Bobby's home and he's fine. No seriously. He's fine. Totes Magotes fine-eriffic. Everything's coming up, McKenzie. Mmyep.
**
"I had the oddest dream the other day."
Lili shifted in the giant wicker chair in the beach hut, her smile dreamy and wide. "I was laying on a bed of meringue. It was raining and the rain smelled like tea. The trickles on my skin were so warm, and Bobby was there, holding a daisy. He asked me to be his girlfriend, even though it frightened him. He wanted us together in and out of the villa. I've never had such a vivid, like, dream. I nearly cried when I woke up because I so badly wanted it to be real."
Bobby pushed aside the five-day old container of Chinese takeaway on his coffee table with the toe sticking out of the hole in his sock, and rewound the scene again.
"I've never had such a vivid dream."
She'd heard him, the day he'd asked her to be his girlfriend, and she thought she'd dreamed it.
He laughed. Because he'd run out of tears three weeks ago.
The camera shifted to Lottie's drama of the moment. It was odd seeing their lives so curated and crafted for public consumption. Some of it was exaggerated, but it was more accurate than he would have guessed. He fast-forwarded through that nonsense.
He'd watched the entire season only once. Pushing past Lili's departure and then his own emotionally numb one a few hours later. Through the new girls that had shown up, the dumping of Blake and Noah, and the return of Rocco and Hannah. And ultimately, Hope and Lucas winning the whole damned thing.
After that, he'd simply begun re-watching it by fast-forwarding to every single Lili moment. They were all painful, so he didn't bother to skip any. Not her talking about how much she fancied him, or her telling Hope that they were over. Telling off Lucas for using her as a shield to hide from the real person he came there to be with. And her telling off Priya for refusing to be honest about her feelings for him. That one was a surprise.
He found another Lili scene and stopped on it.
"Enough about me." Hope looped Lili's hair around her fingers as she wove it into a pair of sleek french braids. "What's going on with you and Bobby?"
Lili groaned. "Same as always. Sweet words. Great sex. Slow self-destruction."
"I don't understand. It seems like he really cares about you. More than cares."
"He thinks he does." Lili winced as Hope pulled those braids tight. "He's a romantic and he wants this to be something. And for a while I got caught up in that. But it's not reality. He's... he's just not ready for what we could be."
"Girl, maybe you're overthinking it. I didn't think he was being serious either, but the other day he said—"
She waved her hand. "Don't tell me. It'll just get my hopes up for nothing. That part is over. Every time I feel like we're real, he shows me that we're not. I'm not going to be that girl who keeps trying to hold onto someone who's pulling away. We're having fun. And great sex. That's enough."
Hope snorted. "It's not enough. And I don't think you believe it is either."
"I'm trying to make myself believe it. Otherwise... it hurts too much."
His heart lurched as if it could climb out of his chest and into the telly. He skipped past the scenes of the boy's time during Casa. Stopping only to again, laugh at the painful twist of fate, that the worst thing he'd ever done in his life had never aired on television.
There had been no video of him and Emily beyond that first kiss, which is why they'd never asked about it in the Beach Hut. There had been a server malfunction and no night footage had been recovered. The producers and the audience had no idea what had occurred, at least they hadn't until he'd told Lili about it on the terrace.
Apparently #beejgate trended for a week afterward.
Sighing, he skipped along and stopped on a shot of Mustache Guy. He now knew his name was Arjun, but it was hard to think of him as anything else. Mustache Guy had been funny and charming and seemed genuinely into Lili. And for his trouble, she'd jerked him around emotionally. Bobby couldn't help but have sympathy for the man.
Other than Lili's breakdown in the Beach Hut when she decided to leave, the aftermath of that kiss with Mustache Guy was the hardest part to watch. But he did. Over and over. She may have been a bit dishonest about how long the kiss lasted, but she hadn't been dishonest about anything else. Her confessional had been stressed and happy and miserable all at once, because that was the moment she'd realized she loved him.
