Blood Orange

Content warning: mention of rape, illness

It began in October, which was objectively a novelty, I suppose, as not many things begin in October. I was 28 and burnt out; I’d come to my parents flat in the South of France to have a break. It was the latest time of year I had ever visited this part of the world, but I was surprised at how like a summer holiday it still felt. The sun shone gloriously, if a little further away. The initial iciness of the sea quickly evaporated into a kind of distilled coolness that gave the feeling of wholesome refreshment. I enjoyed the low 20s temperature more than the Cote D’Azur’s trademark low 30s temperature, which I secretly found too hot, and spent mornings and afternoons on the beach in my swimming costume, lying on a towel, reading. I swam every day, ate steak and salads, drank two or three glasses of rose in the evening, and slept better than I had in years. The toxicity of the past and the things that had happened to me felt weaker over here, almost like they were abstract. 

After a week, I decided to move my flight back a month. I had just left my job, had a bit of money and nothing to rush back to England for. I also wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this ever-growing feeling of goodness within me. It had been so long, I realised, since I’d felt good.  

So, it was this easy, tranquil state of my mind that allowed Lucas Anderson to enter – or re-enter, depending on how much gravity you give to our previous interactions – my life. I was happy in my own company on the whole, rarely feeling lonely, but after two or three weeks boredom began to creep in. The first time he messaged me I was half a bottle of wine deep, sitting on the balcony. The book I was reading – a contemporary novel about a young woman who had a relationship with her much older boss – had been set down carelessly on the table hours before. I was flicking through Instagram feeling alternately bored, stressed and amused by what it had to offer. As is typical of most of us when we spend time aimlessly scrolling on social media, the tranquility of my mind quickly became subsumed by flickerings of self-hatred and triviality.  When Lucas’s message came through, it didn’t mean much more to me than an escape route out of the mundanity of that moment. 

It read:

“Saw a Harold Pinter play last night and thought of you, remember you always used to bang on about him! How’s it going?”

I smiled in spite of myself and replied almost instantly:

“Ha! Which play? I’ve always been more of a fan of his political ‘work’, than his actual artistic genius…I’m doing good, relaxing in France. How are you?”

I put my phone on the table and wandered into the kitchen for more wine. Texting Lucas seemed as pleasant a way as any to spend the evening, I thought, clutching the bottle by the neck and staring out at the sea. I had worked with him briefly at the charity I was at prior to the job I’d just left. He was senior to me and I didn’t know him well, but there had always been flirtatiousness in our relationship. Now - in his new role at a bigger, more prestigious charity - he was something of a minor celebrity, often on TV or radio spewing his thoughts. I had always quite liked Lucas but had never found him particularly interesting or – honestly – particularly bright. Obviously, he did what he did well, and he did have a degree from Princeton: of course, he was booksmart. I suppose what I mean is that I never found him compelling in a way that made me want to talk to him more or spend much time with him. He didn’t seem to have much of an emotional life, something my hyper-sensitive brain was hard-wired to spot in other people, and I didn’t really care for the company of people without emotional lives.

I’ve often since wondered, if I hadn’t been abroad and alone, whether things might have gone differently. I imagine if I’d been out with friends when the text came through, my reply wouldn’t have been sent until hours later; the conversation might have consequently been stunted, drawn out, and ultimately boring for both of us. Or, what if I’d been feeling differently - chaotic, a little distressed: it’s unlikely I would have entertained Lucas much, it would have been too stressful trying to work out what he wanted from me.

But after that mild and sunny Wednesday, what Lucas wanted from me made me curious. We texted furiously that evening, as if we were old friends who had been out of touch for a while but now simply had to know everything about the other’s life. I went to bed feeling light-headed, happy and puzzled.

Over the following days, the conversation continued at an unusual, intense pace. We began sending each other voice notes; often these were banal – ‘I’m walking past the most epic October beach I’ve ever seen’ (me), ‘I don’t know whether to have the Pret cheddar or hoisin duck for lunch’ (him), - but sometimes they were longer, revelatory: an anecdote designed to reveal something about ourselves. It wasn’t long before night-time phone-calls began to occur, sometimes lasting more than an hour.

