I saw Lee this morning

I was just walking, on my way back to work after picking up a fallafel from the Lithuanian cafe on the corner. They hadn’t packed it right and I felt something edging its way out of the rolled up paper, so I stopped and lifted it above my head to check. Only a mint leaf out of place. As I was re-positioning myself to avoid an oncoming car (I had unintentionally meandered towards the road in my horror of losing a crumb from that package), I happened to look across the road. He was coming out of one of those tiny second hand book shops that look like they are always closed. He had short hair, but still it was somehow flopping over his eyes- maybe it was just a momentary time lapse or a hole in the space-time continuum (as our time together always seemed to be), but he looked exactly the same after all these years. It seemed like hours that I stood there, not knowing whether he would see me as well- that one tiny spec of a micro milli-second in time that could change fate..but he didn’t look up. He took his phone out of his pocket and started smiling as he answered it, then veered off down Marcel Road and disappeared out of my life again.

C’est la vie.

As Chloe would say.

I bet she says things like that to him a lot.

White noise

I am still here, in my boxroom. The house is so quiet for a Friday night. I can usually hear Simon’s dull roar of grunge metal booming out of his room, Annabelle’s droney death metal and Chloe’s fairy hippie starlight folk tunes. If I stop typing all I can hear is cars trailing past on Hewerdean Road and people walking past, talking too fast, probably on their way out to the pub. I’ve got another week til I start my BA Course in Technical Theatre Arts at Guildhall. 15th September. What am I going to do if this shit isn’t sorted by then?

I miss Richard for his silliness and how he brought fun to everything.

I miss Lee for his safety, warmth and just cos he knows me better than I know myelf.

I miss Simon for being the person I aspire to be. The one who needs new experiences, the one who seeks out adventure and things that make life interesting even if those things are painful. He’s alive and real. he doesn’t pretend. I’ve seen him yell like a banshee at Chloe when she goes on about how beautiful the world is….I’ve heard him go on to Anna about how she should fuck everyone off who gives her shit about her sexuality. Simon says it how it is. He doesn’t disguise the human state. He never gets embarrassed. He never apologises for his likes, preferences, opinions, selfish actions or his need to know..mostly things that people won’t admit to. It’s like he’s a researcher of human behaviours and thoughts. If you say the word ‘normal’ he starts on you about the fact that NOTHING is normal, it doesn’t exist. Like, he says if someone dares say ‘it’s not normal’ in front of him, he’ll get a smack in the gob. I really like Simon. He has said a lot of stuff to me that I wouldn’t have taken from anyone else. I have taken it because underneath, he’s how I want to be. Lee is all about honesty too and I think that that’s why they love each other so much….but Lee can’t bear to see people hurt. He would gladly sacrifice his own happiness and comfort to make others happy. He is always saying I should think about how my words are going to affect someone before I speak. Thinks of other people’s feelings. Simon doesn’t. He said to me once that we are all owners of our own feelings and we should know ourselves well enough to be strong and take other people’s criticisms with a smile. He believes in tough love, just like Lee does, but it’s the delivery that’s different.

Oh my God. I want to text Simon. Hackney is not so far away. I want to meet him in a dark corner pub somewhere and talk about life.

But I also want to feel Lee’s arms around me. Comfort and safety.

it’s raining again. I can hear voices downstairs. Laughter. Maybe it’s Anna and Lou. Chloe’s not laughing because she’s pissed with me, hurting her Lee. Joel is out with Lisa, she came for the weekend as she does. Lee is in our room, I can hear him occasionally strumming on his guitar and abruptly stopping….he’s not good. He came back and knocked on my door a while ago saying that he’d made me some pasta with veggie sauce, and mine was on the hob. I haven’t been down to get it. I’m not hungry. I could do with a bottle of wine though………

This room is too small, like a hole. I feel like I’m in prison.

Oh another text message:

Casey, how are you? Please reply. Lee won’t talk and I’m home alone here, my bro out with his girlfriend. Get on tube and come. x

Should I?

So I’ll ask you again…..have you?

This was the point of the conversation last night when I realised I’m a fucking lame person and don’t even deserve to have Lee as a boyfriend. I think we’re over.

I am sitting in the living room on my own. Anna has been in, Chloe and Joel but no Simon and no Lee. I don’t even know how this whole shabang-fuck started, only that one minute I thought my life was a mess but sortable and the next, literally within that space of time when I ate a snack and they came in, it was irretrievably shredded beyond recognition.

Simon must have told Lee we slept together.

Mr Truth has spoken. I mean we can all sit there and fucking go ”Honesty is the best policy…..we learn from our mistakes….” blarg blarg, but when it comes to it, do we REALLY tell the truth? NO! Except Simon does, obviously. What MOTIVE has he got for doing this? He told me after we’d indulged in our mutual lust that he felt better, he’d ‘got it out of his system’ and no one ever needed to find out. I was very ok with that, especially after being ragged on about Richard. Lee took that so well, but I doubted that shagging his best mate in OUR bed would have the same zen effect! I was so right.

So yesterday they (Lee & Si) walked into the kitchen where I was perched precariously on a bar stool, me in my pyjama bottoms with stupid red hearts all over them and rips in them..feeling battered enough, but Lee’s face looked like it had been hit with a lead shovel. his eyes were wide like he was in shock, (well he was I guess), and Simon skulked off upstairs, the fucking yellow coward. He pushed the bags of food onto the counter top and stood there with his back to me for ages, not speaking or moving. When Lee doesn’t speak, you know something catastrophic has happened. I asked what was up and he didn’t move, but I could tell he kept rubbing his hands on his eyes. I think he was crying.

