Page 45 of I Love You, I Love You, I Love You

I’m not and he knows it but it’s an easy way of making me feel quite mad and shamed.

‘I wish I was!’

‘I’ve just secured a massive Christmas advert for us. She was saying, Well done, thank you.’ He’s diverting and distracting. ‘You could try it sometime?’

I roll my eyes at his cliché line. ‘All I do is support you!’

‘Do you call tonight support?’

‘I’m sorry – it wasn’t me. Bianca had good news from work – we got carried away.’

‘Yeah well.’ Is his entire unfinished sentence.

I know what Jackson’s flirting looks like. My chest starts to burn but I don’t think it’s jealousy; it’s more injustice. Now is not the time to say it but here I am saying it:

‘You were playing with your ear.’

‘Wow. What are you on about? I don’t play with my ear.’ He’s doing it now.

‘You’re doing it now!’

‘Because I’m seeing if it’s something I do. And it’s not. I can’t believe you and your dumb mates made it about yourselves. Such attention seekers.’

‘Don’t say dumb! It’s offensive.’

‘You’re such a child, Ella. Grow up!’

SILENCE. The darkness envelopes us.

‘I’m really sorry, Jackson.’

‘Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen.’

‘But if we do, it will just cause problems.’

‘There already are problems, clearly,’ he says.

‘So, we should talk?’ I say. SILENCE. ‘Jackson?’

Knowing I won’t be able to sleep if we leave it like this, he eventually says, ‘Go to sleep – love you.’

‘Love you too.’

And I hear this voice in the back of my head from nowhere say, I wish he’d just cheat on me. Then I could leave.

I understand there are lots of things in life that don’t feel nice. Standing on a plug. Being heartbroken. Stubbing your toe. But waking up to press Day Zero on the sober app after a clean run of almost three weeks is really fucking shit and hurts even more when you’re hungover. The whole screen goes black – just for a second – like I’ve died in a computer game – and then it offers me a motivational quote and the timer begins again. I click on the ‘community’ tab where I can see other Day Zero-er’s; Self-loathing. Pity. Shame. Did I somehow think I didn’t belong here?

But what hurts way more than hitting rock bottom, Day Zero, is letting somebody you love down.

I can’t take it back. I can’t parrot sorry at him all day. I can’t ‘treat’ him with food or presents or affection; no, I just have to own this one. And I have to change. I have to grow the fuck up.

I’m up early. I wasn’t properly sleeping anyway; my conscience wasn’t having that. I haul my body to the shower. I wash my dirty hair and brush my teeth. Then I change into my leggings, an old sports bra and a t-shirt that I don’t care about. I wrap my hair into a knot.

When he wakes up, understandably mad at me, I enter the bedroom with his coffee. ‘Thanks,’ he grumbles. He’s frowning into his phone, rubbing his chin in that way he does when he’s trying to solve a problem. The problem being me. He can’t even look at me in the eyes.

‘Are you going for a run today?’

‘I run every day.’

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