Chapter 1: Barefoot
An unreleased, never (until now) read before excerpt from the book I've been trying to write. Since we're all friends here ...
When I was young, my granddad bought me a typewriter for my birthday. Every day after school I’d knock up a short story on it, playing pretend that I was a writer like my beloved favourite author, Jacqueline Wilson. I was read to every night as a child and books brought me the same sense of joy that toys did. My Nan used to make up stories for me about fairies in her garden, and I wish we’d written them down now. Storytelling has been a primary pillar that makes me who I am all my life, and now, I’m sharing for the first time a piece of my fictional writing. There’s weight to this, it feels like I’m throwing my baby bird into the air hoping it’ll fly. So please, be kind, and read this knowing I’m scared for you to do so. Will this make it into the book? Who knows. Let’s see if you like it.
As she walked along the desire path, forged by many commuters and dog walkers over the years, the city awoke in soft hues behind her. Snowdrops and crocuses lined up alongside, nodding their heads open in the morning light. The sun had just risen, the park coming into its own in a dewy haze, whilst joggers huffed and puffed past her. As the washed-out buzz of London’s energy awoke with her, she felt small in the shadow of its vastness. Her moment of solitude was needed today more than ever.
Pushing the heavy door open of her regular spot, she stepped into the humid atmosphere and soaked up the warmth of the familiar smell. Ground roasted coffee beans, sweet vanilla scented pastries crisping as they’re ready to leave the oven, fruit teas being steeped, and milk frothing up behind the counter as the commuter rush began to file in behind her. She was nearly always the first one there when they opened. Extra hot latte, double shot, oat milk.
Her daily order had become like an autocued command that came out her mouth the same way her hands naturally pick up her toothbrush without her having to think about it. Her brain taking over and allowing her to cruise on autopilot. Thirty seconds for each segment of her mouth, top left, top right, top back, bottom left, bottom right, bottom middle, tongue. Nothing is left untouched. She liked how the toothbrush told her when it was time to stop by briefly pausing its vibrations, and starting again when she needed to switch position. The call for her order from the barista had the same effect on her. Double shot latte, extra hot, oat milk. It summoned her, notifying her arms and legs it was time to move forward as the next sequence in her routine event was ready to be enacted.
The lobby of her office building always held the same smell. White marble surfaces adorned with nothing but exceedingly expensive flowers, uncomfortable chairs and a single glum looking security guard peeking over the vast desk in the middle of the floor. It was clinical, intimidating and unwelcoming. The air always felt thick with a mix of chemicals, washed over the floors the night before, mixing with the pungent throws of corporate-appropriate scented air fresheners. Cotton, rose, lily, bergamot. A cocktail nauseating enough to rush people from the door through the turnstiles and into the lift to their desks as quickly as possible.
Her secluded corner office was a home away from home she’d come to depend on. Anchored to her desk, she felt secure, nothing was ever unexpected and always aligned just right. A framed picture of her family - mum, dad, little brother - at the last Christmas meal she’d made it to sat tucked between her keyboard and third monitor. Their beaming, yet vacant smiles reminded her she was at that desk to do good by them. Even if it means cancelling on them more than seeing them.
She glances at the Polaroid that sits beside it in a gilded frame from a vintage shop her mum had bought her. It must have been their 4th or 5th anniversary. The Vietnamese place he’d taken her to on their first date, where she’d had to ask for a knife and fork because she was hopeless with chopsticks. He looks happy there, arm around her, cheesy grin to the camera as if clutching first prize.
That’s not the same person, she thought, compared to the most recent mental image she’d banked of him. Standing in the doorway to their flat. Bag in hand, one foot stepped out onto the pavement. The 105 bus full of people stopped with almost comedic timing right next to them, watching her beg him to change his mind. His hand pushed the door shut slowly to coax her back into her cage as he told her he was done.
Rob had looked empty, tired, and heavy. His shoulders slumped forward as his eyes followed and settled on his shoelaces as the place to rest.
I can’t keep doing this. You need to look after yourself now because I don’t know how to.
He had always told her during their fights that this, she, would be the breaking of them. Someone so tightly wound, he said, would eventually always spiral out the other way into a tornado and take everyone around them into the hellscape with them. He’d compared her to the Tasmanian devil after their first big fight all those years ago. Meant light-heartedly but also with some return attached to it, he had told her how the red mist that washed over her was something that could disarm any man. She’d always thought how amusing it was that he’d only seen the opening act and was already so scared.
Last night her tears streamed down her face and neck, the lines around the sides of her eyes deepening as she scrunched them shut, open, shut, open, trying to force the wave of sobs back inside her. The volume of the cries skyrocketed, evolving quickly into screams of terror as if she were being hurt. Incoherent for the most part, but more than cutting enough, her tongue took over. Things you never say to someone you love and cherish fell out into the room, crawling over to Rob, unable to be taken back.
Once her venom had been spilled, she taunted him.
Why are you waiting for the right time when we both know you want to leave, Rob?
Too scared? Don’t want to fail, huh?
He stepped toward her, she stepped back. Every gentle attempt from him was batted away like an annoyance. This dance they choreographed together was embedded in their memory. It was his job to try and lead them out of this and it was her job to push against it until she won.
Jamie, this has to stop. I need you to calm down, please, he begged.
His eyes resembled those of a child who’s been let down by their mother. Wounded and mournful, unsafe and unloved. He was at breaking point in a way different to hers. She relished in the turmoil but he was drowning in it.
She was throwing their books at the walls, launching them in the direction of Rob’s head. She shrieked into the empty space between them, each one slamming against the Farrow & Ball paint they’d picked out together last month.