He turned eventually and grabbed my hand, leading me too fast up the two flights. I needed my inhaler when I got to the bedroom and he just swiped his hand towards me as if to say hurry up and just inhale. I did, trying to drag it out. I wanted to get my thoughts together. Rows with Lee are never just structureless yell-fests, they are like university professors having a debate over a midnight brandy.

Then he asked it. “Have you slept with anyone else apart from Richard?”

I retaliated immediately, which was stupid cos it made it obvious I was on the defence.

“I didn’t sleep with Richard.”

I sounded like I was trying to gain points, I could feel my mouth smiling at him as if I had won. I knew it wasn’t a competition but I am childish and puerile. I haven’t learned a single fucking thing from being with him for two years. idiot.

He told me not to be so clever. That he was hurt beyond pain. A kiss and a grope was one thing, but sleeping together?

I decided there and then that I would just deny everything. My usual tack. My usual selfish approach to relationship issue solving. Bravo.

“No I haven’t, Lee. Why would I?”

He then LAUGHED.

“Ok, Casey.” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. I honestly thought this was all a joke and he’d go “GOT YA!” and attack my ribs with his guitar strumming fingers like he always did when he’d managed to verbally prank me. But he sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. I was appalled when I noticed he was rocking slightly too. I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t move. My feet felt like molten lead in the carpet.

“Look, I know you have. Please just let’s be honest about this or we can’t get past it, ever. For ONCE in our relationship, admit you fucked up! It’s not hard, I mean I already know. Just say it!”

He was really pissed.

I shook my head and adopted the best astonished and ‘how could you even think I’d do that to you’ face. As if I had the right to be offended.

“How do you know? Who told you?”

Childish Casey. What was the point of that? As if it mattered who told him. He was asking a question, he was begging for honesty and I couldn’t do it. It was because I didn’t want us to split up. I love him.

But it’s not going to keep him loving me either is it? Either way I lose. Might as well have just said it……..

“I didn’t Lee. I love you.”

“Then why are you lying, AGAIN?”

“I’m not, I’m telling you Richard was a mistake! There was only ever him, now it’s over, I told you that! Please Lee!”

I was shouting louder than ten decibels of Lee. And I was the one in the wrong. I was being so transparent, I knew I was pushing our love over the edge of the suicide cliff, but I couldn’t stop.

Lee was staring at his converses. Silence pervaded. The room closed in on me.

“if you are lying to me, we are so over. Please think long and hard about this Casey. I love you so much. We have been through so much. Don’t let us go, please don’t.”

Silence again.

I could have just admitted it. He was more or less telling me that he might be able to forgive. A voice in my head was going, ‘Tell him about Simon, be strong, be brave, be like Simon. BE TRUE TO YOURSELF.’ We had things to discuss, I wasn’t happy…this could be the pivotal point that projected us into a higher realm of contentment and closeness….and I wanted that, deep down I knew I loved Lee…the others were flings, lust versus love. Or did I really want to stay with Lee, domestic bliss, babies, marriage? Maybe Simon is the one? Excitement, new experiences, exploring boundaries of our dark sides, living in art…it made my heart sing. Had he told Lee because he wanted that with me? Had he begged Lee to let me go? Was he so sure that we were perfect together?

This thought was still swirling around my head and piercing my heart when Lee said it.

“So, I’ll ask you again…………”

London, September 2nd 2015. Back to Black

I’m here. I travelled back last night and didn’t get in til late. I couldn’t be arsed to talk to anyone so went straight to bed in ‘my’ room. I think it’s the first time ever that I’ve slept in it since I moved into the feral house with Lee and his friends.

Lee must have got up early because he kept rapping on my door wanting to get in. He wanted to talk, as ever. I just wanted to sleep and stayed there behind drawn curtains ’til about 3pm. I couldn’t hear any noises of laughing, music, guitars or TV when I crawled out of bed and when I crept downstairs to the kitchen to make black coffee, it was silent except for the wind whistling through the gap in the kitchen window (so the landlord hasn’t fixed it then!). The rain has been lashing since I woke up. Black clouds just hang there repressing everything. Back to Black.

My phone had got 15 missed calls and 5 texts off Lee when I checked it earlier, most of them begging to talk and the last one telling me he was going out with Simon to get some stuff for dinner. Now it’s got a further 5 missed calls. They must have stopped off somewhere else cos they’ve been hours. Fine by me. I can’t face Simon right now anyways. The vibe he gives me is so intense, it’s almost psychotic the way he looks at me, GLARES at me. I know from first hand experience, he’s no fickle guy. The one-nighter we had wasn’t intended to be that way, not by him at least. Maybe I should move out? No. I love this house with its rickety walls, weird decor and attc space where our room is. It’s like Fagin’s den…there’s a skylight in the ‘hall’ that doesn’t open and you can see pigeon feet tapping across it. You can see the sky through the rain puddle that collects there. It’s ace. I love the narrow stairway that goes up to our top floor and that you can’t pass anyone else on it, it’s too cramped.

How did he seriously think we’d go on together in his house under Lee’s nose? We all know exactly what each other’s up to here, no one can even take a dump without everyone marking down on the kitchen calender. I find Simon wildly attractive and I also loved being with Wadesy. I miss him a lot but promised Lee it was over……. but my dilemma is I love Lee, I mean I can’t imagine him not being in my life. What am I supposed to do?

Love lost? I am so depressed.

