Page 10 of One Summer

I dab at my eyes with the sleeve of my jacket.

Could we work this out? Perhaps it’s just a bit of harmless flirtation? Some minor infatuation? It doesn’t need to be the death knell of my relationship with Max. We could still salvage this.

If he can salvage six-hundred-year-old rotting leather shoe soles that emerge from the river mud, we can at least try to salvage this.

I’m just thinking it through, trying to look for the positives and take my mind out of panic mode, when my phone beeps with a message.

From Max.

I’m sorry you had to find out about Greta that way. I promise we’ve only been friends, but I think you’re right and there is something more there: something that in all honesty, I would like to pursue.

Nine

Cheetah

I message him back.

Oh yes, pursue the gorgeous cheetah with the perfect eyes, long limbs and impeccable knowledge of buttons. Good luck catching her.

Are you okay, Lindy? You sound… strange.

Maybe because you’re dumping me BY TEXT after THREE YEARS?

It just seems obvious that it’s over. I don’t think we were ever truly compatible. Not really. I’m very ambitious. The truth is that I need to be with someone who has more of a plan for their life.

And a popular YouTube channel, presumably?

You’ve heard of Greta, then? You know who she is??

Not until this morning. My colleague told me you were live streaming with a famous mudlark today. I thought it was weird that you hadn’t mentioned it. I guess now I know why.

I’m sorry I hurt you, Lindy. That was never my intention. Greta feels terrible about it too.

OH, DOES SHE, I think, as I tap in her channel name. She has a Wikipedia page. Greta Honeycake. Oh, for god’s sake. That can’t be her real name.

I scroll down to the ‘Early Life’ section.

Father – Thomas Martyn. Ha. I knew it. Her real surname is nothing like Honeycake.

Mother – Sylvia Honeycake. Damn. She took her mother’s name. I respect that.

Shit, shit, shit. She’s probably really cool. I’d probably like her if she wasn’t spending her downtime secretly watching action movies with my boyfriend.

Uggh. The thought depresses me beyond belief. Max doesn’t get to have a cool, successful girlfriend. He was lucky to scrape by with me.

Wasn’t he?

Oh god.

He was clearly never the lucky one.

I was.

Ten

Yeast

In hindsight, perhaps there were warning signs that he wasn’t all that into me. Tinea versicolor was one of them: a fungal red flag that he was, perhaps, taking me for granted somewhat.

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