The Misadventures of Hugo, a Misbehaving Heart

My heart is misbehaving again. It has developed a personality of its own. It now answers to the name Hugo — because Hugo sounds like someone who would wear inherited cufflinks, drink wine before noon, and cause drama in public places — the sort of chap who apologises after the chandelier has already fallen. He’s clearly forgotten his working-class roots and now sashays through life with the entitlement of a lord who treats every heartbeat as a private scandal, staging riots and soirées inside my ribcage. Hugo does not beat — he performs. Like a drunk tambourine inside a tumble dryer. Thud-skip-rattle-WRONG-thud. He bangs against my ribs like he’s trying to break for freedom with reckless abandon. I keep trying to act normal. I clamp a polite hand over my chest and whisper; “Not now, Hugo. We’re in public. We are blending in.” Hugo has never respected authority and takes this as his cue to perform a full somersault routine. Bastard. I’m in a shopping mall with Mum and Dad. Dad has been dead for fifteen years, but here he is, gloriously alive, pushing Mum around in a plastic storage box like she’s a clearance item from B&Q. “Mind the corners,” Mum says, regal in her polyethylene throne. Dad grins. “Top Gear, love.” I’ve learned not to question dream logic. You accept it the way you accept strange neighbours or damp patches on ceilings — with mild resignation and lowered expectations. Then I see her in the crowd. Scarlett. School Scarlett. Effortlessly beautiful in that bohemian woodland-nymph-who-drinks-her-own-moon-water sort of way. Long cascading hair, celestial-kissed freckles, a face that never learned about shame. Standing beside her makes me feel less human and more hobbit. “Amanda!” she beams. “So nice to see—” Her eyes dip. Oh no. I am dressed like a woman who has lost all self-respect and has decided to honour its memory by dressing accordingly. Joggers that have seen things. A jumper with ventilation holes in morally questionable places. I look like a charity shop inhaled dust and sneezed directly onto my body. My cheeks ignite. Hugo takes this personally and has a meltdown of his own. If he had feet, he’d be wearing boat shoes without socks and stamping them in outrage. He launches into a completely new tempo — frantic, jazzy, slightly unhinged — like he’s fallen down a flight of stairs but insists on finishing the drum solo anyway. He thumps so violently my jumper seems to breathe with him, rising and falling, like a second life stitched beneath my skin. I cough theatrically to disguise it. Very smooth. Very subtle. There’s nothing to see here. Kylie materialises, as she always does, like a thundercloud on the brink of combustion. “Why is your mum in that box?” she snaps. “It’s embarrassing.” Hugo kicks my ribs in loud agreement. Traitor. “She’s… trialling alternative transport,” I improvise. “Eco-friendly. Low emissions” Dad rams Mum into a sunglasses stand. “Vroom, vrooom!” The humiliation sends me climbing — literally. The mall has sprouted a giant climbing frame like a drunk hallucination. “Race you to the top,” Kylie says. Fine. The war is on, bitch. I climb like shame itself is chasing me. Hugo treats this like a fox hunt. He pounds my ribs with unearned enthusiasm, spurring me onwards like a tiny ruddy-cheeked jockey in a waistcoat shouting “Giddy up, you liability!” I reach the top, wheezing but triumphant — — and see them still below, laughing. Of course they are They never intended to race. I was never part of the game. I was merely the entertainment. Hugo slumps like he’s just been dumped via text and plays an imaginary trombone inside my chest. I slide back down the ropes and land heavily — the impact knocking the air and a little dignity out of me. That hollow thump echoes. It mutates into the thud of bodies in a packed house. Laura’s house party grows like a human organism that feeds on organs and loosened inhibitions. The rooms are swollen with limbs and laughter. People wedge themselves into corners like decorative clutter. Someone’s elbow has taken permanent residency in my spine. Mum appears again — liberated from her box — shepherding Uncle John and several other elderly relatives who look like they've escaped from a dusty photo album. Charlotte sits in the hallway being politely trampled by strangers. “Amanda has said so much about you!” Mum announces brightly. Hugo braces himself for an incoming social catastrophe. “You’re so beautiful,” Mum adds. “Your skin is flawless.” Dear lord. I flinch. Charlotte has spent years battling acne and self-confidence. But then I realise she actually is radiant. Glowing. Something healed itself