June
3rd of June
“I’m going to kill myself.” I found the words coming out before I could clamp my lips shut like a sluice.
My best friend of fifteen years sat up at the statement, eyes wide and mournful. “Oh, please don’t! Why?”
I shrugged and gave her a vacant smile, dropping my hands from the steering wheel. “I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
“But, do most of us?”
It came out more as air than as a sound but I laughed half-heartedly; the weight of my year-end ambition wraps around my throat. “My point is, it’s June. I’ve accomplished nothing in six months. Just failed jobs, ghosted messages, and more rejections.”
“I get you, darling.” She always said ‘darling’ whenever she was about to give a motivational speech. Welcome to her passenger seat TED talk in the middle of Tim Horton’s parking lot. “How long have you been planning this?”
Again, I shrugged. My default response. “For a while. I’ve been so lost the past few years. There’s a hole inside that just keeps on consuming, bit by bit.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Her eyes welled up. She always felt things deeply, as deep as I felt. We were the same MBTI, after all, and almost the same star sign being that she was born just three days after me. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you the past few months. You were always there for me until I forgot to be there for you.”
“You’re here now.” I smiled, feeling the tears form in my own eyes. In a way, I’m glad it was just her and me. I do like her girlfriend. In fact, I love her girlfriend almost as much as I love her. But sometimes I need just her to tell her exactly what was going on, as I did today.
She pulled me into a hug as if tomorrow was not going to arrive. “Please don’t go. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You have Cat.”
“But I have nobody else in Derby. I need friends outside a girlfriend too, you know.” She held me, both hands on my shoulders. I saw the pleading in Elise’s eyes, reflected by the lights of the Wyvern retail centre outside. Cosco looked about to close. “I need you to stay. Please.”
Under the weight of what she was asking me, I sighed. “I can’t make promises. I really can’t. Not when I’m so dead inside.”
Elise slumped back into her passenger seat and crossed her arms. A minute passed as she considered her words, though she didn’t really need to. She was one of the only people who could tell me whatever she wanted without needing to think about overstepping my boundaries. A feat not even my dad possessed. It was refreshing not to hide behind an unhealthy abundance of tea as tends to be the preference of British people everywhere. I liked just laying my cards on the table; I didn’t have to hold my breath.
“You know I went through the same as thing you're going through now,” she said partly to the world outside the car. We both watched a police car go through the drive-through, annoyed by how incongruous the man inside was – attractive and sexy, perfectly my type, in a uniform that tended to aggravate. She continued. “The only thing that kept me here was the thought of how many people I’d hurt, all the teary faces at my funeral. The eulogies, the thought that they’d never be able to share their jokes with me, the celebrations, milestones, joys, dreams, and so on.”
I think of how I have no family left besides Dad. No friends in Derby besides my godmother and Elise and Cat. Where have they all gone? “You make life sound so beautiful.”
“That’s because it is.” Our eyes meet again, sharing a look of solidarity. “It really is.”
“But nobody wants me, Elise.”
Her expression turns stern, the colour of earth in her eyes suddenly tense. She takes me by the hand and squeezes. “I want you here, and if you leave, I will leave. You don’t get to leave me behind.”
“I’ll try.” I squeeze her hand and bite my bottom lip. Guilt rises in me, almost as audible as the robotic voice coming out of the drive-through and the drone of the busy carriageway outside. “That’s all I can promise.”
5th of June
Ever since my conversation with Elise, it’s dawned on me how hard it is to talk about this. By this, I mean everything. The depression, the suicide, the Christmas deadline. I suppose I could talk to God, wherever he is. What good would that do? I prayed for a job he never gave me. I prayed that I wouldn’t be gay, though I’ve long since grown into it, accepting it for the skin I was born in. I prayed for a life completely different from mine.
It’s also dawned on me how difficult it’ll be for people to accept I’m not here anymore. I’ll tell Elise to tell my family and any friends who appears at my funeral that it’s okay that I’m gone. I’ll be on the clouds, safe and not too far away.
9th of June
Mav and I went for a light walk around a reservoir out in Derbyshire. We talk about our lives in general; he’s dating a new girl with whom he has much in common, such a penchant for alternative rock, gothic rock, indie music, mostly along the veins of rock. He’s also in the process of getting a new job which seems to go on forever with interview after interview after sordid interview. How many do they need to decide who to employ? I’m indecisive as hell when it comes to food outlets, but Jesus Christ Almighty, I don’t interview each choice eleventy-billion fucking times! They would have run out of food by the time I’d done that! No thank you! I want the fresh pastry!
