JOE AND AMANDA
Joe strolls up to me with his bag, all ready to leave. I’m absolutely stunned. My head is trying to explain to me what I’m seeing. Amanda is lying is Joe’s bed. She is here in your flat. She was here last night while you slept. She was sleeping in your best friend’s bed. With him. I’m still not quite understanding.
“What…. What?” I ask.
“We thought we’d surprise you,” explains Amanda. Yeah, I’m fucking surprised. Nice one. You should write a book on how to surprise people. Of all the ways anyone could have surprised me, this is probably the most surprising. Due to it being something I just would never… ever expect to happen. I am surprised.
“We planned to wake you this morning by pretending to shag, making loads of noise,” she continues, “But then we just ended up not pretending.” Did you now! Well… that is… yeah… I’m standing here in my dressing gown, holding a cup of coffee bearing witness to something absolutely nonsensical. I have no idea what to think or what to say. Joe is standing there simply grinning and shrugging, agreeing with Amanda.
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, I didn’t hear you.” Still no idea what the fuck is going on or how this has come to be. Part of me wants answers part of me feels like I’m still dreaming because that’s what it feels like. I feel like I’m in that moment right before you wake up where you’re still dreaming but you have no control and your legs won’t move right and you feel trapped and paralysed like walking through a paddling pool of thick sticky glue. “I’m going to have a shower,” I say and head to my room.
“I’m off, I’ll see you guys later,” Joe says as he leaves.
“See you later,” says Amanda.
As I stand in the shower, hot water falling down on my back, I feel like I’m in the fucking twilight zone and I’m only just now grasping the fact that this is happening. I’m at a loss as to what to say when I get out and have to spend the day with her. What the fuck is up with that? She’s says she’d love to come down and stay with me in London for a while and when she does she has to do it by fucking my best friend. What the fuck? It just seems like the most fucked up thing and they seemed so calm, like it was perfectly normal. I can’t comprehend it. The shower does actually calm me down and when I get dressed and head out of my room she’s still there in Joe’s bed.
“So what the fuck is all this?” I say, maybe a bit too calmly.
“Well we planned it a couple of days ago. I had an interview yesterday so thought I’d come surprise you.”
“Yes, you managed that.”
“Joe and I went for a drink last night and we thought it’d be funny to wake you up in the morning. I told him last night that there wouldn’t be any sex but this morning… it just sort of happened.”
“Well, that’s just lovely.” It’s incredible; she really doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong. It’s not her I’m surprised about though, it’s Joe. He knows that Henry and I fell out because he slept with someone I liked. I can’t believe that he’d tread on ice as thin as this. Does our friendship mean this little to him?
“Joe was complaining that you got all the girls. We didn’t think you’d really care,” she explains. So now I have to suffer because of that? I can see the situation. I can understand how this has happened. I would have done the same thing. Fuck, let’s face it I have done the same thing.
I’m forced to spend the entire day with her; the girl I really like who just fucked my best friend. It’s more than a little awkward. We mostly watch movies, which helps because I don’t really feel like talking to her. Thank god I’m seeing Natalie tonight. If I had to be here when Joe got back I really don’t think I’d be able to handle it. I need to get away from this fucked up mess and just enjoy myself. Amanda mentions she’s off to stay with a friend tonight but she’ll be back for her stuff on Sunday. I guess it’s a good thing that she’s only here for the weekend.
I meet up with Natalie and the party is huge. I can’t believe how many people are here. Natalie and I kiss a lot and I actually manage to forget about the Amanda thing. We talk, well she talks, I listen. Natalie doesn’t stop talking for the duration of the evening and even though I lose track of whatever it is she’s talking about more than once, it is a welcome distraction. She also won’t tell me how old she is, not that I care but her saying that has made me rather curious. In a taxi on the way back to the flat I attempt to work out her age using all my detective skills. She had mentioned that she first went to Glastonbury in 1986. I would have been five. How old is someone when they first go to a huge concert? Maybe Fourteen? That would make her Thirty-Four. Bloody hell, she looks Twenty-Seven. We get to Archway and I’m bricking it that Amanda is going to be here but also glad I’m not coming home alone. Natalie, needless to say is extremely naughty during the night and I can’t help believing that if I was alone I’d be so upset and hurt by Amanda and Joe that I would have cried myself to sleep on my soaking wet pillow. Luckily, instead of doing that I’m ejaculating over Natalie’s face as per her instructions.