Lee is still in London with Chloe. He is being fine with me, which is more than I deserve after what I’ve done, but I just don’t get WHY he had to go there! He could have gone to his Dad in Leeds. But Chloe? I am deathly paranoid now because she did admit her feelings and he was genuinely shocked, but I sense that he has been thinking about things a lot lately and whether he would be happier with her. I mean he always spoke of her as his closest friend. They are very very similar in character, both quiet and introverted, but with fire in their bellies when they need it. She’s a Wiccan and Lee has always loved the Old Religions and Cultures. He’s more of a Buddhist though….but he finds her practices fascinating. They are both Sensitive to the point of ridiculous as well and they always retreated to one another when things got tough…Yes, he’d talk to me, but the difference was, Chloe could make him feel better whereas our relationship has always been one sided as though Lee is in it to save me. I never understood what he saw in me, what I ever brought to the table. Jesus, I’m depressed.

And then there’s the point that I have been making out with another guy for approximately 2 months behind Lee’s back. It doesn’t seem to salvage anything when I remind him that I didn’t sleep with him. Lee, being Lee has already forgiven me. He didn’t even get pissed, he just went quiet for a few days and then asked me why I needed to do that with another guy, was there something missing from our relationship? Did he not pay me enough attention? He made me want to scream…………..because this…this MARRIAGE like thing we’ve got is so fucking DULL! ‘let’s talk it through, let’s get to the root of the issue.’ NO I DON’T WANT TO, I JUST WANT TO LIVE! DO STUFF WITHOUT HAVING TO ANALYSE IT!

That’s why I slept with Simon i guess. I saw an Oscar Wilde quote scrawled on his bedroom wall one afternoon when we were sat in there, all of us, when the electric went out. Simon had candles and Lee and him jammed on guitars for hours until suddenly the lights came back on. Chloe and Anna were asleep. I noticed it then in the glare of the stark lamp on his bedside table:

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful.”

I became a little bit obsessive about Simon from that moment on as he was the answer to my longings. Little did I know he’d grown sick with longing for me. But that’s another blog post.

Finally, the ever-decreasing endless issue of KIDS that somehow won’t lie down and let us live in peace. I am 18 for fuck’s sake, not 38. Why does everything around us have to keep prodding and picking at that wound we made bleed when we first got together? The one where he says he wants kids and to be married by the time he’s 25…and I say I don’t care about marriage and I don’t want to sprog..there are enough kids in this world without homes and food…why add to it? I find the whole idea of childbirth repulsive and the thought of babies repugnant. I am not a mother! Chloe is though isn’t she.

Perfect.

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Ok. So I fancied Richard like mad. He was (is!) a lot like Lee in many ways, that kind, sensitive type….not like Simon, yes, Simon who I live with. (But that’s another story and one that Lee doesn’t know about and never will as long as I live and breathe. The only other person who knows is Simon. Maybe I’ll write about that in another post, if i can bring myself to write the words. I’m a bad-ass girlfriend, rubbish and fickle. That’s probably why Simon likes me so much. TMI). We got upstairs and he still had hold of my hand. His sculptor’s fingers were woven around mine and felt cool, yet strong and confident. My knees were about to give way. I asked him whose room it was as we entered that same room and I noticed it smelt of stale beer and sweaty socks. he said it was his mate Tindel’s room, the smelly bastard, and he was at his Mum’s for the weekend. Ok then, I thought….that makes it ok?

He started pressing buttons on the IPOD dock and some indie warble droned around the room. Wadsey kicked his Docs off and sat on the bed, smiling again. Neither of us knew what to say for ages. I didn’t know whether I was reading the situation totally wrongly and he just intended to go to sleep, or whether he assumed we would have sex. After all this was Uni, this was a predominantly art student corridor of the Rez. it’s what they DO. I gingerly sat on the bed, the edge, not touching him, but I knew that if he made a move I would have no choice but to go through with it. His eyes were all sparkly despite the fact it was nearly daylight and we’d been up all night, and his lips were turned up at the corners teasingly. I wanted to kiss him, so very very badly.

Then suddenly, without warning he just came right out with it. ‘I like you a lot Casey but I know you’re living with your boyfriend. I don’t know where I stand.Help?’

I laughed. He didn’t

‘Did you leave your keys on purpose? Come on just be honest with me, I can take it.’

What did I say? I said this:

‘No.’

Silence for ages. He was leaning on one arm, his plaid shirt undone and a dark brown t-shirt with ‘Wishbone Ash’ written across it showing. Some obscure band t-shirt that I would dearly have loved to remove. I really was lost for words. He seemed like a nice guy and genuinely didn’t want to be a drunken one-night-stand to a girl who was living with her boyfriend. I decided I couldn’t look at him anymore because I really wanted to kiss him now that the realisation that I wasn’t allowed to had dawned on me. I lay down and soon his face appeared next to mine. This guy sure knew how to tempt me. Didn’t he know? Are guys so stupid that they automatically think they are ‘not attractive’ to us girls? The same as Lee, always brushing off compliments when I try and tell him how many girls gawp at him when they walk past him. I was lucky (am lucky) so why did I want it so badly with someone else? Why had I wanted (and still want) Simon?

Then, his face was coming closer and I could smell the feint and not unpleasant aroma of cider on his breath, He was still smiling as his lips touched mine. They were sooooooo soft and cool. At first, I felt numb, like I was just dreaming it, but gradually a warm feeling spread itself over my neck and face and I sunk in to his kiss, feeling his tongue touch mine. Then he pulled away.

