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It hurts, hurts more than the end of her only long-term relationship, more than the breakup of her family. It hurts deep inside her and she's not sure it will ever stop. There's an ache, like a part of her is missing, a part she knows she's never going to get back. She's thinks she might be broken forever.
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At first, she doesn't understand what’s happening, feels so confused by the feelings that seem to appear from nowhere when she joins MIT, when she meets Jo. The need to spend more time with Jo, to get closer to Jo, takes over her. But she doesn't understand why. Trying to make sense of it all, she tells herself she only wants to learn, wants to be accepted to the team, to fit in, so getting on with the boss is just a good idea.
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Growing up, she never questions her sexuality, doesn't even consider it. When all of her friends start talking about boys, she joins in. When all of her friends start dating boys, she does the same. All along she really believes she's attracted to men, she thinks being bored during sex is their lack of skill, eventually she just thinks there's something wrong with her.
She always just assumes. Constantly surrounded by couples and families, she thinks little girls grow up to fall in love with boys, then get married and have babies. That's what everyone on TV does, that's always the happy ending in stories, that's even what the families in Asda look like, so that's what she's going to do too. Except it doesn't make her happy.
When she meets Mark, he seems nice, they enjoy the same things, and the time they spend together is fun. Some of her friends are starting to move in with their boyfriends, or in some cases even getting married, she knows she’s meant to do the same. She doesn’t want to be the one left alone, she has a laugh with Mark, and he takes care of her, it makes sense. And everyone always seems to moan about how much they hate their partner anyway, about all the things that annoy them, that’s just what a relationship is. So when he tells her he loves her, she says it back. She does care for him in a different way than she cares for her friends, she assumes that’s all love is.
She is barely 23 when she realises she's pregnant, when she works out she is going to be tied to this man for the rest of her life. It’s not what she wants, imagining an entire lifetime with Mark fills her with dread. But choosing to prevent pregnancy and choosing to have an abortion feel like very different things. So when Mark promises her he'll look after her, when he goes and buys some tiny, adorable clothes, when he says it will all be alright, it doesn't take much to go along with it. After all, it's what she's going to do eventually anyway, right?
When Josh arrives, she does love him, but suddenly she isn't Kate anymore. She is Josh's mum. Everywhere she goes, it’s as if giving birth has literally ended her existence, and now she is just Mum. She soon wants to scream anytime she's asked, “and how’s Mum?” as if they are talking to her about another person, as if it's not her.
And of course Mark hadn't really meant what he'd said. He really meant he'd be the traditional father and would consider doing anything at all helpful to be extra, rather than just what he should be doing as an equal parent. He’d really meant he would get home from work and expect her to have done three people’s jobs; for the baby to be happy and quiet, the house clean, and dinner on the table. She hates it, hates that he is now the only adult she gets to spend time with, hates that he gets to get on with his life when hers is apparently over.
Her resentment grows quickly, and though she never means it to, it soon spreads to Josh. She resents him for everything he's taken from her, she resents him for trapping her in this miserable life, she resents him for being happy and loved when she feels so alone.
She needs to escape, to actually be Kate again, to feel something other than the constant aching loneliness inside her.
So she throws herself into work, looking for the reassurance of success there. Taking bigger and bigger risks to be noticed, to be given the same respect as the men who do so much less.
Then she throws herself into other men's arms, into their beds, looking for whatever is missing inside her, looking for something to actually make her feel good. But it doesn't help.
When Mark throws her out, she is devastated because she has failed. She's failed at what she is meant to do, what she is meant to be. She’s failed at pretending, at making it work like everyone else does.
But then she feels relief, he's done what she was too much of a coward to do, and she's free. Free from an unhappy relationship, free from a miserable life, free from always just being Mum.
Except she isn’t really. Because she's a woman, a mother, and she isn't meant to leave. She is meant to stay and pretend to be happy, because that's what is expected.
