Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red (8 page)

BOOK: Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red
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But later on, when important things like food and tidying up and stripping off the mangled bed are all done and there's nothing left to waste time on
except
conversation, Olly flops down on the couch where Pip's flicking through the Sky channels and takes the remote off him so he can hold his hand. The telly stays there on Kerrang, blaring out some inane emo rock song while they sit there in silence and Olly traces his finger over the number 15 tattooed on Pip's wrist.

"You know if you was
my
boyfriend I'd never walk out on you like all them stupid women, right?" Pip says quietly.

 

"Yeah. I know."

 

"And I wouldn't get pregnant."

 

"Thank fuck. Your mood swings are bad enough already."

 

"I'm housetrained. I'm good with kids. I'm very very rich. I swear I'm better in bed when I ain't hungover. I can do your hair for free. I'm-"

 

"You had me at 'you can put it in if you want'," Olly interrupts, and Pip creases laughing and kisses him.
8.
February 2012

I dont know why I started writing my diary again. I feel well stupid. I think the whole reason I started it years and years ago when I was like 13 was cos I always knew I was gonna be famous and then I'd need notes for my auto biography later on. Thats stupid as well. I dont want to be famous no more, I was kind of famous for a bit but not for nothing I did, just cos of my Mum and Dad winning the lottery then cos of the kidnap thing and that aint the same. I just want people to like me. Haha what a wanker. I feel stupid writing where nobody gets to see it but then I dont WANT people to see it cos its stupid. I dont know how people write diary's, I never really worked that one out. Who are you writing to? I dont know how your supposed to write. Is it like your talking to someone? Like on lj you write as if someones reading, even if nobody comments you know its out there and people can read it so your writing to them.

Maybe I COULD write my auto biography. People who done less in there life than me get book deals all the time. I know how people like to nosy in to other peoples lives. I dont know what it'd be like tho. Ok I hope. I hope I would come across ok. Whingey and spoilt and vain and bitter and slutty and foul mouthed and a really fucking excellent grudge holder and a massive stupid drama queen attention whore yeah, but at least I'm honest. Like this is me. Warts and all. (Except I aint got no warts.) Please dont think I'm a twat. I just want people to like me. Is that clingy?? Like I dont mind no more people dont do a double take in the street cos I never earnt it but I wish I was good enough at something so I could do something ace and then people would know me everywhere in the world cos I did good paintings or I was in a band or something but I aint good enough at NOTHING. I want to be good at something cos I need people to like me. Aint that vom inducing?? I hate myself a bit but thats what its like. Cos I just think being ignored and forgot would be the most horrible thing in the world. I just want to make people happy. I just want people to like me. Is that a fair trade??

I dont know. Like going back and finishing my degree. I can go somewhere with this I bet, I'm having a wicked time, I like doing it and I like the people on my course and thats the one thing I'm sure on more than anything else I like doing. Aint arrogant if its true right? I know I'm good enough to do it and I aint scared of hard work. I just dont realy want to. Like learning tattoo's off Rob, I love it and I'm getting dead good at it but is this my whole life forever??

I DONT KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO.

The stuff I'm good at is stuff I like and maybe it wont be fun no more if its my job or career or whatever, what if I'm doing it everyday and it like sucks all the joy out?? But we need money. Ok we dont NEED more money I spose cos we're pretty well off but more wont hurt. Put it away in the bank and keep it safe for the kids cos me and Olly turned out ok in the end but the end aint the bit what matters if you get dragged through hell on the way right?? Honest to god I would rather DIE than have them put up with what we put up with, I mean we never got properly hurt or nothing, theres loads of kids who had it worse, like we only got battered when we deserved it and stuff, but just growing up where we did and seeing dead raped murdered people dumped in the stairwell and never having new clothes or going nice places on holiday or whatever and going that shitty arse school where if your lucky like Olly you dont get picked on cos your brothers well hard but if your me you get your head flushed. I spose you could be all snow white and nice and give your money to starving africans if you got a ton of it like I have but I dont want to. Dont care if that makes me a selfish bastard, thats ok. Them kids are getting a good house and nice things and proper education and money saved up for when there older and there never going to want for nothing cos I wont let it be like that. I feel weird living here. Not being with Olly but everything that goes with. Kind of being peoples other dad now. Not really that. Kind of. ARGH. My brain goes all weird thinking about it. They dont CALL me dad or nothing cos I'm still just Pip but I'm shagging there dad and living with them and we got joint bills and stuff and I take them places to there sports and clubs and everything and help with homework and make dinners and do baths and tell them off when they act up and they have to listen to me cos I'm the 2nd boss. I'm basicaly there stepdad. Its weird WEIRD WEIRD WEIRD I cant get used to it cos its WEIRD. But then it aint realy weird at all. Its brilliant. I shouldnt be peoples DAD, how stupid is that!?!! But its working. I love them so much. And Olly.

