The Love of My Afterlife(5)
I nod, the memory of my Mr. Taylor drawing photocopied and plastered all over the school halls. The shame of everyone laughing at me. Sadness that the whole thing had made Mr. Taylor so uncomfortable that, beyond what was in the curriculum, he’d stopped talking to me about art at all.
“What a piece of shit,” Merritt gasps before eagerly pressing play again, like this is just some TV drama she’s binge-watching.
The video blurs into even more clips of Gen and Ryan—who had started to become known across the school as The Sweethearts—tormenting me with increasing regularity: pressing chewing gum into my hair, calling me a suck-up, getting the other students to turn their backs on me whenever I walked by. Making sure that everyone knew that being friends with me was pretty much a death knell for their future popularity.
There’s me, hiding in the top-floor bathroom, munching on an apple and staring at the door, alert for the sound of anyone approaching. I swallow hard. “I’ve seen enough,” I say firmly. “Turn it off.” I’ve not cried since the age of sixteen, and I don’t intend to start now. “Seriously. I’ve had enough. Turn it fucking off.”
“Surely it gets better?” Merritt asks gently. “There’s only a few minutes left!”
I chew on my lip as I watch myself become an adult, the video swimming into a loop of days working quietly at the pharmacy and nights watching television or surfing the internet from my sofa. Each day looks so alike that soon enough you can’t tell the difference between one month and the next. The video ends with a highly unflattering jump scare in which I’m opening my mouth extra wide to take a bite of the murderous burger.
“Yikes,” Merritt mutters, flicking off the TV and rolling the trolley back into the cupboard. “Reader, it did not get better. All your days looked exactly the same as each other. You were so alone.”
I lift my chin. “Well. That was out of choice. I was alone, yeah, but not lonely. Not at all. I’m like a great panda. We thrive alone.”
“Oh, that didn’t look like thriving, doll.”
“And you didn’t even show Mr. Yoon on that video,” I protest. “I see him practically every day for breakfast. He might not have ever spoken to me out loud, but that’s only because he literally cannot speak out loud. Sometimes he writes me notes, though, so…”
Merritt takes a seat behind her desk, steepling her fingers beneath her chin thoughtfully. “We didn’t see a boyfriend or a girlfriend in there, Delphie. Or even a brief dalliance of any kind? Did you never…?” She trails off and raises an eyebrow.
I tut. This woman is really starting to get on my nerves.
“If you mean did I have sex? Then no. No I didn’t. People can have fulfilling lives without sex.” I cross my arms. Yes, my life didn’t look very fulfilling on that video, but it was clearly a bad edit. They missed out all my nice times with Mr. Yoon, and my solo trip to Greece, which was truly delightful. They completely neglected to include how gorgeous the view is from my living-room window, the joy I feel looking out of it and watching the seasons change.
“I wouldn’t have a clue what the satisfaction levels of a sexless person would be because I was a huge slut while alive. It was glorious. I’m sad for you.”
The spark of irritation I often feel when encountering other humans flames into a quick blaze of anger. “I don’t need your pity. Certainly not for that reason.”
Merritt stands up and comes round to sit on the edge of her desk so that our knees are almost touching.
“Have you ever even kissed anyone before?”
“Yes. Course I have! At uni. I kissed a guy called Jonny Terry.”
What I neglect to say out loud is that it was an absolutely horrendous kiss. It was sloppy and awkward, our teeth clashed, and he breathed noisily through his nose the whole time. Then afterwards he wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his woolly jumper. Funnily enough I’ve not been keen to repeat the experience.
“So…you’re a virgin,” Merritt says almost to herself. “At the age of twenty-seven. Niche. Oh, wait…Oh my god, Delphie, you’re a virgin…” She gapes down at her clipboard. “Who can’t drive. Literally a virgin who can’t drive. Like in the seminal teen romance movie Clueless!”
It seems bonkers that I’m about to say these words, but I really feel like I have no choice at this point because this is just highly inappropriate. “Can I speak to a manager?”
Merritt grimaces. “Eek, yeah, the Higher-Ups have said I should try to work on my tact. I’m sorry, babe.”
“Manager,” I repeat.
“Oh, you really don’t want me to get Eric. He’s the colleague who’s subbing in while my actual manager is on vacation. He’s awful, trust me. A full-scale prick. Hot as hell too, which makes it all the more annoying, but I promise you, I’ll get him and you will regret it and wish you had stuck with me.” She lowers her voice. “You know, I once heard him say he didn’t like bread.”
I pull a face. This Eric does sound like a moron.
“Look, I’m sorry for upsetting you, okay? I’ll try to do better. I’m a little out of practice, you know? But I promise I’m way, way better than Eric. Do you want a cookie? To say sorry.”
I sigh. Of course I want a cookie. And I would rather avoid having to meet a whole new person.