She tries to ignore her own thoughts, the comments, the pressure. She tries to move on, but no one else makes her any happier than Mark anyway. So, she goes back. At least with Mark she's not alone, she hasn't deserted her child, hasn't failed at being a partner and mother.
So she tries to be who she's meant to be, she tries to be right, she tries not to be broken. But now Josh has been taught to believe she doesn't love him enough, now there is resentment on every side, now she is always walking on eggshells.
This time it is her choice to leave.
She chooses a whole fresh start. New home, new job, new life. Then everything changes.
From the moment she arrives at MIT, there's something about Jo, something that draws her in, something that makes her feel good, but very confused.
Bringing Jo a cappuccino and croissant in the morning is a guaranteed good start to her day. She leaves Jo's office, almost floating on air, a warm feeling spreading through her whole body. She finds herself going out of her way to make Jo smile, to get Jo to look at her in that way that makes her stomach flutter.
Then she realises how tactile Jo is, and she likes it. Likes the little touches, the shoulder squeezes, the arm holds. And as she encourages Jo's touch, the flutter moves lower.
It doesn't take long, before she’s slipping her fingers between her legs with Jo's face in her mind, and Jo's name on her lips and it feels so good. So much better than any man, even when she's only imagining it is Jo's fingers.
Suddenly, everything makes sense.
Miss Wilson, the year 6 teacher she was so desperate to please. Who she found any excuse to spend more time with, frequently having to be told to leave 20 minutes after home time, having done every possible job in the classroom. Miss Wilson, who had made her feel something new and different, and who she had always thought she just wanted to be like. But apparently, that had been her first crush.
Then in year 7, there was Sarah, a girl three years older than her, who she'd thought she just idolised. Except she'd known Sarah's timetable, known it well enough to know exactly where to be to see her multiple times a day. She'd even told her friends she liked Sarah's male friend to explain her actions. And she'd never even questioned what that really meant.
Every actress and singer she'd obsessed over, always just because she wanted to be like them. It had never even crossed her mind that she was actually attracted to all these women, that she was falling for them over and over again.
Every women she'd ever looked up to, thinking she was just feeling pride, suddenly show her why she has always been so miserable, why she could never make a relationship work.
And then all she wants is Jo, she wants to kiss her, wants to touch her, wants to feel Jo inside her. Suddenly she finds it hard to concentrate, finds her mind drifting as she watches Jo, finds her eyes drifting down her body.
She imagines what it will feel like to kiss Jo, and has to consciously focus on not staring at her lips. She wonders what Jo's breasts look like, how they will feel in her hands, and she has to remind herself mid conversation to look at Jo's face. She wonders what Jo will taste like, if she can push Jo over the edge with just her tongue, and she has to duck her head as her cheeks flush.
After a long day together, she goes home and touches herself, trying to imagine Jo's fingers, Jo's lips, against her instead.
When she finds out about Farida, her stomach flips, suddenly there's a chance it could be real. If Jo has been with Farida, maybe there could be more between them too. She is hopeful, and all of a sudden her fantasies change, she imagines going on real dates with Jo, spending their days together, waking up with Jo, living with her. She realises she wants all of that, wants a relationship with Jo, wants a life with her. She’s never felt that before, not with anyone, and they haven’t even kissed.
Arriving at Frederico’s that night, she’s nervous. They’ve been meeting for months, since before she began wishing they could be more than friends, and she’s determined to say something this time, to see if there is any chance Jo might feel the same. She’s almost certain she hasn’t just imagined it, the way Jo looks at her, the way Jo touches her, and she needs to know.
But Jo denies it, denies a relationship with Farida, denies being like that. And suddenly she falters, trying to make a joke so Jo won’t know what she’s been thinking, hoping. She smiles and takes a drink, only letting her face fall when Jo leaves the table.
For the next week, she tries to ignore her feelings, works alongside Jo, defends her to AC-12 again and again.
Then suddenly, Jo is pushing her away, refusing to even have a conversation and it hurts, it hurts more than anything she’s been through before. She tries over and over to get Jo to speak to her, to get back in, but she fails every time.
