Growing Up Twice by Rowan Coleman Read Free Book Online Page B

was shortly to be dumped again for a poet called Alicia or an editorial assistant called Hermione.
    Of course, I’d never meant to find my way into customer services. I’d meant, upon leaving university, to be Kate Adie, an intrepid and courageous journalist, but with more make-up and hopefully less chance of getting hit by bullets. If I ever stop to wonder why it has never happened I comfort myself with the thought that only about two or three people get to be like Kate, and only a few hundred, maybe fewer get to work on the really interesting papers or news programmes. Knowing my luck I’d probably have ended up reporting on a mischievous parrot called Reggie who turned out to be the mysterious cause of the neighbourhood knickers disappearing, and so my life wouldn’t have had
that
much more meaning than it does now.
    And then, of course, coupled with the enormous odds against me ever making it, is my relationship with personal commitment. My mum had always encouraged me, all through my childhood and early adult years. ‘You can do it, but it’s very competitive; it’s competitive and it requires commitment and even after all that hard work, you might not make it. But if you believe you can, you
just
might,’ she’d say when I told her I wanted to be an actor, ballet dancer, singer, fighter pilot, writer, and then finally journalist after one night when Kate’s new report left me emotionally aghast for the first time ever about the state of the world. I went to bed that night fired up with determination, but woke up the next day thinking, ‘Mmm, hard work, commitment, might very well fail …’ I managed to carry the flickering ambition as far as two weeks post graduation, but when faced with the nitty-gritty of making it really happen I’d got a temping job as receptionist on a science park instead.
    ‘Are you going to call him?’ Rosie says, bringing more tea in from the kitchen. She is probably the only person in the world who would understand if I did.
    ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s weird. This time last year, or this time six months ago, I would have done like a shot. But I’m not calling him. No. I just don’t want to.’
    ‘You know he’ll call you again. And again. You know what it’s going to be like. It’ll be flowers and tears and letters and poems and books again, just like it always is when he wants you back.’ This is unusual for Rosie. Over the years when I’ve asked her what to do about Owen she has always said, ‘If you want to go through it again you have to go through it again. I can’t stop you.’ So I always used to ask her and not Selin, because Selin used to say what I didn’t want to hear.
    ‘Yeah. I know,’ I say. ‘But we’re moving soon, so sod him.’
    Rosie sits down and shuffles in her seat. ‘You’re going to kill me,’ she says, chewing her bottom lip.
    ‘What, even more?’ I ask her, thinking she is changing the subject.
    ‘There’s … there is something that we haven’t told you. Selin and I.’
    ‘What? A Mars Bar kind of thing?’ I say in a small voice. I’ve got that quiet feeling of dread in my chest.
    ‘Well, yes, strictly speaking, but I haven’t had a chance to get another one in. I’ll put it on the slate.’ She smiles nervously. ‘It’s about Owen. Selin heard something about him through Josh.’ Josh, Coşgun, Selin’s older artist brother, whose name sounds like Joshgun and whom we all call Josh.
    ‘What about him?’ I am beginning to feel panicky and cross.
    ‘The last time he split with you, it was for this girl Josh has met a couple of times through his collective, a sculptor or something. Well, after a while she wised up to him and didn’t want to see him any more. I guess that was a bit of a shock for Owen, he didn’t like it. I mean, he usually does all the hiring and firing, doesn’t he.’
    Instinctively I walk away and turn my back on her to try and collect my thoughts. A small part of me still hurts when I hear about