In the morning I listen to Natalie take a call from her boyfriend, explaining to him how she slept over at a friend’s. I hear him ask whether she’d been naughty and she tells him no, insisting she’s at her friend Jackie’s and will be home soon. I’m trying to gauge whether she genuinely didn’t want him to know or if this was just how they did their open relationship. She’ll sleep with someone then talk to him the next day insisting she hadn’t even though he knows better. Maybe that’s just how he gets his thrills?
I walk her to the station and see Amanda coming back to the flat on a bus. This Joe, Amanda situation is going to end badly. He has really fucked up. I’m not sure if he realises it. I think I’m going to have to have a talk with him.
Monday turns out to be a difficult day at the office. Hazza notices that something is off about me; I’m not making jokes, I’m not talking much at all. I guess I just seem to be elsewhere. There wasn’t a talk with Joe last night; I just didn’t have the courage. We sat and watched TV instead and Amanda stayed yet another night. I had to, politely as I could, ask her to be gone by Monday. Joe seemed agitated by it. I’m confused about the two of them. They seem to be seeing each other. But I can’t get around how this has all happened. Hazza comes into the editing room and has a talk with me.
“You ok Rick?” he asks, “you seem a little down.” I feel like I’m on another planet. I tell Hazza everything, like he’s some agony uncle. It’s good to tell someone, to vent some of my frustration. Although he doesn’t give me too much advice other than saying, “mates before minge.” I’m just glad she’s gone and hopefully Joe and I can talk about it and get things sorted. I’ve never been the one for talking, not even with my closest friends. It has, on occasion, worried me that I’m not close enough to anyone to feel comfortable emoting in front of them. I think my friends see me as a closed book; I never let anyone in. Joe knows me better than anyone though and I’m hoping we’ll be able to save our friendship.
That evening I get back home to find her bags still in the flat. Her and Joe seem to be out somewhere but all her stuff is still here. I am absolutely furious. I storm into my room and kick a box of CD’s over and over and over until my toes hurt, which actually feels pretty good. I turn on my laptop and find that she has left me an email, which contains a slideshow of pictures from the party. I decide to text her a thank you, which when read between the lines, basically says “I’m at the flat, I know you’re still here, where are you?” She texts back saying she has a surprise for me and I reply telling her that those don’t tend to work out well for me. Then Joe texts me with a pointless, “it’s a much better kind of surprise”. This text’s purpose is obviously only to tell me that he is with her.
I wait. I sit in my room. I decide that I’m just going to have to talk with Joe with her around and move to the living room and sit on the sofa watching TV. They get back a bit later and walk in smiling. Amanda plonks herself down next to me.
“Hey, how are you?” she asks. I decide not to act. I decide not to close up and bite my teeth. I decide to tell her exactly how I’m feeling.
“I’m a bit upset really,” I say. She looks at me with a smile.
“No, you’re not! You’re joking right?” It’s like she’s giving me a way out. I could easily pass that off as a joke and the night would continue with no arguing or sadness. Joe is behind her smiling at the notion of me being upset. I look at him, very straight faced.
“How did you think I would feel on Saturday morning?” I ask him. My heartbeat is racing. I can feel blood surging through my body, I feel angry, I feel so sad and confused. I want an answer. Joe shrugs it off. I knew he’d be like this in front of her. I ignore Amanda, get up and grab Joe’s arm.
“Come on let’s go talk about this alone,” I say.
We sit on my bed, both crossed legged, like we’re children.
“I’m actually really hurt by what’s happened, Joe,” I tell him.
“Are you really?” he asks.
“I just don’t know why you’d do that to me? You know what happened with Henry and me. Do you just not care? Why would you shit on our relationship like this. It’s like you don’t want us to be friends. Do you not want to make Men In The Forest 5?”
“I honestly didn’t think you’d react this way. I didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. You didn’t say anything about liking her so much.”
“I don’t. I mean… I don’t want to go out with her or anything. It was just going to be… you know? Fun. And you’ve ruined it.”
“I actually really like her, Rick. I want to out with her; I want to be her boyfriend. We have so much in common and I just love being with her.” I have to try so hard to hold back the tears. He really does like her more than me and I realise I don’t have a leg to stand on. But at the same time I can’t believe how much of a fool he is. Why would he hurt our friendship over some bint whore, who’ll fuck anything.
Amanda bursts in, with tears in her eyes, all in a mess.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about but I’m leaving,” she tells us and walks out. I feel relieved but Joe gets up in an instant and runs after her. I come out of the room to see her leave through the front door and I find Joe in the living room putting his trainers on.
