Pretending Read online

  Praise for Pretending

  “Pretending is the thoughtful, intelligent, urgent novel we need in a post Me Too age. It is both unsettling and hopeful, enlightening and entertaining. Holly Bourne examines the darkest of subjects while retaining incisive wit, absorbing narrative and a totally loveable lead.”

  —Dolly Alderton, author of Everything I Know About Love

  “MAGNIFICENT. The whole sorry mess of gender and sexual politics wrapped up in a compelling story told by an ADORABLE heroine. I feel educated and empowered from reading it. Brutally honest and righteously angry but still HUGELY enjoyable and engaging. I BOW DOWN!”

  —Marian Keyes, New York Times bestselling author of The Brightest Star in the Sky

  “Holly Bourne’s unique voice immediately invites you in and you can’t look away. Gritty, funny and poignant... What a painful, raw, important, hilarious, whip-smart triumph of a book.”

  —Beth O’Leary, author of The Flatshare

  “The most freeing, reassuring book on dating after #MeToo I’ve ever read. Perceptive. Hilarious. Brilliant.”

  —Laura Jane Williams, author of Our Stop

  “So relatable, powerful and thought-provoking... This is a vivid, contemporary exploration of the darkest side of relationships, anger and powerlessness, but it’s filled with joy too.”

  —Daisy Buchanan, journalist and author of The Sisterhood

  “Searingly honest, intense, and insightful, this is a profoundly moving novel.”

  —Louise O’Neill, author of Asking for It

  “Every page brings another eye-wateringly relatable moment and I couldn’t put it down. I was constantly laughing, crying, and nodding aggressively at every page.”

  —Lucy Vine, author of Hot Mess

  “An extraordinary book... It’s feminist and angry and compassionate and hopeful.”

  —Julie Cohen, author of The Two Lives of Louis & Louise

  “Such unbelievably dark themes...yet Pretending still has a joy and a lightness of touch that makes it easy to breeze through.”

  —Caroline O’Donoghue, author of Promising Young Women

  “Smart, perceptive, funny and touching about modern life for modern women.”

  —Rowan Coleman, author of The Summer of Impossible Things

  Pretending

  Holly Bourne

  Holly Bourne is a UK bestselling author and is an Ambassador for Women’s Aid. In 2019, she was an Author of the Day at the London Book Fair, and was named by Elle magazine’s weekly podcast as one of Six Female Authors Changing the Conversation in 2019. Pretending is her US debut.

  To Good Eggs

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Acknowledgments

  I hate men.

  There, I’ve said it. I know you’re not supposed to say it. We all pretend we don’t hate them; we all tell ourselves we don’t hate them. But I’m calling it. I’m standing here on this soapbox, and I’m saying it.

  I. Hate. Men.

  I mean, think about it. They’re just awful. I hate how selfish they are. How they take up so much space, assuming it’s always theirs to take. How they spread out their legs on public transport, like their balls need regular airing to stop them developing damp. I hate how they basically scent mark anywhere they enter to make it work for them. Putting on the music they want to listen to the moment they arrive at any house party, and always taking the nicest chair. How they touch your stuff instead of just looking; even tweak the furniture arrangement to make it most comfortable for them. All without asking first—never asking first.

  I hate how they think their interests are more important than yours—even though twice a week all most of them do is watch a bunch of strangers kick a circle around a piece of lawn and sulk if the circle doesn’t go in the right place. And how bored they look if you ever try to introduce them to a film, a band, or even a freaking YouTube clip, before you’ve even pressed Play.

  I hate their endless arrogance. I hate how they interrupt you and then apologize for it but carry on talking anyway. How they ask you a question but then check your answer afterward. I hate how they can never do one piece of housework without telling you about it. I hate how they literally cannot handle being driven in a car by a woman, even if they’re terrible drivers themselves. I hate how they all think they’re fucking incredible at grilling meat on barbecues. The sun comes out and man must light fire and not let woman anywhere near the meat. Dumping blackened bits of chicken onto our plates along with the whiff of a burp from their beer breath, acting all caveman, like we’re supposed to find it cute that we may now get salmonella and that we’re going to have to do all the washing up.

  I hate how I’m quite scared of them. I hate the collective noise of them when they’re in a big group. The tribal wahey-ing, like they all swap their IQs for extra testosterone when they swarm together. How, if you’re sitting alone on an empty train, they always come and deliberately sit next to you en masse, and talk extra loudly about macho nonsense, apparently to impress you. I hate the way they look at you when you walk past—automatically judging your screwability the moment they see you. Telling you to smile if you dare look anything other than delighted about living with stuff like this constantly fucking happening to you.

