A Hopeless Romantic by Harriet Evans

been asleep all day, you know?”
    “Yes,” said Laura, walking toward her room. She stood in the doorway. “I’m going back to bed. I don’t know when I’m coming out again. Go after Becky, Yorks. Ask her out. And when you get back, if anyone calls, tell them I’m not here.”
    “Laura—” Yorky was gazing at her with a plaintive expression.
    “Sorry, Yorks,” she said.
    “But—”
    “Leave me alone,” said Laura, a sob rising in her throat, batting her hand at Yorky. “I’m so tired.” She said it almost to herself. “I just want to sleep. Just leave me alone.”
     
    Laura went back to bed. She ate the food she could eat without leaving the bed. The wine she left—it wasn’t a screw-top and she couldn’t face getting the corkscrew from the kitchen. She ate a Crunchie bar in two mouthfuls. She was too tired to read the paper. She picked it up and scanned it, but the story about a school of orphans in Zimbabwe made her cry again, so she threw the paper on the floor and turned over, facing the wall, tears rolling across her face.
    About an hour later, there was a knock at the door.
    “Laura?” came a voice tentatively. Laura opened her eyes, but said nothing.
    “It’s me,” said Yorky. “Look. Are you okay?”
    Laura chewed her lip, praying he wouldn’t come in, banking on a bloke’s natural aversion to crying women. This was particularly strong in Yorky, sweet though he was in other ways.
    “What’s wrong, Laura? I’m…I’m worried about you!”
    Laura pulled the duvet over her head as tears filled her eyes again.
    “Look,” he said, “I’m going out now. I don’t want to bother you. I’m not going to come in. Will you just say ‘Yes’ to let me know you’re alive and you haven’t been attacked or anything?”
    It was a good tactic. Laura patted the duvet away feebly with her hands, and said quietly, “Yes.”
    “Right,” came Yorky’s voice, sounding relieved. “Look, darling. I’m sorry about whatever’s happened. Is it Dan?”
    “Yes,” Laura said. “Don’t. Don’t worry.”
    She didn’t know why she said it, except she really didn’t want Yorky thinking she was actually dying or something. It was her problem, not his, poor man.
    Yorky said cheerily, “Oh. Well, you’ll sort it out, I’m sure. I know you, Laura! You know what you want, don’t you?”
    Getting no answer, he said, “Well, bye, then,” and seconds later Laura heard the front door slam. She lay there quietly for a moment, then put a pillow over her head and screamed, as hoarsely and loudly as she could, till the urge to shout had gone out of her and she was crying quietly again, until she fell asleep.
    All through Sunday, Laura slept or lay in bed, feeling sorry for herself, not moving. She didn’t have anything to do, and she had absolutely no one to answer to, and all she wanted to do was hate herself a little bit more, and the solution to that seemed to be to lie festering in a hot, sweaty bed, with greasy hair and greasy fingernails and skin, feeling achy and uncomfortable. She just wanted to be alone, to feel as totally rotten as it is possible to feel, to push herself far away from the hopeful, deluded girl who ran out to see Dan every week with smooth, silky, tanned legs and clean, shiny hair.
    She slept fitfully, and she kept dreaming. She dreamed she was running to tell Dan something, but she couldn’t get to him; though her legs were long and she was running as fast as she could, she never seemed to make it any farther. She dreamed Dan was lying next to her, his arms wrapped around her, and that he was kissing her neck, her shoulders. She dreamed he had texted her to tell her it was all a mistake, but each time she woke up and checked her phone, there was nothing.
    Early on Monday morning, she was awake, gazing around the room, looking at the detritus of her self-incarceration through the gray haze cast by the curtains. By this time Laura had been in her room for more than two days,