He's been awful good to me since I come back to London. To me and FOR me. All this shit kicked off and I never been this miserable in my whole life but Ollys put up with me being a fucking sulk and he aint complained once. I spose its just cos he knows me right? Me and him know each other better than just about anybody else in the whole world. I know when he wants to get left alone so he can deal with his pissy mood at his own speed, he knows when its the right time to come and drag me out my self indulgent whiny emo brat tantrums and take me out shopping or something. He even lets me eat peanut butter and cheese and onion breviles without no fuss if he thinks its gonna cheer me up. That's true love there. I think it suprises people sometimes we're still mates, like we lived in each other's pockets right through growing up in the flats and we picked all the same year 9 options so we didnt have to go in diferent classes and how many people still REALY stay mates that close after one of them has 4 kids? My dad says he couldnt live with me again cos he would go fucking loopy and clearly Ollys a nutcase as well risking his sanity like this but I think he's teasing. I think, I cant ever realy tell. Well anyway, our house is big enough we wouldnt ever have to see each other if we didnt want to. We want to, though.

I wonder sometimes how long its going to last. I spose its diferent now we're together like boyfriends not together like house mates, there aint going to be no awkward shit about someone feeling like they got to move out cos the other ones settling down or whatever. Even if we wasnt boyfriends though he'd fucking better not try to kick me out. Its a big house. We could put a big wall up and split it into 2. I would even let him have the best half. I just dont like the idea of living where he isnt. God this is sounding WELL clingy and co dependent. Maybe it is. I think I might calm down a bit and feel better about the idea of living apart if I give it enough time. I know he aint in love with me. Its ok cos I know he LOVES me, that aint the same thing but its ok, its good enough for now. Its just I had these fucking awful things happen with someone whose supposed to love me just turning on me cos of an ACCIDENT and then you cant even depend on family either, there better than before but I still cant proper trust my dad and I dont know if I ever will. But Olly is the one person whose always going to be there. I'm a bit dodgy about trusting people sometimes but with Olly I never have to think about what he might do to screw me over cos he just won't. Its a good thing to KNOW so certain. Grass is green, water is wet, I love Olly.

See I can say it here cos it aint to his face. Boys are funny bastards. Its alright for girls, there allowed to swan about in public giggling and holding hands and kissing each other hello and goodbye and shopping for knickers together. Blokes don't DO that. Well maybe I do but I'm hardly the average man am I? And maybe he used to but not no more, he's gone well grown up cos of the kids, he can still get cuddly if he's had a drink or its in private but he wouldnt hold my hand in public or nothing, thats like alien behaviour, it just aint the sort of thing what gets discussed even when its there. And so I write it cos I've had a few glasses of wine (a bottle is glass right?) and it suddenly seems dead important. I love Olly. I dont believe in soulmates no more but if I did I would claim him as mine cos girlfriends and boyfriends will come and go (haha litrally) but in like 70 years he is still going to be the biggest part of my life and thats really something. Its almost enough to make you START believing in soulmates again aint it? Soulmates and really fucking fantastic luck or a really kind God that you can meet somebody by chance cos the council just happened to put your mum's in flats near each other when your little and form this connection that cant ever get broken by space or time or tantrums or girlfriends.