He hit play again.
"I'm not good at messes. I like things tidy and safe. Things with Bobby are not safe. Arjun is exactly the kind of la I'd have chosen in the past. Funny. Likes me well-enough. No overwhelming, confusing feelings. Just nice. When we kissed it felt good to feel... nothing. But the longer it went on the less I wanted that—I don't know—numb safety." Her hands fluttered in front of her as she struggled to articulate her thoughts. "In some strange way, that kiss gave me clarity. Because now I know what I've been running from. I'm in love with Bobby. It sounds mental, I'm aware of that. It's only been, god, what? Two weeks? But it feels like a lifetime. Like he's the person I'm meant to be with, and I've been fighting it because it terrifies me how much I need him. I never wanted that. To need someone."
His phone pinged, and he jumped. Ever since the show he felt trained like a dog with a dinner bell, except instead of food, he got a surge of anxiety.
So much for the sexiness of the ding.
He ignored it as it went off again and again. He didn't bother to even look at it. It could be more agents or managers hoping to work with him. Could be another of those goss shows that were hoping for the coveted Bobby Sweetcakes interview that he would never ever give.
Or it could be his family or one of his friends, Jonno or Maitland or Louis begging him to come visit. He hadn't seen a soul since he returned.
He would visit. Eventually.
His beard scruff itched, and he scratched at it with the ragged edges of the nails he'd chewed off. He reached beside him with the hand that didn't have the remote and grabbed the cold pizza that had been on the couch beside him all night.
Suddenly, his front door vibrated as someone pounded on it. He ignored it and rewound it to the part where Lili said she loved him again. It hurt so much, but he'd take any pain if it meant he could still see her. He could still have that tiny thread of a connection to her.
"Bobber dobber," Jonno's voice called from the other side of his door as he pounded on it again.
"Get fucked," he called out cheerfully as he chewed the cold pizza. "I'm no' interested in blethering with you, you pushy arsehole."
"Bobby, open this goddamn door," a familiar sharp voice sliced the air.
He felt a stir of anxiety. "Maitland, I'm fine. Everything's fine. I'm not really dressed to entertain."
The knob began rattling and he shot off the couch, hoping to grab hold of it, but it was too late. Louis pushed the door open and shook his key fob at him.
"Et tu, Louis?" He dropped back onto the couch. Until now, renting from his pal had been a solid choice. Especially since he'd done nothing but sit around his flat for a month having a breakdown, rather than paying his utilities. He was a bit behind.
"Sorry, hon," Louis said. "Your mum and sister have been blowing up my phone to make sure you were alive in here."
"You look like a week-old pile of jobby," Jonno said.
Maitland wrinkled her nose. "And you smell like it too."
Louis stared around the trashed flat. "Oh my god, Bobby, I have to be able to lease this out again one day!" He picked up the container of old noodles and gagged. "These are moldy! Do you know how hard you have to work to make Chinese food go moldy?"
He shrugged.
"Okay, that's it." Dean, Louis's husband pushed past everyone else and towered over Bobby. For a man who worked in IT, he was a wall of muscle. "This is for your own good." Before he could react, Dean hoisted him up and tossed him over his shoulder.
"What the fuck are you doing!"
The big man carried him across the flat. "Ugh, you reek."
"Yeah, that was intentional. So you would all leave me alone."
"And we did. But your month-long pity party is over," Maitland hissed. "You big baby."
"That's not productive," Louis said.
Dean threw open the bathroom door and gently dropped Bobby into the bathtub.
"Do it Jonno," Maitland said.
Before he could clamber out, a blast of freezing water slapped him full in the face. He sputtered and rolled away from the assaulting liquid, but Jonno had hold of the shower hose and aimed the stream wherever he scrambled. He got on his hands and knees and tried to cover his face. "Fucking stop!"
"This is for your own good," Jonno hollered with a little too much glee in his voice.