I opened my eyes. The sun was up. The curtains were still open and the trees outside the window tickled the glass as if to say, take the bloody chance, stand up and get a grip, girl. His face was questioning as if he was waiting for a sign to carry on. Oh how I wanted to. His plaid shirt was pressing against my vest top that had the chaos symbol tie dyed into it. He was so close to me that I felt like I was melting. He hadn’t touched me at all, almost as if that would have been the last barrier. I moved away.

‘Sleep then?’ he said, making it into a question but knowing full well the answer. He wasn’t smiling as I closed my eyes. I must have fallen asleep as soon as, my lips still tingling and a feeling in my throat like a hedgehog had crawled in there and died.

I slept until about 8. Wadesy woke me up as he scrambled off the bed. I watched him for a few minutes, dreading how I’d feel when I lifted my head off the pillow, a raging hangover already pressing my temples. He didn’t look at me as he left the room and I closed my eyes hoping to forget about this and just go back to sleep. Maybe Fern would come in and find me and we’d go back to hers together and I’d sleep on the sofa, trying to forget how his lips had made me feel.

He came back in but I kept my eyes shut. I heard a glass being put down and my throat constricted as I gagged for water. I opened one eyes and saw a marvelous sight…a tall pint glass of iced water. ‘It’s for you’ he said as he stamped his foot into his Doc. Then he said he had to go and get Pikey up for training, but he had this for me. I looked down and his number was written on a piece of roll-up tobacco paper. His number? I stared at it, not understanding anything. I had lead him on, kissed him and rejected him, fallen asleep and he still liked me?

Then he said he’d told Fern I was there and she said to wake her up in a few hours. ‘Go back to sleep’ he said….

I heard myself say sorry and he approached the bed, leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. The bitch that I am tried to turn my cheek so he’d kiss my lips, but it didn’t work. he wasn’t fucking stupid. He was a nice guy. I’m the one who’s messed up.

He left and I did fall asleep. I was woken up by my phone ringing and Lee’s name lit up in bright neon, blinding letters. As I murmured Good mornings, I told my first lie to Lee. EVER. I told him I was at Fern’s on the sofa. He laughed and said he’d missed me but was glad I’d had a good time. Lee’s trust ran out though, a few months after that day. Just to say, the lie about where I slept that night wasn’t the end of the lies I told to my trusting boyfriend. At least two more lies involved Wadesy and the lies that concerned Simon? I’ve lost count. He found out about the two lies and Wadesy. That’s when all the problems started, the shit hit multiple fans. That’s why we decided to leave the Feral house and come back here to our roots; to where we first began. I guess we both hoped it would give us the chance to get away from everything and clear our heads together, get away from the others, from Fern and from Wadesy. I needed away from Simon as well, that is more important right now than to be far away from Richard, but of course Lee doesn’t know that. Wadesy is nice, he understands what we have is what it is, just a flirt and a few kisses when we get drunk. he doesn’t pressure me to break up with Lee. Not like Simon. Simon is intense. He won’t stop. The glaring at meal times, the laser eyes cutting Lee and I apart when we cuddle up on the sofa watching DVDs on a Saturday night. He won’t leave it until I tell Lee and I leave him.

Then there’s Chloe. I always knew she was in love with Lee, but of course he never believed me. She had one glass of wine too many one night (Chloe doesn’t drink much, just like Lee) and she started saying weird shit to us, aiming some really harsh words at me, like ‘You don’t love him, you’re just using him to stay here in London…I’ve seen the way you flirt with all the boys, tempting them and giving it all with fake promises……’ Lee told her to stop, but she carried on and Annabitch (who, incidently isn’t a bitch at all it turns out), took her upstairs and tried to put her to bed. Anna told me that she is deeply in love with Lee and finds it torturous to live with us two, next to us and listen to us ‘faire l’amour passionne’ (whatever that means…I can guess), and wanted to swap rooms with Anna downstairs. Well, Anna had words with lee and he was mortified that she felt that way and he never knew….he said ‘mortified’ but I think it was more shocked that I was right…and that someone as beautiful and clever and talented and graceful could feel that way about him. …(you get the message about how he feels about her, like she’s a Goddess…he always spoke of her like his sister and how he would protect her with his life if he had to, they were soul mates and had a deep spiritual connection….blah blah yarda yarp…).

Something shifted after that night. Their friendship changed. I caught him staring at her one evening while we were watching films, his arms were limp around me as if he couldn’t be arsed, as if he wanted to be somewhere else. She had her face buried in a cushion most of the time, being petrified of anything remotely scary (I think we were watching ‘The Shining’), so she didn’t notice, or if she did, made a great pretence of ignoring his gaze. All this happened just when Lee found out about my lie, the one where I said I was with Fern when in fact I was with Wadesy. He found out because again, I had left my door keys on the marble-top table in the hallway….he tried to call me but I didn’t pick up (of course, I was with Wadsey) and instead of just staying in and waiting for me to come back and letting me in, he decided he wanted to go to Camden Market with Si. Of course, bloody Camden isn’t far from Fern’s and so Lee being Lee decided to drop the keys round at hers. She answered the door and didn’t know where I was because I hadn’t even been there. I had met Wadesy at Regent’s Park, our favourite place to meet to innocently bask in the sun reading books, talking about life and occasionally stealing illicit snogs on his tartan blanket.

Oh dear.

Fern called me and I raced to hers, but Lee, she said, had gone. He looked totally knocked out like she had punched him in his gut several times. She wasn’t impressed when I admitted what I’d done and suddenly she was sticking up for Lee, even though she had known her housemate and I were more than friends. Lee is like that. Women just immediately love him.

I love him. I really do. But truth be told, I’m bored. I want some adventure. I want passion. I want LIFE.