Thats one of the things Lindsay always kicked off about when he got in a mood. I never said nothing to Olly cos it was stupid, it was just Lindsay getting jealous and being cruel cos he KNEW the worst thing anyone could ever say to me was I didnt mean it when I say I love you, he always used to wank on about shit like how every time we come to London for a visit I just run straight round Ollys house and abandoned him in the hotel and obviously I'm just in love with him and always was and I should just go and stop wasting his time, it was horrible and unfair and I felt like I was getting GUTTED every time he said it cos that werent true AT ALL, only maybe in a way it kind of was. Maybe not being IN LOVE but yeah. I would of done ANYTHING for Lindsay, I would of died for him, most people say that and they werent even in the situation where you actualy decide your going to do it but I was and I meant it too, I would of died with him if it come to it, BUT if the one thing I could of done to prove I loved him was to stop seeing my best mate...... no way. Nobodys worth that, specialy not someone who uses it like an ultimatum. If ANYBODY says to me "Its me or Olly!" then sorry but you know where the door is.

Haha I'm in the living room with my notebook and biro and Ollys in the next armchair watching telly, he just asked me what I'm doing, I said I'm drawing and he tryed to see so I belted him with a cushion and moved down the other end of the couch. I dont know why its so weird telling him stuff like this when I'm always telling other people, I used to tell Lindsay I love him every single day. I hug and kiss all my other mates hello and goodbye ON THE MOUTH even the girls and thats people I dont even have sex with. Not Olly. Anywhere outside the house its like we never stopped being "just mates". Well he is just going to have to suck it up this one time and let me get it out my system cos I might feel better then.

Oliver Starling I LOVE YOU. Dont be embarrassed. Feel the love. No I dont mean put your hand in my pants. Just let me say it. You dont even have to say it back. I know. Its brilliant, its like one of them rare things you KNOW even without words or all this melodrama. I just want everybody else in the world to know too cos its so important to me. I dont know HOW to say it, all these words sound so shitty and trite but its there. I love you. Dont ever kick me out, I cant do without you. The best times of my whole life have been with you. Not even big things but little things most of all. Making the playdoh into rude bum shapes in juniour school. Racing bikes through the corridors in the block and playing knock-door-run on that old bag down the way til she got really angry. Running round the hills at Tintagel singing Camelot and doing coconut hoof noises like we aint grown up enough to know how to behave ourselfs. Getting sick of takeaways every night and braving the supermarket. That time in the photo machine thing when we was like 16 taking them pics of us snogging and leaving them there in the tray to horrify the old bitch next in the queue who gave me dirty looks cos my fingernails had a bit of paint on. Giving me your Labyrinth video when mine got chewed. Knowing on first meeting we had found someone special even though we werent even old enough for school yet. Love at first sight right? Go on, admit it. You cant resist me. I know I cant resist you.

Is this too poofy?? Yeah ok I'll stop now. You can beat me up if you like. I wont mention it again. Out of my system. And you fucking better not ever ACTUALY read my diary you bastard or next time I suck your cock I'm biting it off.

***

Two days later when Pip comes into the house to find Olly fingering that girl Roza he works with at the bar, he wonders whether he jinxed things by actually putting all that Olly-won't-ever-hurt-me crap into words. He doesn't say anything at first. Even if his throat
wasn't
closed up as tight as the eye of a needle, what kind of words are right for something like this anyway? He just stands there dead still in the doorway staring at them, trying to make sense of all the little details - the brown of Olly's hand, the contrast with her milkbottle skin and the turquoise gypsy skirt bunched up in a doughnut of fabric creases around her waist. She's got plain white cotton knickers pulled down and stretched tight across her parted thighs, like a repulsive mockery of innocence, and her slender fingers are wound through his hair to hold his face so close they're breathing in each other's exhalations.

Olly sees him first. In a show of chivalry that's so pointless and ridiculous it almost makes Pip laugh despite feeling like his guts are being yanked out of his belly button, Olly gives Roza a cushion to cover herself up with before he actually says anything.

"You're meant to be in work."

 

"Yeah. I got a cancellation, nothing else booked after that, thought I'd come home early and surprise you. Spose I did that alright."

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