‘What situations?’ I ask delicately.
He sinks his head back into his shaking palms and I see his eyes are watering before they’re hidden again. ‘Throwing myself headfirst into relationships with women who lie.’
I freeze. I was not expecting that reply.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ Josh asks himself, rain spilling into his collar. ‘Why am I always here? Who the hell even are you? My friends warned me, they told me I was going too fast again, they said I needed to take it slower this time. But, did I listen? No, I never listen.’ He massages his face with his balled hands. I reach out a hand to comfort him but I pause it in mid-air, tuck it back into the pocket of my dress. I don’t know which words to use. There’s no script to follow, no advice from Google or self-help books. ‘There must be something seriously wrong with me,’ he says, again, more to himself than to me. ‘What the actual hell is the matter with me? Why do I always get it so wrong?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say to the top of his head, my voice cracking. ‘It was one lie, and it got out of hand.’
‘I just don’t understand why you’d lie about your name. I mean, what the hell?’ He keeps shaking his head. ‘Why would you do that? And you met all my friends and lied to them too? Why would anyone do that?’
I blink up to the sky, and let the rain merge with my tears. ‘Because I’m bloody terrified,’ I admit. ‘I have had some really bad experiences and I lied about my name to protect myself and it was a total and complete fuck-up.’
The honesty causes him to look up. We lock eyes, and my heart surges with pain again. I shake my head sadly. ‘I’m really fucked up, Joshua.’ My voice chokes out the words in barks. ‘I don’t want to go to Africa either. I only said that because it was a first date and I was trying to impress you.’
He barks out a harsh laugh. ‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t trust men not to hurt me, so, when I met you, I hid loads of stuff to try and protect myself.’
His mouth falls open. ‘I’ve never done anything to hurt you!’
‘No. Not yet. But you will. Anyway, you’re about to break up with me, aren’t you? That’s going to hurt.’ It will, more than I care to admit. Somehow I’ve fallen, once again, into the default setting of me getting my heart broken. I was stupid to think this would ever end on my terms. Nothing to do with hearts are ever defined by my terms. But at least I still have one, at least it’s still functioning, still feels. It hasn’t gone cold like it could have. I’m proud of that, even though I’m ashamed of the lies I’ve been telling him and myself. Even though losing him is going to hurt so much.
‘Break up with who? Do you have any idea how much I’m freaking out right now?’ He throws his hands up in the air. ‘I’m at a wedding, with someone who I thought was my girlfriend, and now I realise I don’t even know her real name!’
‘I told you, it’s April,’ I say as another tear falls.
I look out at the grey bleakness of the wedding venue – something that I’m not sure I’ll ever have in my life. Then I look down at the man refusing to look at me, and I realise I’m in one of those rare moments in life where you can say whatever the hell you like, and it doesn’t matter, because your life has already burned down. I literally have nothing to lose.
‘Joshua,’ I start. I perch next to him on the bench, the water seeping up my skirt and through it. He stills, to let me know he’s listening. ‘Look, I said I was called Gretel on our first date to protect myself. And, yes, I was pretending to be the very best person in the world, and then you liked me and I got worried that you only liked me because I’d been hiding parts of myself. Yes, lying about my name is weird and that enough is a good reason for you to end this. You must think I’m crazy. I think I’m crazy …’ I almost laugh, and then shake my head, my wet hair sticking to my face. ‘But, while I’ve been figuring out what the hell to tell you and how to come back from this, I’ve realised that, actually, my name’s the only real lie I’ve told you. The rest of it has just been me hiding things from you. And, the thing is, you were always going to end it anyway when you found out how much I have going on. Because, you think I’m easy-going and carefree and laissez-faire, but I’m not like that. I can be those things sometimes, but a lot of the time I’m not. I’m neurotic and skittish and exhausting and hard work and so many other unsexy things … I’ve not been lying but I have been hiding the bits you won’t like.’
Joshua keeps shaking his head. He’s not running away but he’s definitely shaking his head a lot.
‘Gretel … I mean April. Shit! Literally none of what you’ve said makes any sense.’
‘What do you mean?’
He lets out an angry sigh and throws his hands up. ‘The bits I won’t like? Like? How do you know what I like and don’t like?’
‘Because you’re a man! And you all want women to follow the rules. Like how you didn’t like your ex-girlfriend because she wanted to get married …’
‘What?’ He’s looking at me in stunned disbelief. ‘I didn’t want to marry my ex because she fucking cheated on me! And when I took her back, she kept pestering me to marry her as a way of proving I trusted her again. But then I found out she’d started sleeping with him again.’
‘What?’
‘Yeah! What? You thought I dumped her because she wanted to get married?’ My silence answers that. ‘Well, it’s nice to know what you think of me.’
‘Come on!’ I hold my arms out. ‘What was I supposed to think when you said that? Men always …’
‘Always what? You don’t know. You can’t assume.’
‘Are you really going to say “not all men” at me?’
‘Yes! Because it’s fucking true.’
I’m crying furiously now. Wipe wipe wipe my face. Out it all comes. He won’t come near me now he’s seen all this. ‘You wouldn’t think they were so great and harmless if you had to do my shifts.’
‘I thought you’d stopped that role? Why?’
‘Stop it!’
‘Stop what? Upsetting you? I’m upset too! I only just found out your actual name.’ Joshua twists towards me, looks at my tears. He doesn’t seem repulsed by them, which is new. He still looks angry though. He lowers his voice again and I can hardly hear him over the rain. I shiver as I listen, digesting the story he just told me. About his ex. Realigning it with the assumptions I’ve made, wondering how many more I might’ve made about who hurt who … ‘Look,’ he says. ‘As this is the surrealest thing that’s ever happened to me and I have no idea what’s going on, I may as well be honest too. I know I’ve been pushing things forward, but, I’ve … There have been moments with you when I have felt really … not good.’
Huh? I jolt in shock. But what about Gretel? Surely he’s head over heels for her?
He holds up his hands. ‘I mean, I obviously like you. I’ve not been leading you on. I don’t do that. I like you, that’s why I’ve carried on seeing you, but Gre— I mean, April. Fucking hell. You are hard to get to know. There are times when it’s great! Like when you sang that song in the Irish accent, or the night of the curry and how you spoke and told me about your job and everything. There are moments where I feel like “Wow, this girl is cool and interesting and clearly really thinks about things”, but then there’s been a lot of … aloofness? Falseness? Like I never know where I stand. Like you’re cagey about meeting me. Holding me at a distance like it’s a test. It’s weird that you brought up Africa, cos that’s not one of the things I like about you. In fact, I’ve never really thought about that. I like the bits that feel genuine. And now your name isn’t even Gretel and I don’t know what the hell to think any more. That I need to go to therapy or something, as I seem to only be attracted to girls who lie.’