We sit on a bench and watch the water, its skin dances in the daylight under the clouds, some ducks and swans glide into the surface, a swallow zips around us for a moment to check if we were a danger or not. It flew away, greeted by birdsong.
I almost tell him. But how would he react to the deadline? Would he react differently to Elise in some way? Would he judge me? Would he…up and walk away, insisting on getting an Uber to avoid being driven around by me?
Am I becoming too dependent on him?
We continued with our general discussion of various topics. It went from future travel plans to edible condoms to parental issues. Turns out, we had a lot in common, especially in the latter topic.
10th of June
I am undone. I am a wreck underwater.
I forgot Aurora released a new album, and I listen to it in my room, curtains drawn, popcorn in a bag besides me, a box of tissues within reach.
When the album finished and drew to a close, the popcorn was still untouched, and the box was empty.
God, that album was so silently devastating, so healing at the same time. How can anything be so perfectly balanced and nuanced as this album?
What Happened to the Heart is by far the best album of the year, a triumph of Aurora as an artist, poet, singer, healer, as everything she is.
“In my dreams everything is more quiet than here. In my dreams everything I feel disappears.”
My god, it’s a lot.
11th of June
Last month, my dad had just finished a meeting when he informed me he had just booked a holiday in Wales.
“When?” I asked as a response.
“We leave on the fourteenth of June.”
“Where are we staying?” I felt panic rise in me at the thought of dropping everything on an almost whim just to go two-hundred miles away for half a month.
“A cottage,” my dad responded pointedly, a raised eyebrow. “Why? Did you think I was going to book a tent site?”
“To be honest, yes.”
He burst out with laughter. “You really don’t have much trust in me, do you?”
Says the man who, for a mid-life crisis, bought a horse.
A horse.
A sixty-year-old man bought a horse.
And not even to bet on or race, but to keep as a cute little pet in the back garden (what back garden, with a swing set from my childhood that he can’t get rid of and a spider’s nest of a garage?). Free lawnmower!
Then he sold said horse (Chestnut, I’d called him just as I was growing fond of him) a year later and bought a sailing boat.
In the Midlands.
Three fucking hours away from the nearest beach with a sailing club.
14th of June
We left for Wales and I forgot how my dad drives. He drives as if on an assault course, with the propensity to think he’s about to get hit by just about everything. On top of all that, he’s the kind of guy who will do fifty-five in a seventy. Google maps said three hours. Took more like five. God, two hours in and I felt so sick.
I was sick on the side of the road.
When I looked up from the bush I had so lovingly selected, I found a man on the other side of it. His trousers were completely down and by the looks of his face, I don’t think he accounted for someone else coming along and throwing up in the same spot. And I never accounted for that I was about to get full sight of it; his trucker genitals.
Fright. Of. My. Life.
When we arrived at the house, it soon became apparent that it was Luigi’s Mansion on the inside. It complemented the weather outside; torrential rain and roads turning into streams. Not only that, but in every drawer and cupboard and cranny, there was a fucking spider.
Oh, my god, I’ve walked into Shelob’s lair.
If my dad attempts to steal the mini-electric heater I’ve installed in my room, I’m afraid I’m going to have to make second use of the frying pan. It’s so cold in here, and when we went to find the heating system, we found there wasn’t one.
“There’s not a single radiator in the house!”
“What? Seriously?”
Dad nodded. “We only have a log-burning stove and a couple electric heaters.”
“Oh no…” I lamented, thinking of how I was going to sleep tonight in the damp air with my asthma. I look out of the window in the kitchen while dad goes around the house to look again for any heating. I see a couple of cats playing with some rope the caretaker was using, incongruously enjoying the drizzle.
My dad returned, sighed, put his hands on his hips and nodded. “But still, we’re very well-located.”
I needed his optimism.
15th of June
Welsh is in my ancestry, apparently, according to dad. Both my grandparents had a Welsh parent.
My grandfather’s mother was from Anglesey and my grandmother’s father was from Holyhead, and both lamented that none of their family could speak Welsh.
I can only imagine. I would love to go back and meet them. What would they think of me?