When it was clear that he wasn't going to stop, Bobby sat up and submitted to it, shivering as he was hosed off like a mangy dog who'd rolled in dead skunk.
Once they'd broken his will to fight, Maitland threw a washcloth and a bar of soap at him. "Clean your crevices, you minger."
"And shave," Louis said.
"I'll scrub my arse, but I ain't shaving," he growled. "I like the beard. It took me a month to grow it. I didn't even know I could grow one."
"Fine. But while you're showering, we're cleaning the flat, and then you're going out to dinner with us," Louis said. "Enough is enough."
Bobby slammed the door in all their faces and took his damned shower.
***
Life goes on.
That's what everyone kept telling Bobby, since he'd been dragged out of his pity party a a month ago. And it was strange in the way that it had. People woke up and went to work and came home and went to bed, living their own happy and sad days, mostly forgetting that for a while, he had been the most famous heartbreaker on reality television.
He wished he could forget as well.
But since he couldn't, he'd gone back to doing what he was best at. Faking a smile. He joked. He baked. He took extra hours at the hospital and made everyone in the kitchen laugh. He was a living marionette with clown makeup, gleefully taking up the stage, only to be left in a heap at the end of the day, limp and exhausted from it all.
But what else could he do? This was what everyone wanted. For him to move on.
Now he sat in his mum's living room while she stared at him over the edge of her china cup. He shifted uncomfortably as her sharp amber eyes poked at the illusion he'd been working so hard to maintain. That was precisely why he'd waited so long to visit her.
"Are you actually gonna tell me how you are, or do I have to skelp ya?"
"I'm fine! I'm good." He smiled brightly, forcing as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could. "I got an agent! Can you believe it? She says I'm gonna be the next Dominique Ansel." He stretched his face into an even more joyful smile, widening it until the muscles in his jaw protested his performance. Her eyes narrowed and he laughed lightly to ease the tension that was making him sweat. "I'm fine. Really, I'm fine. Everything's coming up McKenzie!" He hoped the words sounded less hollow than they felt.
She grunted her disbelief and sat the cup heavily on the saucer. "I watched the damned show. I know you're not fine."
Her words were like boulders in his pockets, weighing him down. It was so much more exhausting when she didn't play along. His cheeks ached from smiling but he smiled anyhow. "It's a television show. It's not reality."
"It was real enough. She was a sweet lass, I suppose. Pretty as sin. I've never seen you so worked up over anyone. It was hard to watch."
He shifted in his chair and stared at the wall. "Living it was no fun either," he said cheerfully. "But I'm over it. Moving on."
She sipped her tea, and then dropped the cup and saucer loudly onto the coffee table, making him jump. "Laddie, do you think I button up the back? I've spent years worrying about the damage I inflicted on you. My sweet funny boy, trying to fix me. Fix your dad. Taking care of your sister when we were fallin' apart. I live with the guilt every day."
"Mum..."
"No." She held up her hand. "You listen to me, now. We've never talked about it, but I know. You were trying so hard not to be like me, you ended up right where I was." She took a breath. "Life gave me something special. The loveliest man I've ever known. And I spit in life's eye. I was afraid I didn't deserve him, so I let jealousy eat me up until I wasn't even the same person he'd fallen in love with." Her hands shook and she pressed them to her lap. "I needed help, but I was too proud to take it. I thought I could figure it all out on my own. And by the time I realized I couldn't, I'd already destroyed the best parts of my life. I don't want that for you."
It was too late for that. He'd already done the damage. The best part of his life was gone. Still, he nodded. "But you're better now..."
"Am I?" She tucked a strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. "Maybe, in some ways. But I..." she shook her head. "I have a lot of regrets." Her sweet, heart-shaped face, sporting the same kind of freckles he saw in the mirror every day, crumpled for a moment, before she rallied her emotions. "My point is, you've always been so strong. So resilient. But you paid a price for it. You did it at the expense of your own happiness. I broke you, and you've always blamed yourself for the cracks."
