I helped myself to a pancake and a spoonful of scrambled eggs. Steph knew me well enough to decipher the tornado of emotions swirling behind the brief messages I’d sent during the week.
‘Have you spoken to Mark?’ she asked, easing me in with a low-key topic.
I cringed. ‘He avoided me at the library on Thursday, and then sent a text saying that he’d decided to give things another go with his ex. He didn’t want me to feel awkward, because she works in the library and I might see them together.’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yeah. I knew who he meant straight away. She’s one of those really enthusiastic, smiley people who ends every sentence with a question and I sort of already hated her a bit.’
Steph made a scoffing noise. ‘She can have him. Mark was only a practice run, to get you back dating. He was never going to be the man you embark upon the Dream List with.’
I sighed. She was probably right.
‘You know I’m right.’
‘Okay, but whatever Mark might or might not have been, that’s not the point, is it?’
It was Steph’s turn to sigh. ‘What are you going to do? This is not going to get better on its own. She’s not going to get any better if you keep dropping everything whenever she imagines a new twinge.’
I could feel my shoulders hunching over as my internal organs shrank away from this truth.
‘She’s ill!’
‘Yeah, a chronic case of selfish cowitis. Smothering mothering syndrome.’ She used a chunk of crispy bacon to mop up the remains of syrup on her plate.
I shook my head. ‘I accept that the pains are mostly psychological, maybe even deliberate, but that just shows how desperate and scared she is about being alone. I hate myself for even wishing I could leave.’
Steph’s voice softened. ‘She’s manipulating you into never having a relationship, hoping it will trap you there forever. Jonathan was right, it’s toxic, and I feel so angry and sad that you would let someone keep treating you like this.’
I sat back, my breakfast curdling in my stomach. Had Steph been talking to Aunty Linda behind my back?
‘I know what happened this week wasn’t okay. But she’s not been like that for ages. Most of the time we get on really well.’
‘Because most of the time you do what she wants, and you don’t try and go on dates!’
‘Do I have to move out, though?’
Steph tugged on her black curls with clenched fists. ‘That’s not the question here! Do you want to move out, now, instead of waiting for the excuse of some mystery Dream Man who might never appear?’
I scrunched my face up, eventually finding enough courage to whisper, ‘I think I do.’
‘Fan-bloomin’-tastic!’ Steph hollered. ‘At last!’
I wasn’t so ecstatic. A tear trickled miserably down my cheek.
‘What if it never happens, though? What if I never find a Dream Man to complete the list with? What if Mum’s made me incapable of having a healthy relationship?’ I blotted the tear with my jumper sleeve. I had started writing the Dream List back in sixth form. It contained twelve things I planned to do when I finally fell in love like Steph and Drew. Over time some of the list had been edited （for example, deleting the original number eight: watch the live UK tour of Glee and replacing it with a summer evening at an outdoor theatre）， but it had been transferred between the back pages of all my journals for twelve years.
Steph shook her head in dismay as she ate a handful of blueberries. ‘Have I taught you nothing over the years? Why do you need a man to complete your Dream List? Why not do it on your own? By the time you’ve finished it, you’ll be so independent, and interesting and confident that there’ll be Dream Men queuing up to help you write a new one.’
I know. It’s pathetic. I was pathetic, thinking I needed someone to complete my Dream List – which was really my dream life – instead of getting on with it by myself. But twenty-nine years of a mother who baulked at the idea of doing a big supermarket shop by herself, who called 999 to avoid spending an evening alone, had conditioned me for dependence.
The thought of setting out into the unknown to tackle my dreams solo was terrifying.
But at the same time, the thought of never tackling them at all scared me even more.
As I sobbed, Steph squeezed around the table and wrapped her arms around me, and a minute later a sweaty-faced Nicky burst in and came to join in the hug. A text beeped from Aunty Linda to say that she was thinking of me, and I knew that even if I did resign from Team Tennyson, I would never be alone.