We drive down to the small village of Corris, parked the car, and walked down to the railway that my dad wanted to see. We got there with plenty of time to spare, an hour or so, and decide to wander the village itself. I popped into a café that also functioned as a mini-mart and community centre, with board games for each table and bike gear being sold in one corner. It was run by two very friendly ladies who gladly served us two coffees, a latte for me and a flat white for dad, and started telling us all about this whimsical, magical place.
I was falling madly in love with it here, and across the road from Idris Stores was a daffodil-coloured door with yellow roses growing to the side of it. I imagined myself knocking on it, with death answering it and shooing me away with the claim that it was not my time yet. Much to his surprise, I didn’t turn away. I took his hand and stepped inside. All bark and no bite.
“May I have some of your lemon drizzle cake?” I asked one of the ladies, eyeballing the selection each labelled as ‘homemade by Val’.
Who is Val? I asked.
“Aww she’s the cook at the local primary school.”
I had to look away as she served the cake, feigning interest in the cans of soup and boxes of random chocolate bars just to hide that I was about to burst into tears in front of everyone. And everyone included the rugged cyclists who had just walked in.
Why was I about to cry? Why did I feel so touched at the community’s links and affinity?
It hits me as I’m given a piece of Val’s homemade lemon drizzle cake; I’m my loneliest when I’m at home.
21st of June
Why don’t doctors prescribe time away to the seaside anymore like they did back in the Victorian days? Fuck colonisation, bring back prescriptions to Scarborough, Blackpool, Abermaw, Aberdyfi, Brighton, Hastings, West Kirby, etcetera etcetera etcetera.
This holiday inadvertently ended up with my dad and I paying many visits to the beach and the seaside towns of Wales. I love how relaxed the people were there, and the salty breeze wandering languidly through the streets and down alleys, the scent of seaweed and fresh laundry leading me towards the water and ice cream parlours. Thank god for suncream.
22nd of June
It's a heatwave at the moment, twenty-seven degrees centigrade. Or else eighty degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn’t sound a lot, to be fair, until you’re actually here to wrestle with the lack of air conditioning, the dense air that hangs off your eyebrows like fish hooks off a shelf, and the constant correction of certain body parts in places where skin relentlessly sticks to each other in an awkward fashion.
Then there’s me in Aberystwyth on a day such as today with the highest alert for pollen.
Pollen. That’s what defeated me today when we went for a ride on the Vale of Rheidol railway. I spent the majority of today fist-fighting hayfever with my bare hands.
25th of June
We went to the sea again in Aberystwyth, exploring some of our respective interests at our leisure. Railways for dad, and bookshops for me. Bliss.
Until I went ahead and ordered a sausage and bacon sandwich (with eleventy fucking billion names depending on where you are in the country. Baps, buns, butties, cobs, rolls, and whatever, it’s BREAD). No big deal, right?
It came in a sesame-riddled bun (fuck off, I’m calling it a bun today).
The universe must be trying to kill me off in the most inconspicuous way possible by employing my most SEVERE allergy. And for six pounds? Are you MAD? How dare the universe try to overcharge to take me.
And who the FUCK mixes sesame seeds into a plain old English breakfast? I mean, the whole attraction of the English breakfast is that it has NOTHING THE MAJORITY IS ALLERGIC TO.
Do it in the comfort of your own home; do what you will, whether you keep your toilet roll on the inside or the outside, or whether or not you put pineapple on pizza.
But if you serve me bacon that’s been fried in sesame oil and I become known as the easiest target in a murder mystery story, I will make sure my ghost guides the detective right to you as a massive laugh in your face. While I’m dead, you’ll be in JAIL.
Go to JAIL, move DIRECTLY TO JAIL, do not pass go or collect your MONEY. GO TO FUCKING JAIL. MWAHAHAHAHAHA.
28th of June
Wales was a balm to the soul. Though I am happy to be back home again in a way. It's brought my dad and I closer to one another again. He seemed more relaxed and wore none of the tension in his shoulders that he did before the holiday.
“Cup of tea?” He asked when we got home.
“Yeah.” I helped with the luggage. “I’ll put the kettle on.”
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By J.E.Nelson (he/him)
Jeremy is a Deaf, Queer author from the Midlands in the UK. After achieving an MA in Publishing at the University of Derby, he has worked as an editor for small presses and the university newsletter before going on to work with Lacuna. His hobbiies range vastly from listening to what the fairies have to say to being flung to the sky by rollercoasters. He is currently working on two novel manuscripts, one Dystopia, and the other Steampunk.
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