It was clear that we both wanted to make ourselves known to the other. Although it wasn’t clear to me why either of us were embarking on a friendship that held more intensity with each day, over the course of these exchanges the Lucas I thought I’d known melted away and gave way to a kinder, more gentle Lucas. Was it possible my antennae had been wrong? 

Lucas was thoughtful. He listened, he really did listen. He was emotionally intuitive and it was clear that when we were out of contact for a while (never much more than 8 hours) he had been thinking about the things I’d said. Perhaps more significantly was the way he let me know this; it wasn’t performative or self-gratuitous; someone less sharp than I might have missed the fact that he’d obviously spent half an hour researching the rare stomach condition I have or my favourite author. He had a sensitive and quiet concern towards me that didn’t feel patronising or shameful. He regarded me highly and showed care for the fact that my life had been objectively hard. For the first time in a long time, I began to see myself not as a victim or as someone to feel sorry for, but as someone strong and dignified who had survived something terrible - because that was how Lucas saw me. 

Perhaps it was this surprise of who he was that made the pull of him so strong for me. Perhaps it was just the fact that he was a complicated man and I was a woman who wanted to work him out. It’s impossible to know. Yet what I do know is that before long I had an astonishing hunch that we might have a real connection - a prospect which both terrified and excited me.

*

One morning, just over a week after the first text, I was sitting by the harbour having coffee. The sky was comically blue, the sun ludicrously round and bright, the water still and crystal clear. Boats rammed against the edges like parked fish and there was a steady bustle of chatter wafting in and out of earshot as families and couples wandered by. At times like this, my contentment eked into smugness; England looked miserable, everyone I spoke to there sounded miserable, and increasingly I was wondering what a life out here could look like. What would I do for work? That was obviously the most pressing question. I could write. I could top up my savings through writing columns more regularly (I had written the odd thing here and there for a few years now, I had the contacts necessary to pitch articles when I wanted). It wasn’t sustainable but it was a start, and who knows what would come of it if I started to write regularly? I missed my friends, but I knew they would come and visit, and I knew if I put my mind to it I could make friends out here - it would require a bit of effort, but on the whole, I had a lot of social energy and people tended to like me. I gestured incoherently at the waiter for another coffee, a request he seemed to understand, and tilted my face towards the sun, closing my eyes and screwing up my nose. I was jolted back by my phone ringing and was surprised to see it was Lucas: we usually scheduled our calls, and they definitely weren’t before noon. He was breathless when I answered. 

“Hey –hey, hang on – “

It sounded like he’d been running. I frowned. 

“Hello? Have you been shot? Should you be phoning the emergency services rather than me?”

He snorted, “No, no, sorry.” A bit more silence as he caught his breath, then: “Sorry. Ok. Phew, right, I’m here. Right. Okay, so here’s the deal – I’m on the train to Paris – just made it. They asked me first thing to go to the summit there, so I’ll be there for a couple of days, then… I was thinking… I’ll come and see you? I’ll have a bit of work to do, but not too much. I could stay a few days?”

I didn’t even pretend to think about it. “Yes!” I yelped. “Oh my god yes, that would be SO fun!”

I felt his smile through the wires. 

“Excellent. I’ll phone you later and we can work out logistics. Ciao for now.”

It was only months later, while retelling this part of the story to a new friend, that I realised he had sprinted for a train to Paris and called me whilst he was still entirely out of breath. “If he had really already been on the train he would have waited to catch his breath. He was waiting to see if he should jump on it. He wouldn’t have gone to Paris if you’d said no”, the friend said, “I’m not sure he even went to that summit at all, to be honest.”

*

The thing that’s important to understand about Lucas and I was that our relationship was both never romantic and always romantic. We adored each other, we thought the world of each other and there was no doubt in my mind that the strength of affection we held towards one another amounted to ‘something more’ than a friendship. That autumn in France, we did fall in some kind of love and whatever it was that existed between us deepened. We spent long evenings drinking wine in wicker chairs under the awnings of cafes. We talked constantly. On grey days, we sank into deep and comfortable silences together with backdrops of books and films. We cried to one another, held each other in the night, rested our heads on the other’s shoulder. We came to know the other so well, poking fun at mannerisms and oddities. 

Yet, there were aspects of our dynamic that were decidedly – traditionally – ‘matey’. We spoke about dates and past conquests without the veneer of two people trying to make the other want to sleep with them (we did, of course, sleep together more than once. This part of the story has never felt particularly relevant to me – I think it is enough to say that the sexual current was always present and often ignored). We spoke about future partners with absolutely no indication we expected the other to be that. 

