Lucy Fry - Easier Ways to Say I Love You

I absolutely loved this book! An important voice and beautifully written.
Evie Wyld

Hot, warm, raw and intense a fully achieved work of memoir, and funny in the way that only the truthful can be.
Zoe Williams

A beautiful, searing and whip-smart account of love of all kinds. In offering such a vivid and honest reflection on her own experiences, Fry invites us all to reflect on the ways in which love and loss-of-love profoundly shape our lives. Reminiscent of Maggie Nelsons The Argonauts, this book will change the way you think and feel about love.
Meg-John Barker

This is a deeply moving and honest account of love and life that I couldnt put down. It is a stunning piece of writing full of courage, heart, pain and beauty. The experience of reading it is one of being profoundly trusted with someones innermost hopes and desires. It makes you feel so grateful that someone can articulate your own inner thoughts and complicated feelings so perfectly.
Morgan Lloyd Malcolm

If I could remember many of the actual words that passed between A and me when we first met, I think they would only be interesting to us, and perhaps only interesting within a definite time frame the time frame in which were fucking in which everything we say or do becomes alight with furious possibility, each of our words perceived latterly as meaningful even though they might only have been yeah or huh and what?

But visuals, movements, thoughts: these are more trustworthy reminders. Lean fibres of the muscles on As arms sliding like ghosts upon her skin; the surprising cool of the late summer dusk and that our bare arms had goosepimples; the persistence with which As fingers stroked the label on her bottle of non-alcoholic beer, scuffing it just enough so that she could use the other hand to pick it uncleanly off. Also my disbelief when she told me she was forty-seven years old and my unspoken reflection upon how attractive she was for someone of that age someone twelve years my senior and how her eyes shimmered like ice.

I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, she will tell me, months later when were naked: sometimes its just that simple.

...

Why dont we have a word for when the seasons switch?

We have apricity (the warmth of sun in winter) and brontide (the sound of distant rumbling thunder) but nothing for that inter-seasonal no-mans-land between summer and autumn when I next meet up with A.

I walk into the caf, late, after a frantic rush to meet a deadline. Immediately I spot A, seated in the corner, staring at her screen, scrolling with her thumb.

Her shirt fits tightly round her breasts, its crisp white cotton covered in blue parrots, playful and bright. When she looks up I notice how the parrots match her eyes, both of them quite royal. But only for a moment: a few steps closer and As eyes have altered to somewhere closer to cyan. Next look theyre marble, almost white, and, once were seated, almost green.

A is mercurial like this. But I dont know this part quite yet. Still there is something here too about glass. Either she is like glass or she wishes to be like glass: seemingly transparent but also solid. And very dangerous when broken.

But I dont know this bit yet either. All I know is that A is good at chit-chatting and being charming. She asks me plenty of questions. Keeps me talking for a while. Yet, when my turn comes to ask the questions, A is light upon her feet. Deflecting penetration, she can say lots and give a little. She can seem open but stay closed, offering facts with no depth, or depth with no detail. A, it seems, is for Anonymous, though I do learn she has a young daughter (and an ex-wife), that she is currently dating a few people and is preposterous at sleep, staying awake often until four, and getting up at seven.

But thats OK, she says: three hours is fine for me.

She has a job that requires travel. Spends too much time on trains.

And in hotels, she adds: alone.

I dont remember what I tell A about myself. Except that B is five weeks pregnant, and that sex, for us, has not been easy; we are a bit mismatched, weve been struggling for quite a while.

That sounds frustrating? A suggests.

Well, yes, but this isnt the time for breakthroughs, I say quickly: shes sick and lethargic. She wants to sleep from eight p.m.

I could have added that shes scared. B thinks that sex will harm the baby. But I dont, of course who would?

So you need sex? says A, smiling.

Yes, please! I say.

Although I mean it as a joke.

Dont I?

What if Id answered no, not really? What might have never happened stayed unwritten?

Then come to Leeds with me tonight, says A: Im in a hotel. Im alone.

I shuffle about awkwardly.

Uh. Oh, wow, A. Thanks. Very flattered but no.

Pause.

I mean Id like to but I cant.

Pause.

I mean I should be back for dinner, um in London.

Pause.

Fair enough, A shrugs: your loss. She sighs, and, with a glint, she says: So now well always not have Leeds.

I laugh and turn to leave. Before I do though, I lean forward, intending to give her a hug.

As soon as our bodies touch, she flinches. She might as well have pulled away.

OK see ya, says A, and turns to go.

See ya, I wave: I guess well always not have Leeds.

...

After that:

1. Obsessively, meticulously, I delete all trace of communication between A and me.
2. I also turn off any beeps, clicks and rings that might come out of my phone or computer when she sends me a message.
3. I leave my laptop hanging around the house, open and unlocked.
4. I make a big show of not wanting my phone in the bedroom any more because our time in bed is for connection.
5. I promise B I love her millions and am excited to meet our baby.
6. I continue messaging A each day, taking two steps forward and one step back: playing, dancing, teasing because I know this thing is on.
7. I admit to myself that I need sex more than integrity. My reddest parts are now in charge.
8. I tell B that my new friend, A, lives by the sea and has invited me to stay. Id like to go for a night, I say: get out of the city and do some writing.
9. I do not look B in the eye when she responds: Of course, L, you must go. I know you need to get away sometimes to write.
10. I feel unsettled by myself. By my plain-sight-hiding, brazen deception. And then, when my mother-in-law gets duped by a bogus salesperson who steals her passport and bank details, I cant help wondering if maybe Im like that guy. Am I so different really, now?

...

And that is how and why, about four weeks since that first drink, I end up travelling to As city, for a proposed night of just sex.

As I wander slowly from the station down to our rendezvous, a grand old pier, I try to justify to myself the action that Im taking, the thing Im about to do. I remind myself that I am dissatisfied with monogamy and disillusioned by the far-too-civil partnership between my wife and me. That this loving stalemate weve been struggling with lately has made our bed a place of greater pain than pleasure. Recently the gap has grown too vast.

I tell myself that its irrelevant that B is seven weeks pregnant. That this is a sober choice, in keeping with my five proud years of teetotalism; that it is less about selfishness and more about