Why can’t I have Lee, snog Richard Wadesy and sleep with Simon? Who set the rules, (impossible to keep) about serial monogamy? WHO? As Simon says, no-one did. So why are we following it? Or more to the point, why does Lee think it’s so important to follow it? Richard and Simon don’t seem to care (except Simon does when he sees Lee and I together) so why does Lee? Because he loves me, says Fern. And she also said that if I really loved Lee I wouldn’t want anyone else, regardless of how gorgeous (Wadesy) or darkly attractive (Simon) they are.

But then am I not a complete hypocrite now as i clutch my phone (white knuckles and sweaty palms) in one hand and tap in the other…(it’s taking me ages to write with one hand here) . I texted Lee about hour ago and he hasn’t yet replied. The last text I got said he had arrived and Chloe was cooking. They’d better not be alone in the house! Saying that, I hope Simon’s not there. What if he goes and tells Lee about us? In his jealousy that he insists he doesn’t feel? And why am I so bothered? Because I am fucking jealous that’s why. I am a messed up. sad, lost, loved-up twisted shitbitch who can’t decide what she wants. Lee in the feral house with Chloe. Karma’s a bitch.

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I feel like I’m right back where I was a year ago, staring blankly at my laptop screen, thinking how to start writing, how to possibly convey all the turmoil going on inside me. But I’m not that girl anymore, am I? My attic room seems so childish and naive as I sit here, my old artwork strewn across the desk, remnants of my A Levels back in the Spring of last year when my whole life was stretching out its excited hand to pull me off over the horizon.

Yeh, so here I am, back ‘home’. Three weeks to go and I don’t even know if Lee’s gonna come back after the row we had yesterday. Shit….it makes me feel sick every time I think about it. It was the worst one yet, one where Lee doesn’t shout, which is when I know he’s raging. To be honest I didn’t think we’d come. I thought lee and I would end up staying in London all Summer. I have got my place at Uni to do a degree in 3D Design and Theatre. I should be happy, right? I would be if Lee hadn’t gone back to London last night to see fucking Chloe. To ‘get my head sorted’ he said.

To briefly (as possible) summarise. My Foundation year has been AMAZING, I mean I’ve made some great friends (still are friends) and I feel like my whole creative world has opened up for me. I know who I am artistically and where i want to go with it. That’s all perfect. It’s what happened in the Feral House that fucked everything up. Chloe wasn’t kidding when she gave it that name. I think it’s cursed.

Everything was hazy and crazy for the first few months. We would spend a lot of time in our room and no-one would disturb us, aside from Chloe’s weird humming in the next room with her meditation and Annabitch’s obvious loitering habit outside our door. (I knew when she was there. There was a black shadow under the door. We are on the top floor where the floors are all uneven and so there are gaping spaces under our door, Chloe’s door and the toilet door. I could see her. Pervo. Lee didn’t believe me so I just thought fuck it.) Then, I started to get the feeling that the others were giving Lee shit, especially Simon, because he started getting touchy when I suggested we go upstairs straight after our communal meal in the evening or after we’d all slouched on the sofas and vegged, nursing hangovers on a Saturday and Sunday. Excuses; I’ve got to talk to Simon about something, Chloe needs help with her Essay, Anna wants me to go to Sainsburys with her…just lameness. So I started going round to my mate Fern’s house after Uni to shake it all up a bit, you know, make Lee wonder where I was, make him feel sorry. I genuinely like Fern, by the way, she’s straight up, no shit and rebellious. We’d sit drinking coffee out of chipped mugs in her huge kitchen overlooking a wild garden that had started pushing its way in through the crack in the frame of the decrepit sliding doors. Then we’d start on the wine. She always had some in the house…there were empties lining up the floors and windowsills with every kind of candle you can imagine. She’s only got one other house mate and his name is Richard Wade. Wadey from kent.

Now this Wadey person at first didn’t really take much notice of us as we sat at the table smoking and heaving with drunken hysteria at 4 o’clock most afternoons. She said he kept himself to himself and seemed to prefer hanging out with his mates in the Hall of ‘Rez’. She was fine with it, more of the house to herself, but she admitted that he was funny and wished he’d be around more. As it happened, so did I.

He was (is) tall and lanky with long mousy- coloured hair that he sometimes wears up in a man-bun which shows the shaved underneath vulnerability of his neck. I could always hear him coming in cos he wore (wears!) dark red Docs with holes gaping at the sides so his feet make a farting noise as he walks. His grin was (is) infectious. He’s got kind green eyes and a nice nose. And he’s studying Sculpture. From the moment he told me that I couldn’t stop staring at his hands, his long boney fingers, imagining scenes from Ghost. Sad cow.

I flirted a lot with him those first few days. I couldn’t help it. lee had started spending more and more time with his mates, so I thought myself perfectly justified in hanging out with mine. The only thing I didn’t admit readily was that I didn’t just want to be friends with Wadey. So anyway, one evening he came in early, we hadn’t even started wining it up yet. He asked us if we wanted to go out, his band was playing in a club in Brixton. So we did. I called Lee and asked him if he’d like to come, (just to be nice, I knew he wouldn’t) and said I’d be home later. Anyways, we had a right laugh with Wades and his band was cool. We got to stand right at the front and he kept looking at me through the haze of light and smiling. Fern was taking the piss out of me. I was glad she hadn’t met Lee cos she probs would have been lecturing me about how I shouldn’t be cheating on such a lovely guy. Yeh, I know………

So at the end, we waited until he’d packed up and he suggested going to the Halls and hanging out with the others. Fern had never been so we said ok. I texted Lee like a good girlfriend and told him not to bother waiting up. ‘Have fun babes and take care.’ he answered. Why can’t he ever be fucking jealous?