“Just let her go,” I tell him. Joe is absolutely enraged and looks up at me with tears running down his face.
“You’re just being selfish,” he shouts and runs off after her. The door slams closed and I hurry back to my room bursting into tears like I hadn’t done since I was a child. They’re real tears, streaming out of me, loud howls of crying; the proper stuff. I can’t stop them. I can’t hold these back. It’s a release of pent up emotion that I’ve been blocking for days. I’ve never had this kind of argument before; never been in any heated situation. This is all very new.
After hearing a few raised voices from outside, they eventually come back to the flat. After a while Joe comes into my room and tells me that he thinks Amanda and I should talk but she wont because she thinks I hate her. He conveys the message that I don’t hate her and she comes in to talk to me. We sit on the bed and I tell her the same stuff. I’m hurt. I don’t know why they’d want to hurt me. She says she didn’t think I would be hurt, that she didn’t think I liked her like that and continues to talk and talk about more and more meaningless stuff and just doesn’t stop. I start to drift off and become so intensely bored of listening to her that I realise that if Joe wants to be with her then I should absolutely give him that chance. I’m not interested in her as much as he is obviously. Sure it could just be the fact that she crushed my heart but fuck it, I’m going with instinct.
It’s me and Joe’s turn to speak again and I go into his room and sit on his bed. I tell him that he deserves to be with someone a lot more than me. I can feel the tears coming; I’m just going to let it all out. I don’t deserve to be with anyone; I’m horrible. I have been incredibly selfish and not just now, for the past few years. I tell him that if thinks they could be together then he should go for it. We cry. And hug. And tell each other we don’t want to hurt our friendship. And with that the three of us sat on the sofa in the living room and watched series 2 of Spaced feeling incredibly uncomfortable.
After a couple of episodes I head off to bed and go and brush my teeth in my bathroom. Just as I’m spit the last of the foam out of my mouth the door opens and Amanda walks in. She closes the door behind her.
“How do you feel about me?” she asks as I put my toothbrush away and wipe my mouth on the towel.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have feelings for me?”
“Why?”
“Because,” she starts taking a pause in the middle of her sentence, “I was wrong when I said I liked you both equally.’ She cannot be serious. She can’t actually be doing what I think she’s doing. “When I was sitting on the sofa between the two of you,” she continued, “I thought about whose lap I wanted to lay on and it was you. I’d choose you over Joe.” Is she fucking nuts? After all that has been said tonight, she wants to hurt us some more. She’s playing with us. We’re just a game to her. I can finally see it so clearly. So I play along.
“I do care,” I tell her. She takes a breath and touches my arm.
“Then we have two options; one, we tell Joe how we feel. Two, we forget it, I go home and we forget everything.” She really wants me to walk into Joe’s room and tell him that we have decided to be together. Christ, does she not think I have any heart at all? We both know it’s going to be option two and that is what I tell her. We hug, kiss and lay on the bed for a bit. She sleeps on the sofa.
In the morning I manage to have a word with Joe about Amanda. I tell him what she told me last night and how I think she’s just playing us. I tell him that we have to get rid of her. She’s going to cause us pain if she’s around. He doesn’t listen of course. He simply tells me that I don’t know her the way she does; that they have a connection. He just gets angry when I tell him she’s a fucking sociopath. I know he wont listen but I had to try and warn him.
The next day after work I on my way home on tube so incredibly glad she’s gone. Forever. But I bump into the two of them at the station as I arrive and the pair of them smirk at me.
“WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?” I say with a raised voice. She tells me they’re going for a drink with one of her friend’s then she’s going to stay with someone else. I am so incredibly pissed off that I go home and sulk in my room like some little child, who’s been told he can’t watch any more Transformers. I don’t hear them come home, as I’m already asleep by midnight. The next day, after work however, I find all her things gone. Joe is angry and upset. He tells me about what happened last night. They had been out drinking with her friend and some friends of that friend and in the small hours of the evening they went to find a bus to get home. Amanda, Joe and some guy they were drinking with waited at a bus stop. A bus arrived and this guy and Amanda got on but she didn’t allow Joe on. She shoved him back onto the pavement with a smile on her face saying, “this is my bus, you have to wait for your bus.” And she left Joe there and went home with this other guy. Needless to say Joe was utterly crushed. He had been chewed up, digested and shat out into a pool of acid that was then pissed on by a dog, lapped up by that same dog and shat out again into a liquidizer, which was then turned on by some sociopathic bitch. I hold back the desire to say that I told him so and we sit down and watch TV together.
No comments:
Post a Comment