The World According to Jessie

Chapter Six

"...Breaking up is... quite easy actually!"

Tristan hadn't phoned that night or the night after that. Wednesday came around and I found myself packing my own bag and mine alone. I had arranged with a London friend that they would look after The Box while I was at home and send my mail up to me etc. I didn't want to do the whole redirection thing for only a month, it wasn't worth it. My main worry was the fact that Tristan hadn't breathed a word to me since I left The Warehouse. I had spoken to Lillian the night before who's only advice was unrepeatable, but the clean version was "stuff him and come home". I couldn't help thinking that maybe she was right. I had invested six years and countless numbers of dead end jobs just to make me and Tristan work and I could count on one hand the number of times he actually did anything for me. Maybe it would be better for me and Tristan to have some distance from each other. That was the thought wandering around in my head as I closed my suitcase.

I locked the door behind me and dropped the keys into the box that was placed on a small side table in the downstairs hallway. I left a note for my friend and the Landlord to say that they were in there and left it in a small envelope on the top. The London weather that morning was surprisingly warm and dry considering it was still June. Although by Friday it would be July, the start of my month long column for the paper. The positive comments had kept piling in, all with the same theme, "your family are amazing". This I knew, but I didn't live with them anymore and that's what made it amazing, the sound bites that I would get every weekend. Would my followers still think they were amazing if they moved back to the seaside and had to deal with them on a daily basis? I seriously doubt it!

Driving away from The Box didn't feel at all emotional. In fact, it was quite liberating. I knew at least, despite everything, for the next month, I wouldn't be tripping over stray cushions or having to stick post it notes here there and everywhere because I didn't have a proper desk to work at. You could hardly call what I had a desk! More like a sideboard with a chair attached! Grandma Nicki had assured me that everything as set up for me once I explained why I would be coming home. Although I had a funny feeling that there would be no desk in my bedroom either. I could hear Lillian in the background whooping and hollering and shouting something along the lines of "carnage!" to which I could hear Granddad Mel telling her to shut up and that she was upsetting the regulars. Carnage was one way of putting it. I could hear my liver screaming at me now, begging for mercy and I needed all the brain cells I had left to try and make some sense of this bloody column. Then of course there were my parents and I just didn't want to deal with them right now.

Despite all this, I couldn't get Tristan out of my head. I had put my phone into the dock on the dashboard of my car just in case he rang; I could speak to him hands free. But when I got to my first coffee break three hours in, there was no word from him. I had left four messages for him, saying that I would be leaving early and that I really wanted him to come with me but all had gone unanswered. I sat on one of the benches outside the services next to two girls who were hunched over an iPad and giggling to themselves. Despite suffering serious Apple envy (the iPhone was as close to a Mac or iPad as I got), I smiled as I was reminded what I was like at that age. That could have been Lillian and I sat there ten years ago. They must have caught me looking because no sooner had I got up to leave than they were screeching behind me.

'Oh my God, you're Jessie Clarins, oh my God!' the taller one screamed so loud, that I thought she would come free of her Ugg boots. 'You are so cool!'

'Umm thank you...' I answered, slightly confused.

'We have read your column and it's going to be our new bible.' the shorter one said, with a deeper but no less gushy voice. God damn my head shot for the paper! I was being recognised! This was not part of the plan. I was supposed to be an anonymous voice for the masses wasn't I?