He'd been treading water for weeks, and every day the exhaustion seemed to pull him under a little more. Now, the weight of her every word dragged him further away from the surface.
He stared at his hands. The only part of himself that he'd ever liked. "Mum, please stop." His voice was garbled, as if the water was already in his lungs.
"No. I have to say it. I watched you fall to pieces, and I recognized every second of it, like looking into a mirror. You deserve a whole life, not a half-life. Not your fake smiles and your I'm-fine-I'm-fine. You're not fine." She reached across the space between them and squeezed his hand so tight it hurt. "I can't force you to do anything, I know that. But I'm begging you to stop hurting yourself like this."
He ripped his hand from hers and shot off the couch. What the hell did she want from him? What did they all want? He'd suffered through this same conversation with Louis, more than once. He was doing his damnedest to be the Bobby everyone recognized and loved. The easy-going one. The all-surface lad who jammed his emotions into the smallest space he could afford to give them. He was trying goddammit, why wasn't that enough?
Moving more deliberately, he sat his cup on the table. "Sorry, I can't stay. I'm driving Jonno to work." He mustered up another grin. "I'll call you tomorrow, alright?"
She followed him silently to the door. He pulled her into a hug, and she held him tight for a moment. "I don't want to be a nag. But I'm scared for you," she said softly.
He sighed, defeated and guilty for worrying her. "I know, but I promise I'm fine," he gave her a squeeze, fighting to keep his sunny smile. It wasn't a lie. He was fine. Fine enough. Anyway, he'd get there. He had to fake it until he made it. He had to try.
This was him trying.
***
A month later, at four in the morning, Bobby yawned and unlocked Fenella's coffee shop, Sacred Grounds. Fenella had lost her opening barista and needed help, so he'd stepped in.
He stocked the display with all the treats he'd made the night before and then started the burr grinder for the coffee beans. He shambled like a zombie through his new routine.
His days were blurring together. When he wasn't at the coffee shop, he was back to the hospital working ten hour shifts or driving Maitland's crusty old coot of a dad to his physio appointments, after he'd fallen down his front steps. The only nights he had free, he spent with Jonno on the pull, playing wingman, suffering through banal chat with women whose faces he could never remember later, and watching Jonno use his pal's Love Island fame to lure a blur of girls in for the graft. Jonno egged him on to take a hen home himself, but he couldn't. He was just too busy for all that. At least that's what he kept telling everyone.
The truth was that the only solace he'd taken as he walked away from the villa was that Lili was the last person to touch him. To stroke him and kiss him. The last person he'd been buried inside of, hands in hair, mouths fused together. As broken and hollow as it had been, that memory was all he had left of her. He didn't want another drunken hookup to erase it.
Besides that, being busy wasn't a complete lie. His social media had exploded after the show, and he had almost two million followers. When he wasn't running errands and working, he had to take pictures of perfectly crafted pastries and write funny pun memes. He had to post videos of himself in the kitchen, cracking wise. He had to have meetings with his new agent. He was busy. He was helpful. People needed him. He had no time to dwell about what happened on the show. What he'd done. How he felt.
After work, he had a free afternoon for the first time in a month, and since he couldn't stand still, he'd agreed to go to the pub.
"Bob!"
"Bobber dobber!"
"Mister Celebrity Arsehole!"
His friends greeted him enthusiastically when he shoved the wooden door open and strutted in. He posed like a model and threw winks at everyone. Before, this would have energized him, but now he had to resist the urge to turn around and head home. He might have if the silence at home wasn't twice as exhausting as his friends. He was miserable all the time anyway. May as well be miserable with his mates and make them happy.
"Where's Louis?" Maitland hollered. "That fuckface said he'd be here."
"Dean's sick," Bobby shouted over the telly. "Louis stayed home with him."