So off we went in a cab. The Rez was pounding when we got there and there were people everywhere. Good music was playing and I was well in the mood to dance and party, (we rarely do it in our house, boring twats the lot of them!) I can’t really remember much about the people I was introduced to, mainly cos I was stuck to Wades for dear life just wanting to talk to him. There were several painful segments whereby I remember sitting in corners and on the edge of beds, knocking back some sort of alcoholic beverage (having given up waiting for someone to come up to me and offer me top ups, I’d just gone on the search for any old half drunk plastic pint glass of whatever) while searching the area in vain for Wadesy. I lost Fern on many occasions and saw her a few times through my drunken wobbly brain, hanging around the neck of some short ass guy with Afro hair and a tie dye t-shirt down to his knees. I kept thinking every guy that smiled at me or bumped into me was Wadesy and then when the edge of the bed tipped dangerously near to the floor and I almost followed, I realised it really was Wadesy. He had crashed back on the bed laughing. I stared at his knees sticking up through his grey jeans for what seemed like ages, not knowing what to say. I forced my face to smile so at least if and when I did speak, I’d sound like I was having fun.

He asked me if I was ok. I said yes. He asked if I was having fun. I said yes. Then he asked me if I was tired. I was. I really really was. It was then I realised that the deafening hum of laughter and music had dyed down and the room was darker. I asked him what time it was and he didn’t answer for ages so I thought he was asleep. Where the hell was Fern? I asked him if he’s seen her, not expecting him to answer but he did. He said, yawning and stretching out his long body, that he had. She was asleep next door with Hayden. Yes, he said, the one with the crazy Afro.

Then he said it was 4am and I’d have to stay with him. With him? In this room, whose bed it belonged to was a mystery and could at any time walk in on us? No! It was one thing flirting, but sharing this single bed? Was this really what I wanted to do? Drunk? Wadesy was (is!) gorgeous but….I stood up and said I’d better go and could he tell me the number for a cab? He was a bit shocked but sat up and grabbed his phone from his back pocket and started dialling. I remembered mine and had a look, expecting there to be loads of missed calls but no. Not even a text. Thanks Lee.

He told the cabby where I wanted to go and sat there smiling at me. I was very tempted right there to just say fuck it, I’ll stay, but there was a nagging voice in the back of my mind…eating away at me. We walked down stairs, past people slumped in their doorways, some people cuddled up on communal sofas. soft music still echoing around. The big glass doors at the front exposed pre-dawn light that looked blue in the tint of the security doors. He stood there and I wanted to hug him.He was (is!) like a familiar old teddy bear from childhood, one that you used for comfort. That’s what he was, a comfort care bear. Then he hugged me. Cigarettes, floral laundry powder, musky deodorant and something else…something spicy enveloped me. He asked me if I’d be ok, I said yes. I asked him to come back with me to Fern’s but he said he’d promised to go with his mate Pikey in the morning to the Basketball Court for training so it was silly to go all the way back. He let me go and I dug around for my phone ready to give him my number (why? Because I just…I don’t know) and it was then I realised I hadn’t come in contact with my door keys. They usually pissed me off by jamming my hand as I delved into my bag for something. Then I felt my legs go as I realised the keys weren’t in my bag. I knew where they were as well. On the marble-top table in the hallway at home. Oh shit.

I told Wadesy and he hit his forehead with his palm. He grabbed my hand and lead me back towards the room. I didn’t have a choice, right?

I can’t think of an appropriate title because life is just beyond awesome, but possibly this will be part 1

Uni, Lee, Chloe, Annabelle, Simon, Joel…….Cait, Spence, Alex and Hayden.

My hair.

My room.

London.

Freedom.

Yeh, so I’ve been in London for about……2 weeks I think. It’s all a hedonistic blur! M&D wanted to see the room in the house-share (they didn’t think it was good enough for me, as I said in my last post, because they thought that after having a huge attic room to myself, I wouldn’t cope. They STILL don’t know that me and Lee are together and that I will NEVER be sleeping in it anyways) so we (me, Lee and them) came down about a month ago. Lee had begged Chloe, who had been in the house all summer, to clear out all the shit from the box room cos it was apparently jammed with unbridled crap from a year already in that place. When we got here, M&D were quite impressed with the house. Dad said his student house was hideous, so judging by this one, his must have been DIRE. I’m not saying anything cos I know that London prices for students are horrendous, but it’s not the cleanest or most modern house. It needs a good lick of paint, but who am I to say? Lee was taking the piss saying that student houses are never top notch. I don’t care. We get to live together! That’s all I care about!

So this was what we found when we arrived:

 

Dad measured up and said that we could fit a single bed in there but not much else. Mum wasn’t impressed, but I just was all like, YEH WOW I LOVE IT! (Ha!)

As I said, only Chloe was in there over the summer as she works with her Mum in a boutique nearby. Lee had worked for a few weeks in the holidays before he came back to Lincolnshire (pissed me off!) and I think Simon had too. They had paid half rent or something, to keep it over the summer.

This is the kitchen:

There’s a table just to the right of where I’m standing so it’s not bad at all.

Lee’s (OUR) room is just next door to the box room and it’s on the top floor (of 3). Chloe’s room is also up there and a toilet. I wish me and Lee were on our own, but at least we don’t share a corridor with Annabelle or the others as well.