  I hate how hard they are to love. How many of them actually, truly, think the way to your heart is sending you a selfie of them tugging themselves, hairy ball sack very much still in shot. I hat
e how they have sex. How they shove their fingers into you, thinking it’s going to achieve anything. Jabbing their unwashed hands into your dry vagina, prodding about like they’re checking for prostate cancer, then wondering why you now have BV and you still haven’t come. Have none of them read a sex manual? Seriously? None of them? And I hate how they hate you a little just after they’ve finished. How even the nice ones lie there with cold eyes, pretending to cuddle, but clearly desperate to get as far away from you as possible.

  I hate how it’s never equal. How they expect you to do all the emotional labor and then get upset when you’re the more stressed-out one. I hate how they never understand you, no matter how hard they try, although, let’s be honest here, they never actually try that hard. And I hate how you’re always exhausting yourself trying to explain even the most basic of your rational emotional responses to their bored face.

  I hate how every single last one of them has issues with their father.

  And do you know what I hate most of all?

  That despite this, despite all this disdain, I still fancy men. And I still want them to fancy me, to want me, to love me. I hate myself for how much I want them. Why do I still fancy men so much? What’s wrong with me? Why are they all so broken? Am I broken for still wanting to be with one, even after everything? I should be alone. That’s the only healthy way to be. BUT I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE. I hate men, that’s the problem. GOD I HATE THEM SO MUCH—they’re so entitled and broken and lazy and wrong and...and...

  Hang on...

  My phone.

  HE MESSAGED BACK!!!

  WITH A KISS ON THE END!

  Never mind.

  Forget I said anything. It’s all good.

  “I think I’m going to fall in love with him,” I tell Katy, as we stand by the dilapidated kettle, waiting for it to gurgle into a lackluster boil.

  “Maybe a little bit soon for that, don’t you think?”

  “I know. But I also, like, know, you know?”

  Katy closes her eyes for a little longer than necessary, which is fair enough. I can hear what I sound like with my very own ears. I am not this person. I am not this woman. Although I am, I am. “You’re getting carried away again, aren’t you?” She’s washing out our mugs using the tiniest amount of Fairy Liquid, which has the note “please use sparingly” on it, like the charity we work for can be saved from financial annihilation by more efficient washing up.

  “It’s been five dates! Five! Do you have any idea what a milestone that is? I googled it, and it really, really is.”

  “Didn’t we talk about googling relationship stuff, April?”

  “I can’t help it. We work in an office with unrestricted internet access and I’m not Gandhi. And even he, I am sure, would google ‘what to expect after five dates’ if he was in my position.”

  She laughs loudly enough that heads jerk up around the office. I shh her as I pour the coffee out of the cafetière into three mugs. She splashes in the milk equally and I giggle with her, but I can’t help but feel a twinge of hurt at her amusement. Katy’s been married for four years, to a man who completely and utterly adores her. She’s all smug and I-wouldn’t-be-like-that and chilled, which is so easy to be when you’ve been married for four years to a man who completely and utterly adores you. I would be just as chill if I was married to a man like Jimmy. Bored as fuck, but chill.

  We clatter back to our desks, through an office fizzing with Friday energy. The end of the week is tauntingly in sight. Shoulders relax as people tap at their keyboards, meetings are laced with jokes, and the radio’s been cranked on. No one is working quite as hard as they should be and their Monday-selves will hate their now-selves for being so lax. But that is then and this is now and I have a sixth date and a whole weekend and the hope of the beginning.

  I attack my phone the second I’m sitting down. The sweet agonizing apprehension of waiting for a red blob containing a message alert—my future mood totally dependent on it. For a millisecond, as I wait for my screen to unlock, I imagine it all disintegrating. Maybe I’m overhyping the connection, maybe he won’t have replied, maybe I’m delusional and mental and he’s figured this out and will now ghost me without explanation. I’ll have to start over again. Pick myself up and out of the dust again. Try to find the faith again. A dark chasm yawns open in my stomach...but wait!

  There’s a message!

  He’s replied!

  I’ve been rewarded for leaving my phone at my desk while I made coffee. I successfully tricked the Love Gods with my trip to the kitchen to make a hot drink. They thought I was ambivalent about Simon’s reply and therefore sent it to me, but the joke is on them because I didn’t even want this coffee. I just needed a reason to be away from my phone.

  “Your phone buzzed,” Matt tells me unnecessarily as I stare at it in my hand. He’s peering at me over his monitor, his eyes kind through the thick black rims of his glasses. “Is it Simon?”