Maitland made a disappointed face and then turned back to the footy, screaming obscenities at the screen. Bobby followed her cue. He was never all that interested in sports, but his pals loved them, so he was there cheering on the whosits for being the kickiest at football.
They chatted and laughed and carried on like maniacs, drunk on victory and whisky shots in the middle of the day. Not for him though. He hadn't had a drink since that night, and the very thought of liquor made his stomach clench. He pushed the shot glass toward Jonno, knowing he'd guzzle anything free without asking questions.
After that, they devoured a pub pizza the size of three manhole covers, then made their way to another pub. There he danced like a bellend on a tiny dancefloor, doing the flamenco with some random laughing girl and trying not to think about the last person he'd danced with.
He took a breather at the table, and his phone buzzed for the hundredth time. He hated that sound anymore. But he pulled the phone out and checked it. Eleven missed calls from his agent, Kellee. And his phone rang again. He stepped outside and took a deep breath, readying himself for the Bobby Show. "The Notorious B-O-B speaking," he said in an artificially bright voice.
Kellee laughed, sounding more relieved than amused. "I've got news."
"What kind of news?"
"Big news," she said, emphatically.
"What is it?"
"I just got off the phone with FoodNetwork UK. They loved the pitch and they're prepared to offer you a show."
Bobby's heart raced so fast it was more of a buzz than a thump. His own show.
She said more words. Blah blah blah contracts and whatnot. After he hung up, he felt knocked sideways. This was big. So big.
He stepped back into the pub, and Maitland noticed his dazed expression. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Um, Food Network UK is giving me a show."
She gasped. "Holy fuck! Guys, wheesht! Bobby's getting his own fucking show!"
After that, he was thumped on the back repeatedly and bought shot after shot that he gave to Jonno. With each shot, he got quieter and quieter inside. He tried to rally. To smile bigger, to make worse jokes, to dance like a fool again, but something nagged at him. He knew this was good. That he should be ecstatic. It was everything he'd wanted. His lifelong dream. The world at his feet.
The more everyone celebrated him and told him how proud they were, the more his stomach twisted and churned until he thought he might vomit.
"Hey guys, I'm going out for some air," he said, pushing every ounce of enthusiasm that he could into his voice. "I need a break from all my adoring fans!"
They laughed and shoved him playfully as he made his way outside. But he didn't stop to breathe the fresh air. He didn't stop at all. He walked away. Down the sidewalk and dodgy side streets. He walked for miles, his feet aching and his phone buzzing over and over with well-wishers and texts asking where the hell he'd gone.
Get back here mate!
Let's head to The Shimmy so we can proper celebrate Chef Bobby!
He dug his hands into his locs painfully. Everything he had done, everything he was doing, was to get himself back. To be the Bobby he used to be. Before Love Island had ironically become the reality in his longtime fictionalized life. He missed the him who was funny and charming, breezy and light as angel food cake, never taking anything too seriously, always up for a laugh. Childishly fucking endearing, as Maitland would say. The one with big dreams who would have been flying higher than a space shuttle at the news that he was about to be a huge star for something he was actually talented at.
So why did he feel so dead inside? No, not even dead. It was a gnawing despair that was chewing him from the inside out.
Before he knew it, he was in the middle of his flat, feet throbbing, lost, staring at the wall.
The silence closed in on him. Why did he leave the pub? The noise was what he needed. The static of life distracting him from the numbness in his heart and mind. He turned the television on, not caring what was playing. He muted it anyhow and played music on his phone. The combination of flashing life on the screen and music pumping from his speaker wasn't enough, though. So, he rushed to his refrigerator and pulled out the ingredients for the soup he'd planned to make for Dean. That would help. That would remind him of who he was and what he was worth.
He chopped veggies and whisked in cream and homemade noodles and chicken, making a delicious broth that would cure almost any ailment. Because that's what he did. He fixed things. He made things better for everyone. He smiled and he did and he did and he did and he did.