quietly when no one was watching. “Your skin is glowing,” I say. Charlotte smiles. Hugo pauses — stunned into a rare moment of silence — offering one respectful little beat, like a gentleman removing his hat at a funeral, before remembering he doesn’t trust happiness and resuming his anxious tap dance. The crush of bodies becomes too much. The noise presses into my ribs. Hugo starts climbing again, thrashing against my ribcage like a disgruntled lodger trying to escape through a skylight. “Oh God — Ash,” I suddenly remember. “I was meant to meet her hours ago.” I squeeze through limbs and apologies and spill out into town. Ash is waiting in our usual meeting spot, visibly simmering. At first I think it’s righteous abandonment rage, but then I see she's hiding something behind her back. “Oh Mand.” she says. “I got my nails done whilst I was waiting.” She holds up her hands — long talons that look like they've been chewed by a small, furious mammal. “They’ve butchered them.” “Girl…” I gasp. “You need to demand a refund.” We laugh, we wander — whilst Hugo keeps making bids for freedom, popping halfway out like an overeager dog at a car window. I keep tucking him back in with my elbow, smiling brightly while internally wrestling this rebellious, self-righteous organ. I smile. I joke. I pretend everything is normal. Ash takes me to her childhood home. She’s feeling nostalgic, it seems. Her bedroom is preserved like a shrine to fifteen-year-old precision. It’s immaculate. Every object sits obediently in its rightful place. On the dressing table, rows and rows of wart remover bottles sit like medicated soldiers. “Ignore those,” she laughs causally, like that sentence doesn't invite any further investigation. The view outside the window looks like it was painted by Bob Ross from heaven itself. Vast open fields that roll endlessly, golden, heartbreakingly beautiful. “It’s stunning,”I say. “It looks nice.” she says quietly, “but it hides a lot of pain.” Hugo slows — listening. Recognising himself in that sentence. “Are you okay, Mand?” she asks gently. “I’m fine,” I lie, again, because I’ve rehearsed that line for years. The word fine fractures like thin ice beneath my tongue. The scene cracks with it and — because the dream gods hate me — I’m catapulted back to the familiar hellscape that is work. Charlotte stands at the frame, arms folded, radiating fury. “What's up?” I ask, cautiously. “Dana’s feral boyfriend” she replies, pointing over to a man who looks like he crawled out of a Biffa bin. His hair looks like it hasn’t met a brush since the early nineties. His jeans look one delicate elasticated sneeze away from collapsing around his ankles. “Total hottie.” I laugh. Charlotte narrows her eyes. At the far end of the depot, a stage materialises. Laura’s husband Karl is performing in his band. He’s wearing a leopard-print jumpsuit so tight it’s attempting to reabsorb him into his own body. His wedgie alone deserves its own limelight. As does his… bulge. He looks like a budget Justin Hawkins, a tragic dumpling shoehorned in Lycra. They start playing. They are catastrophically terrible. The rhythm is questionable. The tune is emotionally lost. Everyone dances anyway. Even Charlotte taps her foot to something that barely qualifies as sound. Hugo settles for a moment — soothed by shared absurdity, by humans insisting on joy even when the tune is wrong. He nods along to the music. Then the music dissolves into rain. I’m driving. The sky throws water at the windscreen like it’s trying to erase the world. The road narrows into uncertainty. Hugo starts hammering again — not theatrically now, not charmingly — but deep and uneven, like someone knocking from the inside of a locked room. I turn on the radio. Moby sings: Why does my heart feel so bad? Of course. For once, I don’t laugh. My chest aches — not because Hugo is misbehaving, but because he sounds tired of pretending he isn’t afraid. I imagine him curled up somewhere inside me, cuffs loosened, bravado slipping, no audience left to impress. I’ve been carrying him so badly. Tucking him away. Mocking him. Shushing him. Forcing him into silence. Rain blurs the road into watercolour. I keep driving forwards — half-blind, heart rattling — terrified that one day Hugo will stop making noise altogether, and the quiet will arrive so gently I’ll mistake it for peace. And for the first time in the dream, I don’t try to restrain him or correct his rhythm. I let him ache. I let him falter. I let him beat exactly as he is — cracked, stubborn, alive. Because maybe the real danger isn’t that Hugo might break — But that I’ve spent so long asking him to be brave, I forgot to let him be fragile.