How did we end up like this? (pt. 4)

We walk to the pub hand in hand. I’m painfully aware that some glances are thrown our way but he seems to be oblivious to it. He’s joking with me, light hearted comments, friendly jibes. I’ve got my heart caught in my throat and can only make monosyllabic replies, nodding nervously.

Finally we arrive at our destination. It is quiet with only another table of punters. I find a table in a corner while he heads off to the bar and returns with 2 pints and a packet of crisps. He starts talking earnestly.

He tells me between sips and crisps that he’d always felt in awe of me. I was running around the world, closing deals worth millions. He’d been writing music, hoping for a lucky break. Despite the differences we’d kept in touch, I’d attended his every gig, he’d be there for my birthday bashes and dinner parties. I look him in the eye and tell him that he’s kept me enthralled despite all the fuck ups. He laughs at me, and sneaks a kiss.

The door opens and we look up. It’s Estella. She looks over and sees us, a barely perceptible frown before her trademark toothy smile.

‘Hi, didn’t expect you here.’ She says she’s waiting for a friend. He offers her a seat and she takes it. We exchange kisses and discuss the previous night’s gig again. After a bit he stands up asks us if we want more drinks as he’s heading to the toilet. I hand him some money as it’s my round, and we put in our order. As soon as he’s out of earshot Estella turns to me.

‘I saw you both last night,’ she begins, ‘I saw you kissing.’ It’s a statement, not a question. In clipped sentences, she reveals that they’d both started sleeping together a few months back and she’d fallen for him. She ends by saying ‘It’s just that I could never imagine competing with someone of the opposite sex.’

He returns a couple of minutes later with three drinks and another packet of crisps. He hands me the change and drops some coins on the table. He sits down and caresses my knee. At this I stiffen in my seat and make my excuses that I need the toilet.

In the bathroom I turn on the cold tap and splash water on my face. How could I be so stupid not to have read her body language towards him? Could I reconcile myself with all this? He’d always been impulsive, but had he thought this through? The image he’d be saddled with; everything was happening too fast.

I open the door of the bathroom and wonder what to do, with the knowledge that any action I take would result in someone being hurt. My eye catches a fire escape door. It’s unbolted and ajar. Thankful I’d kept my coat on, I step through the doorway and into the night.

I've been hurt before, I know how to deal with it.

***

(Three years later)

I’m in a cafe and I’ve just sat down at a table with a precariously balanced cup on an oddly shaped saucer. As I open my laptop and wait for it to fire up, I look up and am surprised to see him at the counter. He waves and approaches me, a shy smile, that shy smile. I invite him to sit down, close the laptop and put it away. The conversation starts out stacatto, but eventually we settle into our old banter pattern. We talk for a long time. I ask him about Estella and he tells me that ended it that night we were in the pub. He apologises for not telling me sooner, tells me he meant to break it off with her before, how he was now honest with himself, how he’s missed me since that night but never had the courage to call, believing that he’d screwed up.

Coffee turns into a beer, and the afternoon turns into night as we catch up over the last three years. Soon the bars are closing and we’re standing at the doorway, shifting uncomfortably, not knowing how to pick up where we left off. He invites me back to his for another drink, and I accept. We walk through the streets and the city shuts down bit by bit. Soon, we’re back at one end of the park near where he lives, and he suggests a detour. We walk through the park and we happen upon the spot where we’d faux wrestled in the leaves three years previously. He turns to me.

‘I want to make this right this time,’ he says, and kisses me. His lips, his touch, his smell: tobacco, late summer, the cologne I’d bought him, a hint of beer.

The night is spent talking, touching, kissing, making up for lost time.

Next morning, I get up to leave. He reaches out across the bed and grabs me in a hug. We kiss. It feels good.

‘Call me later,’ he says.

I don’t know why, but I never do.

***

(Another four years later...)

I open up the large pack of forwarded post. I sift through the bills and flyers when a cream envelope catches my eye. I discard the rest on to the table and place the envelope on the side and pour myself a glass of wine. I sit down and look at the envelope, my old address scrawled in his unmistakable hand.

I catch my breath as I open the envelope. The postmark indicates last Monday’s date. Out falls a wedding invitation. I read through the invite; it’s taking place in 2 months. He’s marrying someone rather well known. I struggle to comprehend what they’d have in common, why he’d do this.

I turn the invite over. He’s written something on it.

Please be my reason to say no. 07xxx-xxx-xxx

I take a large gulp of wine and light a cigarette. I tear the invitation into little pieces and deposit it in the composting bin that’s filled with vegetable peelings and other organic matter.

I cry silently in bed that night.

***

This morning I wake up and sit on the edge of bed, gathering my senses before I head to the bathroom for a shower. The boyfriend rolls over and reaches out to me for a hug and I oblige. He whispers to me, half asleep, ‘I love you,’

I get up and have a shower. Later I’m on my way to work with a coffee in one hand, my mobile in the other. I scroll down to his name and number and look at it for a while. He’s getting married today; I’m tempted to press the dial button to hear his voice, to wish him well.

Instead, I hit delete.

Enough now, I tell myself, enough.