This is the living room:

There’s more space to the left where we’ve got another sofa (Dad bought it) and it’s cosy, especially with all 6 of us in it! me and Lee always sit on the sofa Dad bought us and the others tend to avoid us. probably because we’re all over each other and they want to vom. Lol.

So that weekend, we went to IKEA (I hate that place. I wanted to get a bed from somewhere a bit quirkier, but no) and Dad bought a low storage chest thingy instead of a frame bed cos he said it would be impossible to store clothes anywhere (unless I’m in living in Lee’s room hahaha! I love saying it over and over. Totally defying them!) So the new mattress went on top of the chest and he also bought me a desk for my computer etc. Mum changed the hideous curtains and also, we found mould and other grossness on that red carpet so dad took it up and Lee helped him put this laminate down that looks like wood floorboarding. Pretty cool!

Oh yes and that night. Oh that night! M&D kipped down on the sofa bed in the living room, Lee slept in his/our room and I had to sleep in Chloe’s. She stayed at her Mum’s. I was MORTIFIED. I hate sleeping in other people’s beds and that’s why I NEVER went to sleep over parties when I was younger. Bloody shit. And knowing full well that Lee was next door!  I was all up for sneaking in but he wasn’t keen. The wuss. Just cos the nazis were downstairs! What’s the difference, I asked. You sleep in my attic room while they’re on the next floor down! Muppet.

So next day, bright and (too) early, we returned to Lincolnshire. The landlord came just before we left and Dad paid him for my first term’s rent. YEY!!

So the rest of the summer was spent with Mum fussing over what I needed to take like what kitchenware I needed. Lee kept telling her NONE but the wacked out bat didn’t believe him (see previous pic. Sarcastic as fuck-can’t see any fucking saucepans there can you?) As far as Dad was concerned he’d done his bit and thank God he stayed out of these proceedings, except for his insistent obsession with the crime rate around the area. BORING.

I also had to clean out the attic room, which I nearly died doing. Lee helped me but OMFG was it shit. It took us 4 days and about 25 bin liners. Utter carnage.

Saying goodbye to Chester was awful. Dad rung the landlord and asked if I could take him, but he said he needed to ask the neighbours (students both sides) and didn’t get back to us before we had to leave. Update on that, GOOD NEWS! The neighbours don’t mind and we’ve got a back yard for him to go out when he wants the loo, plus a park nearby for walks, so he’s coming after Christmas! YAY! I miss him so much.

I didn’t start Uni for a week after we came so I had some time to settle in and (after they’d left) Lee had to sort out his crap to make room for mine. Mum fussed yet again over my ‘room’ although it’s so small, really THERE IS NO CHOICE about where furniture can go!

She started crying as well on the Sunday night when they left. How embarrassing. Lee was all like, ‘Oh Mrs Papadaki, don’t worry, we’ll look after Casey, she’s in safe hands’ and all that, when I was cowering, wishing her to stop blubbing in front of the others, who had arrived by then and were lugging bags and boxes in. I felt a right knobjockey. Thanks Mum. Lee was pissed off with me for not giving her a hug and stuff. NO. He did though, the sap!

She has called me every single evening since then. Great.

So, this is what my room looked like directly after they left:

it’s nice but it hasn’t stayed like that!

There’s no room for doing art work so we put my computer on a table in OUR room and we’ll have this for doing my art work on.

As you can see, it’s messy already! That’s totally me though isn’t it? Lee gets annoyed with me. (well, I say ‘annoyed’. Lee’s version of annoyed is looking at me and raising his eyebrows. He’s too chilled out that dude!)

Oh. Part 1 over. Lee wants me to go to Tesco with him to get some stuff for dinner. I’ve got so much more to write! But work beckons tonight and some serious DVD watching, so I bid you farewell, and hopefully I’ll be able to catch up sooooooooooon. Oh this is a portrait Lee did of me. He got it enlarged on canvas and it’s on the wall in OUR room!

Life is fuckerty good!

London, baby!

It’s been an age since I posted, mainly because I have been bombing it this summer, including spending every waking second I can with the scrum-bum Lee-face! And I got my A level results.

I’m in! I’m going to London to do my Art Foundation Course!

I wanted to write and let everyone (all 3 of you that read my blog hahaha) that I’m still alive, very very much so, and what’s going on. This weekend, well tomorrow specifically, I am going to the capital of AWESOME with Mum, Dad and Lee and we are going to check out the house, you know the one that Lee lives in (The Feral house as it has been named. I have an incline as to why and I can’t wait to find out more) because they’ve got a spare room. Ok, so we all know that I won’t be spending A SINGLE night sleeping in any spare box room, but M&D don’t know and if M&D knew? Well let’s just say, SHIT and FAN, and lots of it cascading off!

I know,I know. I’m 18 and shouldn’t let them control me, but what choice do I have? There’s no way until hell freezes over and I give birth to Brenden Urie’s love children, that they would pay rent for me to stay with Lee. I mean if they knew we were together. So I play them to get what I want. Lee’s still riding my ass to tell them, but I won’t. He’s freaking out cos he’s like, ‘Oh Case, they’re going to buy you a new bed and stuff, which you’ll never need, it’s a waste.’ Ok then, what would you prefer? Me living in some Halls miles away that they have to pay through the nose for? I mean this rent for the house is a pittance compared to any rent for Halls. It’s got 5 massive double rooms and this single room which they use for junk. They all pitch in and pay the rent monthly which is something like £1200. It’s a run down old Victorian so it’s cheaper than normal. That divided by 6 of us? Bargain. For London prices it’s ridiculous!