Why *thud* are you *thud* still *thud* here?-
She fell to her knees as the final one landed in a heap on the floor, pages splayed out and spine bent. Her body followed its form. She had exhausted herself.
Rob swooped down and grabbed her, holding her as she crumbled. Arms wrapped around her, supporting her weight as she leant against him swaddled by his body like a toddler who’s frightened after realising they’d come too close to hurting themselves.
When we’re small, we waddle around learning how to crawl, walk, and make noise to get attention when we inevitably fall. We don’t know any different yet, but instinctively give things a try and know that when we fall, our cry for help will be met with comfort. Someone will be there there to catch us.
As grown ups, we revert back to this. In times of despair or crisis we push ourselves to the edge of ability, testing whether or not the people around us will still be there to support us or simply let us sink.
Rob’s face flashes up on the screen of her phone and startles her. She had disassociated reliving last night, not realising the office was now full and everyone accounted for. Bums on seats by 0830am, coffee machine whirring, small talk about a play that everyone must go and see ensuing.
Ducking down with her head between her legs, she clutches at the worn out Nike runners she wore to walk into the office and reaches for her stilettos. With every pull of the laces, she takes a deep breath through her nose, filling her chest up until she slides her foot out of the trainer, releasing it. By the time the arch of her foot is suitably forced and the calf muscles in her legs felt taught, toes pinched, she feels calm.
The Jamie skin the world is allowed to see was now firmly on and complete. In this version of herself, she was the Cambridge graduate turned CEO. The girl who owned a dog and a flat, both bought with her long-term boyfriend whose salary matched hers. The girl who had been a size 8 for the past 10 years and never missed her 3 PT sessions a week, whilst keeping up with all the latest food, theatre and London hotspots to frequent. She was the poster girl for success, someone to envy, and she intended to remain that way no matter the cost.
A second call, only seconds between them both. She can’t tell whether she’s stopped breathing because she’s crippled with anxiety or if the tightness in her chest is her having a heart attack. Either way, she thinks, this would be a real way to go. She shuts her office door.
Rob, sorry, I wasn’t ignoring you hi-
It’s ok, he says, I just wanted to check you got to work ok this morning
He usually walked her to the station on his way to the gym. Hand in hand, they would chat, laugh, or sometimes enjoy the silence together under the overhanging yet incredibly manicured trees that lined their sought-after street in west London. This morning she had blindly followed her route without him, waiting for him to jump out from around the corner and tell her this was all a big joke.
Look, I’ve been thinking and I hope… well, can we just -
I didn’t call to talk. I meant what I said.
A steely silence, and Jamie is convinced the lump in her throat could well be a vital organ slipping up to leave her body.
You need help, he said quietly, and I’m not willing to be the one to shoulder the burden anymore of whatever it is that turns you into -
Into what, Rob?, she snapped. A lunatic? A she-devil?
He sighs deeply on the other end of the phone, feeling as far away from her as she could ever remember in the past 8 years they’d been together.
It - whatever it is - turns you into someone I don’t want to know.
Jamie feels a hot red poker plunge into her chest, a burning yet waterboarding sensation all in one as every ounce of air is knocked out of her.
I’m sorry it came to this. I’ll come and get my stuff tomorrow.
She didn’t hear that final sentence. Her phone is laying face down on the floor now, fallen from her hand, and she has no intention of picking it up again.
Walking with speed out of her office, ignoring the good morning chorus that follows from their mouths, she heads across the floor past her staff and heads towards the lift. She presses G to take her down from the top of her ivory tower. She can’t breathe.
Clutching her chest, hands clasped at her heart as if to stop it lurching out of her ribcage, she steps out. The sunlight is falling in through the windows now like liquid gold across the glossed floors and walls. The buttery hue makes it look like the yellow brick road awaits her outside, luring her somewhere better.
Standing on the pavement now, she pauses to count to ten. In through the nose, out through the mouth, like her hot yoga instructor recites. Once she’s caught her breath back, she realizes this may be the first day in years she’s not had a phone in her hand, or a bag on her shoulder, or pretended to appear as someone normal. People bustle past her but take no real notice of her. She’s one of many and incognito.
Her feet tell her that they want to run. Pressing the back of the spiked heel into the pavement, she relieves the pressure of it clasping around her foot and uses the force to leverage the shoe off. The soles of her feet are on the streets of London now. Between her toes, she feels the grain and grit of the tarmac beneath her. Grimy yes yet oddly, grounding.
Tilting her head up to the sky, she smiles, the way a cat does when it basks in its favourite sun spot. It was all going to be fine. Because she’s always fine. As her eyes blink open, she looks ahead across the street, where the trees are swaying in the April breeze as their petals, like confetti, shower the ground.
Distracted, she becomes aware that there’s a humming in her left ear growing louder. Like a bumble bee is stuck in the canal and bouncing on the drum. Peculiar, she thought. It grows to a low rumble, she wonders if her tinnitus is finally rearing its ugly head. Ignoring it, she takes a step forward, looks right and gets waved to cross by an old man driving a Rolls-Royce to work. Only in Mayfair.
To her left, tires screech, and car horns blare as bumper to bumper, the cars collide with one another and into Jamie. The bulbous black cab that failed to swerve her as she stepped out into the road is now dragging her with it under its tyres. Though it only lasts second, to Jamie it felt like it happened in slow motion. She watches as her own blood leaves its mark on the ground, like a red carpet being rolled out behind her.
Before she loses consciousness, as her brain goes to autopilot to protect her from feeling her limbs detach and her flesh leave her bones, the last conscious thought she has is of Rob. Flashing images in her head of the life they’d built together so close to completion yet so far from her now.
Her rob.
Patient, kind, lovely Rob.
Proud of u!!! 🌷
OMG! Pls send more …I am hooked 🙌🏻♥️