The only person I properly kept up with when I was away was my best and wisest friends, Noa, who I knew from university. It was one of those rare friendships that hadn’t been weathered or chipped away at by the tribulations of adulthood. Our closeness and assumed understanding of the other had become a steadfast fact of my life. She was one of the few people I never worried about losing. When I had filled her in on Lucas’s presence in my family holiday home, she - hardly surprisingly - couldn’t quite get her head around it.

 ”What do you mean you’re not dating??” She once texted in reply to a lengthy voice note of mine, which attempted to give shape to the entity of me and Lucas.

“We’re not.” I texted back, mildly irritated at her failure to grasp a simple concept. “We’re good friends.” 

“Right…” Came her response, “but you share the same bed every night, sometimes you bang, and you’re clearly falling in love?”

I put my phone on airplane mode for the rest of the day. 

*

As Autumn seeped into winter, neither Lucas nor I spoke about leaving France, though we both knew it was erring on the side of imminent. The topic was propelled forward by the repeated stomach pains I was getting which were becoming a concern. I went to a French doctor but the experience was unsatisfying and dismissive.  We conceded we had to go home, if nothing else, to make sure I wasn’t dying.

On our last evening in France, after dinner, we sat on the balcony eating quarters of bloody oranges and smoking, not speaking. After a few minutes of companionable silence Lucas nudged me with his elbow. 

I turned my face to him but didn’t smile; I allowed myself in that instant to live in the bright brown worlds of his eyes. 

“When you go to the doctors, I’ll be there for you. You know that? Like, if something turns out to be – well, serious – I’ll be there. I’ll come with you to the doctors even, if you’d like?”

Tears stung the backs of my eyes and I pulled him into a tight hug. Relief lapped at me, I had waited so long to be looked after, to be taken care of. 

“Thank you’ I managed, muffled into his shoulder. “I think anything invasive, tests and what not, well it will be triggering. So, thank you – I imagine I will need you.”

*

My stomach issues did indeed turn out to be more serious and I did indeed need to have some invasive tests. I leant on Lucas heavily in the waiting period between tests and more tests and I noticed, uncomfortably, how the dynamics between us were shifting ever so slightly. Ever since he had offered his support I had felt him – so subtly it was almost intangible – begin to withdraw. 

In general, things had been different back in London, both in predictable and unpredictable ways. Because this relationship was so confusing, I began to feel stressed about it, and because I have always believed in my ability to intellectualise my way out of negative emotions, I began to analyse him. I felt that Lucas didn’t really know himself but, even more of a challenge, he didn’t know that he didn’t know himself. We continued to grow closer and closer with an impossible gravity but it was one that now felt loaded and heavy. We sauntered around East London together, sipping coffees and mulled wines, talking about books and the news. I wore trousers and shirts with trainers, or dresses with Doc Martens; Lucas rarely talked about the way I looked and I found myself wondering if he thought I was pretty, or beautiful, or cute. Once I asked him and he said: “All three, obviously, you know that.”

My insides felt increasingly tense throughout this period and I stopped having periods. I told Lucas this once, hoping to open a conversation about the causes of my physical distress. “That must be hard, I suppose that makes sense though. You have been under a lot of stress.” Our conversations were becoming platitudes on his part, I thought miserably to myself. I knew I was losing him but I didn’t know why. 

I had by then internally admitted that we were in some kind of quasi-relationship and had begun to entertain the idea of entering an actual one with him. What would we lose? That sketchy concept of ‘freedom’? What would we gain? Security, love, care? Perhaps he took those things for granted from me – I gave him them, after all. Our relationship was teetering on the edge of Lucas having the upper hand and the thing that tilted it totally happened the night before my hospital appointment, one which he was supposed to be coming to with me. 