M&D are all stressing about it saying how can I live in a tiny box room when I’m used to the attic space I’ve got here. I just said that you know, London’s a huge city. I’d rather spend my first year there around familiar faces and plus the fact Dad’s got another 3 years after my Foundation to fork out for me. That seemed to sedate them, but we’re going tomorrow so they can check it out and Lee’s going to get rid of all the crap in there so Dad can measure up for my bed. Hahaha. It’s just going to be an extra space for me, maybe to do my art. Lee’s really tidy, so it’s better to avoid any screaming matches by having my messy space and letting him do his unmessy art in ‘our’ room. OUR FUCKING ROOM! How cool is this?????

I don’t know how I’m going to handle the Annabitch situation, but at least I’ll be able to keep my beady eye on her better from up close!

Mum’s stressing me to start packing what stuff I want to take, but I’m too excited…

Meanwhile, in normal life, I am still having driving lessons but I don’t know if I’ll be able to take my test before I leave. Bummer. Lee says that it’ll be a nightmare bringing a car to London anyway as there’s nowhere to park it outside the house and it’s a dodgy area so my insurance premium would go sky high. He reckons the tube is the best for students anyway. He gets to travel around for next to nowt with his student oyster card. Sorted!

So I just can’t wait to be a weird, freak of an Art student in LONDON! This is like a fucking dream come true! I wish I could take Chester but no pets allowed. Chloe’s got a cat in her room but the landlord doesn’t know. I think a barking dog would cause a stir. Plus there’s only a scraggy overgrown garden (that slopes upwards, how creepy) and Lee reckons it could have any chemical crap in it cos there’s old paint pots and shit littered around. I don’t want Chester getting his paws on that!

I’ll be back at Christmas anyway..

I hope I’ll find time to blog once I’m there. I will try. It’s going to be hella different from being here all on my tod every day and night! I have loved this blog, but I guess I have used it as a convenience for my lonely rantings. I don’t imagine I’ll be lonely any more!

Ok. lunchtime. Lee’s coming in a while and we’re going to start making a list of what I’ll need. OH MY DAYS! LONDON!

The Light is at the end of the tunnel

So, I officially finished college last week and I’ve got my English Lit exam to do and some Art Portfolio stuff to tie up. So it’s not too bad. I ‘ll be finished in………let’s see……24 days time!

The best news EVER is that I got my Conditional offers of a place on Foundation from Manchester College of Art and Kingston College of Art. I didn’t get accepted on the Foundation at St Martin’s (where Lee is) but I don’t really mind cos a) Kingston is still in London, b) Kingston has got a really good module for prop and set design which is what I want to do and c) IT’S LONDONIUM!!!

Yeh so the whole process was a TAD stressfilled. I didn’t write about it at the time because I thought I would go fucking nuts. It was back in February when I had to make up a digital portfolio to send off to all three colleges. I could have gone for an actual  interview at all of them (and drag my bulging A1 portfolio around the Big Smoke like a dick) but to be honest I was so bogged down with college work that going all the way to London would have killed me. TWICE. So Dad arranged for me to send my stuff on CD, which worked out ok, I think. Except for the dudes at Central St Martins haha! They said I didn’t demonstrate a wide enough scope of expertise. Well, fuck me, CSM, but it’s a friggin FOUNDATION COURSE I’m applying for, TO GET THE SCOPE of expertise, to be able to then choose what I study for Degree. Pfffffllooooooooky! Lee told me that they are VERY picky and rip everyone at interview. He did his foundation at Manchester and he said he didn’t think he’d got in on Degree at St Marts cos the interview was rocked up. But he did. Cos he’s fucking ace. He’ll be in his 3rd and final year when I go in September! But then he’s got to do another year for his Art Therapy qual, so he’ll still be around. Oh my God, it’s gonna be so coooooooooooooooool.

Yeh, so for Kingston I only need to pass my Art A Level, which I really don’t think will be a problem. My 10 hour study went really well and I just have to work on my art history resources, my observational work and my research notes for it. I might tell you guys what I did for it one day, but right now……..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz so bored with it!

Right, now for the shitter.

Lee isn’t back from London yet.

Quelle fucking Suprise!

His final assessments went well but he’s got to do 100 hours of real Counselling if he’s to qualify as a Counsellor and then go on to the Art Therapy bit. It all seems well complicated to me! But anyhoo he has to complete two of the time allocations agreed between him and the Clients before he can break for Summer and come back here. That’s also after he’s visited his ass-clown Dad in Leeds. Could be weeks yet. Joel has already been here visiting Lisa. I’m not sure what’s going down with those two cos they didn’t seem happy when they came round at the weekend. Hmmm.

But at least, come September, I will be GOING TO LONDON WITH LEE! I really hope that I can stay with him in his house, but the problem is the guys (Annabitch, Chloe, Joel and Simon) are still planning to live there, so there won’t be a spare room. Yes, I know, dear readers, I could stay in Lee’s room, BUT my parents want to go down and take a look at the house. So, if there is no spare room? Fucked. The only solution at this point is for them to clear out the box room, which is the size of a box, literally a fucking shoe box, and get a second hand bed from somewhere and make it in to the smallest room in the history of small rooms, and make out that I will take that. I can’t see M&D believing that, not when I’m currently used to this…….this whole stretch of the top of the house as my room. Oh shit. I really don’t want to live in some student house with filthy, noisy, grebby idiots I don’t even know! I know I hate Annabitch but it’s a small price to pay to get to be with Lee every fucking day. Plus, she’ll have to back the hell off from him once I move in!

More later. I’ve got to go and start cooking something. I am STARVING.