Making sure I was logged out of instagram I looked up Lila's page, @Lilagym. I think she works as a personal trainer and also does modelling. I was really shocked to see her account has been deleted. Immediately I thought it was because of me. My mind started racing through all the possibilities involving her deleting her social media account due to getting sick of seeing me viewing allher pics. Is that reasonable? Is it unreasonable? I don't know. I'm overthinking. Either possibility is rational. Ugh, my mind is just chasing itself in circles.
I type her name into the search box and amongst the hundreds of other Lila's I spot her picture. She has changed her username! Because of me? (Stop it.) She now goes by @LilaaaKK. She seems to have pretty much exactly all the same pictures as she had up before. Even one of her at xmas with Ray's son! He keeps a very low profile online so it's a real treat to see him. He looks so like his dad when he was young.
Lila is an achingly pretty girl. Ray makes beautiful children. She has a girl next door quality. Golden brown shoulder length hair, slim legs and small chest, very petite. She wears fake tan but not to the point she is orange. Personally I prefer a natural look but compared to most girls on social media she's extremely down to earth. No caterpillar eyebrows or make up applied with a shovel. She seems at home in her own skin.
My heart has slowed down a fair bit. I'm still nervous they know I'm watching them. It's not like I'm watching them in person. just social media. I don't follow their accounts, I'm not trying to be their friends. I just want to see their lives and get to know them and get glimpses of their dad.
*
Life before the internet was grim. Everyday was like a grey Sunday afternoon in October, with the added burden of with the added burden of knowing school was inevitably coming round the next day. I wasn't a big reader then. I knew I liked it but the gap between liking it and actually doing it was still quite wide. I saved my pocket money for magazines instead, and listened to the radio and watched the four tv channels we had then. It wasn't a big deal though because we didn't know what we were missing. Imagine the technological developments that will have revolutionalised our lives in thirty years time and we'll look back appalled at how we spent our lives posting selfies on social media all day.
'Dogs In The Traffic' by Love and Money was released in 1991. I bought it was my birthday money just after I turned seventeen. I bought it on vinyl, which was stupid as I can't look after records and they inevitably get all scratched. The sleeves of albums are heaven though. I spent hours and hours poring over every word, looking for hidden meaning, access into James' mind and messages for me. The music was their best so far, kind of alt country. I listened to it non stop and collected all the magazine clippings I could get my hands on and put them in my red binder.
I wrote James a long, heartfelt fan letter telling him how much his music meant to me. To my complete amazement one Friday morning a reply on classy thick stationary came through the letterbox. I was so excited I read it out to my mum. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I read it over and over. There was no way I could go to school knowing it was at home so I popped it in my schoolbag feeling elated and safe with it close to me. I had art class first lesson that day. I sat on my own in art as I didn't have any friends in that class. That was good because I spent the hour with my letter from James tucked under my work, peeking at it lovingly whenever the teacher wasn't looking.
James wrote in fountain pen which was the fanciest thing I could imagine. I went to Woolworths with my pocket money and started writing only in fountain pen from then on. I really enjoyed the velvety swirls of ink on the page and the satisfying pop of putting a new cartridge in, but most of all it made me feel closer to James.
I was bright in school but because I had poor attendance my grades weren't as good as they could be. It didn't occur to my mum that I might fall behind in my school work. If it did, it didn't strike her as important. My form teacher suggested some work could be sent home to me which seemed like a perfect solution to me. I'd happily get on with it at home away from everyone. A few bits of work came my way in drips and drabs and it was suggested I read a specific book, but that was it. Mum's main concern as always was that she looked obedient and a good girl. She has been stuck in good little girl mode obeying authority figures her whole life. Even as an adult herself with children to look after she'd throw us under the bus rather than do anything but sit quietly with her hands in her lap and nod at the grown ups with her doe eyes through her lashes.
I was offered a place at a summer school at a local university. It was for people who had the ability to get into university but for whatever reason their grades didn't reflect it. Naturally I jumped at the chance. It was about half an hour on the train away. Part of me was excited, part of me hesitant. For a few months I had been having these funny turns that seemed to come out of nowhere. I would feel a hot, prickly sensation that crept all over my body, a feeling of dread, I would sweat buckets and feel unbearably nauseous. The nausea was the worst thing I've ever experienced. I've had tummy bugs and eaten bad food before and whilst they were awful, this felt another magnitude of terrible. I would feel paralysed by the nausea. If I had been lying in bed and the sick feeling struck and needed to pee I would feel too ill to get up and go to the bathroom, which was literally the next room. It was unbearable.
I had no idea what these attacks were. I thought something might be wrong with my liver. I went to see the doctor and he ruled out diabetes and some other stuff I don't remember. On my third visit he gave me a bit of a talking to. He told me there was nothing wrong with me. How, 'people come and see me every day with files *this thick* and there's nothing wrong with them. Studies have show everyone experiences something liked nine symptoms of something everyday from a pain in the back of their knee to...'
I shrank further into the seat.
'This is just how your body deals with stress,' he went on. 'Take up a hobby. Read a book when it happens.'
And doctors are God, you know? I left the surgery feeling very small, but he spent years at university training to do his job and had been a doctor for a long time. He knew what he was talking about. I was a teenage girl. Who knew better?
There was nothing wrong with me.
On the first day of summer school I needed some moral support to get me through it, so along with my pad of A4 paper and pens I tucked my red binder into my bag. I needed James with me to feel safe and secure. I peeked at him through the open drawstring for reassurance as the train hurtled towards the city.
I was late getting there and the last to arrive. I sat down next to a girl called Sharon Hater who immediately started telling me about the boy she was seeing and how he was The One. She asked if I wanted to go out for a fag and seemed surprised I didn’t smoke. Despite my shy, bookish personality I’ve been told I looked like ‘a rebel’. I was far too scared to rebel. I wore a german army coat from an army and navy surplus store, torn jeans and Doctor Marten boots. I had my nose pierced too, before everybody had everything pierced. I was called a freak and a goth at school but I mostly enjoyed it. At this point, grunge was becoming popular and everybody else was starting to dress like me anyway.
Right away I wanted to leave. I knew I'd made a mistake. I couldn't hold down a job. I couldn't manage going to school. How could I possibly deal with university? I sat in the middle of these kids my age, feeling like I was on the other side of a pane of glass and couldn't join them - a feeling that would dog me. Every cell of my body scream for me to go home to your safe place.
As soon as there was a break, with tea and biscuits laid on, I turned on my heels and slid out the door. I walked to the train station without looking back, with tears running down my face. I knew I had done the right thing. I couldn't do this. I was so scared of mum's reaction when I got home though.