I’d had a quiet evening, it was a freezing Thursday at the end of January and I was nervous about the next day. I was to have a procedure that wasn’t serious but wouldn’t be pleasant for anyone and would be particularly nasty for sexual assault survivors like myself. I was also nervous about the extent to which I needed Lucas to be there. With the retroactive glean of hindsight, this accounted for 80 percent of my so-called nerves. And, again with the retroactive glean of hindsight, it made sense that he would pick this, my most vulnerable moment – which held all the propensity to ‘freak a man out’ – to go and see his ex-girlfriend. He dropped off the grid from 7pm and I knew, with what is commonly called ‘female intuition’ (but should be renamed ‘emotionally intelligent person intuition, aka most women and few men’) that something was happening that was going to hurt me. Confirmation came in the form of a twitter post, by her, around 10pm: it showed the two of them eating pizza together. I stared at it and knew instantly that the worst thing about it was that I had no right to be upset. He was single, he could do what he wanted. My insides began to fold in on each-other in efforts to erase me – I was grateful. I sent him an angry message and tried to sleep. The next day, I felt like a shade of a human being, a shadow. 

I didn’t try to tell him he’d done anything wrong, though part of me now wishes I had. I tried instead to explain to him that he had crawled and muscled his way into my heart, and now that he was lodged in there he was exercising his power by ripping it up. He apologised – sounding almost bored – for hurting me. I told him that I couldn’t be a part of his life anymore and I hugged him with feeling. He told me he loved me, though in what way he meant it was anybody’s guess. I went home and got my period for the first time in 3 months, and I wish more than anything that I could tell you that was the end of the story. 

*

After the initial relief of extricating myself from Lucas, I began to miss him terribly. Whatever else we were, we had undoubtedly been best friends and, whatever form my love took, I loved him very much. Throughout this time, I leant heavily on my friends, particularly Noa who was an important counsel to me. Often, when discussing Lucas with her over several bottles of wine, I found myself defending him. Through these conversations it became evident to me that I blamed my own feelings for the situation – Lucas had never promised me anything other than friendship. Noa sat next to me in pub corners as we both picked at candle wax and her nods were tight and sympathetic: I knew she thought differently. 

“But you’re not just friends, are you?” she said to me once, the first signs of exasperation playing across her face. “I’m your friend. Lucas has never been your friend – he’s the imitation of a boyfriend and he is fucking whoever he wants. You don’t want to fuck anyone else because there’s no room in your head for you to fuck anyone else. I find it hard to believe he doesn’t actually know that.” 

I swallowed and stared ahead. I felt angry and distressed, and I didn’t want to talk to Noa anymore. 

“You don’t know him” I tried to reason, moving ever so slightly away from her on the bench. 

She looked at me then with so much sympathy I couldn’t bear it.

“I don’t have to, I don’t care about Lucas. I know you, I care about you. And I think you might be in trouble.”

I inhaled sharply and stood up 

‘No, I can’t talk about this anymore.’ And I stormed out, as though I were a sulking teenager. 

I knew that what Noa had said was true, at least the part about my brain-space. It wasn’t just that I was sensitive and romantic, it was also that I’d spent the last few years re-learning what giving and receiving love meant. I was nearly four years into living with the fact of having been raped, and nothing had been the same for me since. Feeling unworthy was something I felt often and trusting people was a concept I’d pretty much lost altogether. So, when Lucas had come along and gently broken me out of both of those shackles, I had felt lighter. And, when - carelessly, unknowingly -  he had re-administered those shackles, I felt heavier than I had before. 

In-fact, the murkiness in which Lucas and I existed had only seemed to grow darker with distance. After two weeks, I gave in and sent him a message because I missed him too much to bear – people have always been my weakness. 

We slipped, worryingly easily, back into the dynamic we’d been in before. Who was it that coined the phrase ‘death by a thousand papercuts’? 

He began to see his ex and I accepted it because I didn’t want to lose him. I don’t mean to give the impression that Lucas didn’t care or wasn’t aware of the pain he was causing me, but, because he so firmly believed himself not to be guilty of any wrongdoing, his empathy was limited, and his sense of responsibility towards minimising my pain even more so.  We occasionally had terse and unenjoyable conversations about how we might survive this dynamic, never coming to any conclusions. 

The only time Lucas was ever out of contact with me for more than a few hours was when he went to see her and, in those evenings, I felt my insides fold over again, just like they had the first time.

