survive not having them.