Conversations with Friends(21)

By the time I finished work I was tired and I had a headache, a bad one. I walked home and decided to lie in bed for a while. It was five o’clock. I didn’t wake up until midnight.

*



I didn’t see Nick again before he left for Scotland. Because he was on set from early in the morning, the only way we could talk was online, late at night. He was usually tired by then and seemed withdrawn, and I started writing only terse responses to his messages, or not responding at all. Online he talked about trivial things, like how much he hated his co-workers. He never said that he missed me, or thought about me at all. When I made any reference to the time we’d spent in his house together he tended to skip over it and talk about something else. In response I felt myself becoming cold and sarcastic.

Nick: the only reasonable person on set is stephanie me: why don’t you have an affair with her then.

Nick: well i think that could only harm our working relationship me: is that a hint

Nick: also she is at least 60

me: and you’re what like.. 63?

Nick: funny

Nick: i’ll run it by her if you want

me: oh please do



At home I watched YouTube clips of his film and TV appearances. He had once played the young father of a kidnap victim in an episode of a long-running crime drama, and in one scene he broke down and cried in the police station. That was the clip I watched most often. He cried exactly the way I imagined he would in real life: hating himself for crying, but hating himself so much that it only made him cry harder. I found that if I watched this clip before we spoke at night, I tended to be more sympathetic toward him. He had a very basic HTML fansite online that hadn’t been updated since 2011, which I looked at sometimes while we were talking.

I was sick at the time, I had cystitis. For a while the persistent discomfort and mild fever felt psychologically appropriate and I did nothing about them, but eventually I went to see the college doctor and she gave me antibiotics and a painkiller that made me drowsy. I spent the evenings looking at my own hands or trying to focus on a laptop screen. I felt disgusting, like my body was full of evil bacteria. I knew that Nick was suffering no similar after-effects. There was nothing equivalent about us. He had screwed me up in his hand like paper and tossed me away.

I tried to start writing again, but everything I produced was full of a bitterness that made me ashamed. Some of it I deleted, some I hid in folders I never looked inside. I was taking things too seriously again. I fixated on perceived wrongs Nick had done to me, callous things he had said or implied, so that I could hate him and therefore justify the intensity of my feelings for him as pure hatred. But I recognised that the only thing he had done to hurt me was to withdraw his affection, which he had every right to do. In every other way he had been courteous and thoughtful. At times I thought this was the worst misery I had experienced in my life, but it was also a very shallow misery, which at any time could have been relieved completely by a word from him and transformed into idiotic happiness.

One night online I asked him if he had sadistic tendencies.

Nick: not that i know of

Nick: why do you ask?

me: you seem like someone who does

Nick: hm

Nick: that’s worrying



Some time passed. I stared at the screen but didn’t type anything. I was one day away from finishing my antibiotics.

Nick: is there an example you’re thinking of?

me: no

Nick: ok

Nick: i think when i hurt people it tends to be through selfishness Nick: rather than being an end in itself

Nick: have i done something to hurt you?

me: no

Nick: are you sure?



I let more time go by. With the pad of my finger I covered his name on my laptop screen.

Nick: are you still there?

me: yeah

Nick: oh

Nick: i guess you don’t feel like talking then Nick: that’s ok, i should go to bed anyway



The next morning he sent me an email that read:

i can see you don’t really feel like keeping in touch at the moment, so i’m going to stop sending you messages, ok? i’ll see you when i’m back.



I considered writing a spiteful email in response but instead I didn’t reply at all.

The following night Bobbi suggested we watch one of Nick’s films.

That would be weird, I said.

He’s our friend, why would it be weird?

She was on my laptop, searching Netflix. I had made a pot of peppermint tea and we were waiting for it to brew.

It’s on here, she said. I saw it on here. It’s the one about the bridesmaid marrying her boss.

Why are you even looking for his films?

It’s a pretty minor part but he does take his shirt off at one point. You’re into that, right?

Genuinely, please stop, I said.

She stopped. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor and she reached to pour herself a splash of tea to see if it was ready.

Do you like him as a person? she said. Or is it just like, he’s good-looking and married to someone interesting?

I could tell she was still hurt by the jealousy remark, but I had apologised already. I didn’t want to indulge her hostility toward Nick, especially since I wasn’t talking to him then. It was obvious to me that Bobbi’s feelings were not sincerely hurt anymore, if they ever had been, and that she just liked to make fun of me whenever I experienced romantic feelings. I looked at her like she was something very far away from me, a friend I used to have, or someone whose name I didn’t remember.