Until Jo comes to her, suddenly softer again, asking to meet, asking to discuss their personal issues.
Kate lets herself hope, goes home and showers, even shaves her legs, just in case. She thinks through the conversation, planning out what she wants to say. If it turns out she’s wrong, if Jo is straight, or if she’s just not interested, she knows she might end up needing to transfer. But she can’t go on like this, she has to at least try, she has to know if there is a chance.
She arrives so full of hope that Jo’s new location choice doesn’t worry her as much as it should. She lets herself believe Jo wants the same thing, wants to meet somewhere private, then maybe they’ll go back to her place. Thinking anything else isn’t an option, not when she already feels the way she does, not about her Jo.
When it all goes wrong, it feels like her world comes crashing down around her. Everything she believes is wrong, everything she feels is wrong.
She’d thought it had hurt when Jo had pushed her away, but that was nothing compared to learning of her betrayal. She’d been fooled all along, been so distracted by her stupid, schoolgirl crush. She’d been imagining a future with Jo. She’d been imagining actually being happy.
It feels like her brain just shuts down, she can’t even begin to discuss any of it. But she still can’t just abandon Jo, as much as a part of her never wants to see her again, she has to make sure Jo is safe.
She has no idea what she's expecting, what she's hoping will happen when she runs, when they run. Only the first step has been thought through, get to Steve's, get his car. She has no idea what comes next, where they can go, how long they're meant to stay there for. All she knows is she still can't give up on Jo, even if she wishes she could just hate her right now.
Nothing makes any sense, she'd been so sure, so certain that Jo couldn't be bent, so certain that Jo liked her too. Had she really missed something that big? Had she really been that stupid? She'd thought they were flirting when all along Jo was planning to kill her.
As she speeds though the streets, as she tries to get away from the police who shouldn't have been able to find them this fast, she feels the walls closing in around her. This shouldn't be happening, none of this should be happening.
Her and Jo were meant to have a quiet drink and finally have a proper conversation about their feelings. She'd been ready to declare everything, she'd really thought Jo was going to do the same. She had thought ending up back at one of their flats was a very likely end to the night.
Instead they're sitting in Steve's car, surrounded by police, with a helicopter circling overhead. Instead, her heart feels like it has literally broken. Instead, she's so confused she has no idea what she's meant to do now.
She'd trusted Jo, for some reason a part of her still trusts Jo, but she doesn't trust what's happening now. She can't bear the idea that this is the end. That if she gets out of the car now, it'll all be over for her, for Jo, for them.
The panic on Jo's face barely registers as her hand rests on her gun. Somewhere deep down she knows she shouldn't be doing this, knows she should be surrendering the gun, making it clear she is cooperating. But when she puts it down, it's done.
And there's definitely nothing else she can do to save Jo then.
It's not fair, they didn't have enough time. She'd thrown away what they did have, needed time to figure it out, always thinking there would be long enough.
Even after a night in a cell with nothing to do but think, she can’t make it make sense, can’t figure out what she’s feeling. So she falls back on what she knows, throws herself into work, throws herself back into exactly what she ran away from. That way she can almost pretend, pretend she never left, pretend it didn’t happen, pretend she never had those feelings.
Except she pretends a bit too hard, buries her feelings so far that when Steve comes to her, she still doesn’t give in.
That conversation haunts her now. She plays it again and again, wishing she could change her response, wishing she’d acted differently.
“She's asking to see you.”
“I don't want to see her Steve.”
“She’s leaving in the morning Kate, this would be your last chance.”
“I don’t want to see her Steve.”
She never even said goodbye. She'll never know what it feels like to kiss Jo. She’ll never know if she did feel the same.
Now she's someone else entirely, someone no one else knows, and she doesn't know what to do next.
She doesn’t want to try to date random women. She doesn’t want to try to explain to anyone else. She doesn’t want to try and figure out what she’s feeling.
She just wants Jo.