In early April, Lucas and I had sex for the first time in a few months. It had been quite a lovely evening, we’d sat drinking margaritas at a pretty pub garden decorated with fairy-lights. Things felt like they had done at the beginning and, in these moments, I found it quite astonishing that Lucas might ever claim not to be in love with me. I know the look someone gives you when they love you – we all do. I snapshotted that look and now, it’s the only thing that I know was real. The next day we spent – as we had so many before – flouncing on his sofa, fitting like jigsaw pieces around each other. I felt (in the words of my favourite poet, Hera Lindsay Bird) ‘an enormous silence descend upon me’ and I wondered how he had ever made me unhappy. And then, two days later, he began to disappear, slithering backwards away from me and then, again, meeting up with his ex (in the Olympics of small wins, the fact that Lucas at least never lied to me about seeing her probably deserves a place).

After that, a feeling of nausea engulfed me for days; my body had been screaming at me, ever since those initial missed periods, to bolt. But, by then, when it came to Lucas, I was mentally weak, weaker than I had been with any man. The lack of willingness on his part to acknowledge adequately what I felt so deeply to be true made for a kind of prolonged stress and heartbreak.

Two weeks after that, his ex – whom he repeatedly said he had no intention of getting back together with, and to my knowledge is very much still not with – found out about me and without warning, on her instructions, Lucas blocked me and left my life. I received two emails from him afterwards, neither of which I read. The damage was irreversible by then, I will never know why he listened to her. 

In the days following the disappearance of Lucas I entered a new stage of grief. My brain, not my insides, was folding in on itself this time. I was unable to comprehend anything. I had been so wrong. My mind began to fracture and crackle, and with each ember a new bad memory appeared. Flashbacks returned as vivid as they had been in the aftermath of my rape. I woke up several times a night coated in sweat , breathing heavily. I looked around me, panicked. I needed him. I was too scared to reach out to anyone, I felt too stupid and so I let despair and disgust and shame come for me. 

After three days, when I felt the tidal wave of trauma had run its course, I called Noa. I began to explain what had happened but she stopped me, gently:

“I know, I know. It's awful. It's not fair.”

“Noa, I’m so sorry I didn’t listen to you. I’m so sorry I distanced myself, I just wasn’t – well I wasn’t ready to hear it.”

“Hey,'' she said softly,''you're okay. You always think you’ve behaved much more badly than you have. You’re cool, we’re good. Ok? I’ve been there, I’ll probably be there again. And then I’ll storm out on you when you tell me that guy is shit, and we can play out a satisfying role reversal.”

I nodded and realised for the first time since Lucas had left that I was crying. My shoulders heaved and tipped forward, gravity disappeared and I shifted myself into the fetal position. 

When Noa arrived at my house, hours later with ice cream and pizza, she hugged me tight and I felt the cool, comforting breeze of relief.  We understood each other. We always would. 

*

I know that there is nothing Lucas did wrong that is provable in a court of law – isn’t this a speciality of the smarter section of the male species? I know that for as long as I live and as long as I feel compelled to tell this story – his story, my story, our story – this cloud of doubt will hang over me. I know that certain male friends or colleagues I choose to tell will gawp at me failing to spot the wrongdoing I allude to, failing to spot why I had been so crushed. And I know that, perhaps worst of all, Lucas will likely not have this agony. He will be able – as so many men are – to pack up the experience, shift it to a back corner of his mind and make sure that it doesn’t interact with his future. At best, I will be a twang of bittersweet remembrance when he falls in love again. He will have spun himself a neat and logical, coherent narrative of the events that passed between us and that will outflank any narrative I have. I do not doubt that Lucas is smarter than me in those ways.

Whilst he may be smarter than me in those ways, my emotional life is fuller than his. This is why I do know that Lucas took something from me. I know that he toyed with my heart and, more significantly, played with my feelings of worthiness. I know now that when he finally left my life it was always going to be on his terms. I know that when I met him the last thing I thought he would be is another man I survived. 

And the most important thing I know? I know that I will not let him shape my future. I will approach the next person I meet who stirs up those feelings resembling love with as much open-heartedness and joy as I did with Lucas. I won’t be more cautious or cynical because, if I am, Lucas will have succeeded in clawing out a part of my core self. I can’t let that happen because I believe myself to be a gift. I know myself to be a gift. I will not let my personality be responsible for the blurry and confused actions of men who don’t know their own hearts. 

I look forward to eating blood oranges at night on a balcony in Europe with a man I have yet to meet, and who too will hold the capacity to break my heart. How terrifying. How wonderful.