While the soup cooled, he baked. He emptied his cupboards and baked everything he could think of. Biscuits and tarts and an entire cake. He lined up all the treats on his counter. He was surrounded by his favourite things in the world. He should have been proud. Happy. Peaceful.
But he wasn't. Instead, there was a chasm inside of him. A vast empty that wasn't filled by this. Or anything. The more he tried to focus on the joy he should have had, the less he felt.
Frenetic and jittery, he packed up the soup, and walked it downstairs to Dean and Louis's flat. He knocked too many times, his knuckles bouncing worse than a nervous knee, against the door.
Louis answered, his brow furrowed at the erratic sound. "Hey!" He glanced down at the crock of soup and took it out of his hands. "I didn't expect to see you until later tonight." His eyes sparkled with the kind of joy that felt foreign to Bobby now. He sat the soup on the table and beckoned him inside. "Maitland told me the news! I've texted you way too many times. Congratulations! How do you feel?"
The apartment was quiet. So quiet. Everything was neat and tidy and filled with love. Little objects here and there, pictures of Dean and Louis's wedding. Sunlight streamed in through the picture window washing everything in a soft glow. But he was outside of the glow, stuck in some dark shadowy place where light couldn't break through. He didn't remember what it felt like to bask in the sunshine.
"Bobby?" Louis tilted his head. "How do you feel?"
"I feel...great!" The brighter his voice, the more he felt coated in that sticky cobwebby darkness. He smiled wide. So wide it hurt. "Everything's coming up Mckenzie...I..." His smile faltered. Panic rose in him. He tried to bring it back, digging into the darkness, hunting for the old Bobby. The broken Bobby who just soldiered on always. But he wasn't there. Nothing was there. Maybe nothing was all that had ever been there.
A sob wracked him. Louis's alarmed blue eyes made him want to stop and go back to when he'd never burdened anyone with anything. Where he gave so much and did so much, so no one would realize he wasn't worth a damned thing.
But as much as he tried to force it away, he couldn't make it stop. Sobs came over and over. Louis gathered him in his arms and held him, and he cried until his knees nearly gave out.
Dean lumbered from the bedroom to check on the commotion. Sick as he was, he grabbed Bobby and half-carried him to the couch. Fresh panic surged within him. He reached for Louis, desperate for something he didn't even understand.
"What is going on, hon?" Louis asked softly.
The light shifted as the sun hung lower in the sky, and despite the remaining brightness of the day, Bobby's vision was shadowed and dim. A stinging desolate smog enveloped him, and with it came the words he'd buried. He'd brushed aside. He'd smiled away.
"I'm not fine," he said between sobs.
He'd never been fine. Not really. And he couldn't pretend any longer. He couldn't keep burying his anxiety in smiles or jokes or drunken nights on the pull. He couldn't hide his inadequacies behind the remnants of a mask he could hardly stand to wear anymore.
And he couldn't keep hating himself like this.
Terror filled him. He'd finally hit the bottom of the well of self-loathing he'd been free-falling in for so long, and there was no way he could climb out on his own.
Louis cradled him like a bairn. "I knew you weren't fine Bobby," he said softly. "You were the only one who thought you were."
**CHAPTER END**
NOTE FROM THE WRITER:
Honestly, I can't believe you've stuck with me this long. Thank you for reading and commenting and being awesome and crazy and obsessed. It makes me so happy.
Just because I feel like the angst levels have peaked, I want you to know that it's all going uphill from here. Things are about to get hopeful. First In a bruised, post-breakdown sort of way. Chapter 46 is gonna be a bit of a rollercoaster but I promise, you'll enjoy the ride. I'll have that one out sometime in November, and kids... Lili is baaaack! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN.
For funsies, TSIME has a Spotify playlist that is updated with each chapter, if you're interested.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0FMiCOObUf4c7mRUBDqj6M?si=kj29rh_3SemnxAOD5S2lZg