  I nod. “I think so. Can’t open it to tell yet though, can I?”

  “Why not? Of course you can.”

  Katy plops his drink down in front of him and he nods a thank-you. “Google probably told her not to,” she says, taking her seat next to him. She pulls her keyboard toward her and starts clacking earnestly.

  “It’s not just that,” I protest. I open my top drawer and put my phone in there so I can’t see it. It nestles in on top of some used-up notepads and promotional postcards we give out at student unions. “I just don’t want him to think I’ve spent my whole day checking my phone to see if he’s messaged.”

  “Even though you have...” Matt puts forward.

  “Yes, but I’ve done other interesting things and had other interesting thoughts too.”

  “Like...?”

  “Well, we just had that meeting.”

  “Which you brought your phone to...and spent the whole time looking at your lap.”

  I shake my head and take a slurp of my unwanted tricking-the-Love-Gods coffee. “OK, OK, so I’m a pathetic mess and Simon’s going to find out how crazy I am and dump me and then I’ll die alone in my flat, and my cat will eat my face because cats have no loyalty.”

  “You don’t have a cat,” Katy reminds me, still typing.

  Matt points at me. “Write all that out to him and send it back.”

  “What? Say, ‘Please don’t dump me when you find out I’m crazy. You’re the one chance I have to not have a cat eat my decomposing face’?”

  He points harder. “Yeah. Go for it. Stress test it. See what happens. If he’s the guy, he’ll get it.”

  Katy and I shake our heads at one another. Katy has been with Jimmy so long she’s completely out of the game, but even she knows that’s wrong.

  “You know that’s not how it works.”

  Here’s the thing: I really don’t understand why love has been so hard for me. I am pretty. I am smart. I have a goodish job. I have friends. I have hobbies. I am funny. I am self-actualized. I dress well. I don’t have particularly high standards. I am not expecting to be rescued. I am realistic about what relationships are like. I know they take work. I know nobody is perfect, let alone myself. I know I have to “put myself out there” and I have been doing that. I am a good conversationalist. I am happy on my own. I am.

  But, like, I still want a relationship.

  I really want a relationship.

  Not because I think it will complete me or solve all my problems. Not because I want a big wedding and to look pretty in an expensive dress. Not even, really, because I want to have children because, if I had to, I could survive not having them.

  I want a relationship because it’s a really normal and natural thing to want. And yet, it’s not been happening for me. It’s so exhaustingly hard. I don’t understand why it’s so hard...

  But maybe it won’t be hard anymore. Not with Simon.

 
God, I really, really like Simon.

  I attempt to lose myself in my work. My important work in my important job in my independent life. I try to be better than this. Less needy than this. Less obsessed than this. It’s my shift answering the inbox this afternoon and that’s always a traumatic ball-ache, so I need to be efficient and get through my emails and be all the things I know I’m capable of being. I type up the notes from the meeting about safeguarding procedure. I plan next month’s buddy timetable and send it out to the volunteers. I go to another meeting about budget cuts, how to make it work on much less than we have and how we will probably get even less next year but we are positive that actually it will be OK. I’m hyperaware of my phone in my top drawer, however. The unread message thumps through the oak like it’s the still-beating heart of a murdered body I’ve tried to bury, like the Poe story. I stare into nothingness for many a moment to obsess about the contents of the message. He won’t be canceling tonight, will he? He seemed really up for it last night. He explicitly used the words “looking forward to seeing you.” He put a kiss on the end. But what if he’s changed his mind? What if his ex rang him randomly last night and told him she still loves him and they’ve been up all night rampantly shagging and he’s only just remembered he’s got a date tonight?

  “Whoops, I should probably let her know,” I imagine Simon saying, laughing with carefree abandon as she wraps her arms around his neck. Her name is Gretel, I’ve decided. For some reason, whenever I fantasize about perfect women who behave perfectly in relationships, I always call them Gretel. Gretel kisses his face and says, “Well you can’t go now, can you? Not when we are about to elope to Gretna Green,” and—OH MY GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? Why is this weird image of him and his ex in my head? I don’t know him, it’s only been five dates, and why am I doing this to myself? I have to open the message. He’s going to be canceling. I know it, I know it. I should get over the disappointment now, rip off the plaster, give the wound oxygen to heal and...

  The drawer is open. Phone retrieved, alongside a scattering of postcards that rain onto the gray carpet like shrapnel. I jab my finger on the scanner to unlock it, already wondering if my housemate, Megan, will be free tonight to commiserate-drink with me. I open the message.