Page 9 of One Summer

‘It’s worse,’ I say, feeling all my fight drain out of my feet. ‘I can see it in your face. You have feelings for her.’

He bites his lip.

‘It’s true, isn’t it? You’ve fallen in love with each other, and all this movie-watching self-control is just heightening the experience. It’s like you’re courting and saving yourselves for marriage. Oh my god, you’re living in your own chaste romance.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he murmurs, staring desperately at the wall.

When I first began staying over at his place, a few months into our relationship, he brought me a cup of tea to help me wake up. Then a coffee from his expensive machine. He tickled me to sleep when I felt anxious, feather-light fingers on my back. He talked about our future. Our house in the country, our roaring log fire, our dogs. Now that’s all over.

‘Why couldn’t you just have bolted the door? You know I have a key.’

As if this oversight is the problem. As if not bolting the door is the thing that has ended us.

‘I’m sorry, Lindy. It seemed like such a remote possibility that you’d come over without telling me first. You always give me a heads up for anything you do. It’s your thing.’

‘That’s not my thing,’ I say, feeling my temper begin to flare. ‘And if you think it is, you don’t know me at all. I was just trying to be sensitive to your needs. I know you hate surprises. I can’t say I’m a big fan of them either, after tonight.’

I see his expression harden. He has always disliked me showing anger. He finds it irksome. Unattractive.

‘I didn’t realise finding me watching a film with another person would be so traumatising. You hate watching TV. You don’t even watch my latest uploads.’

I can feel my eyes widen in disbelief. As if this is all my fault for not supporting his YouTube channel and not going trekking with him through the shitty Thames mud for ancient boxwood nit combs?

‘It wasn’t just watching a film with “another person”; it’s a woman you’ve been seeing in secret. A woman you have feelings for. This is not me being paranoid; this is you being a cheating bastard.’

‘There’s no need for that kind of language,’ he says, in his school-principal tone.

I’ve heard enough.

‘I’m going. And I’m taking my wine and crisps with me,’ I say, swiping them from the hall table. ‘You can keep the massage oil. Maybe have a swig of it, Max. It might help with your chronic constipation.’

And with that, I leave, heart thumping, face burning and eyes streaming with the burning tears of betrayal.

Max has fallen in love with someone else and I hadn’t even noticed.

Eight

Jelly

I’m walking. I don’t know where I’m going but it doesn’t matter. Here I can walk for as long as I like and disappear into the crowd. Nobody notices me, nobody cares where I’m going and nobody has any questions about why my face is stained with tears. I can be totally invisible.

Max had almost broken up with me once before. We’d been seeing each other for nearly a year when he’d come out with his doubt, breadcrumbing it, until I asked him what he was getting at and if he could please just spit it out.

He was looking into my eyes and telling me that he’d realised we were quite different. That he was a planner, and I was a floater. That he’d always just assumed he needed to be with a Type A woman who had a five-year plan. Someone who wasn’t drifting in the currents.

‘You’re making me sound like a jellyfish,’ I’d said.

He took my hand and squeezed it gently. ‘You know, jellyfish are actually kind of beautiful.’

‘You said they look like alien lifeforms.’

‘I say a lot of things.’

But he smiled and said maybe we could work through this. Maybe we could find a way to be more compatible. Live more harmoniously. And we did. For three years, we made it work.

Eventually, I sit down on a bench overlooking the Thames. Max’s territory. Greta’s turf. The setting of their own private love story.

No, I’m making too many assumptions. I don’t know anything for sure. All I saw was two people watching a movie together.

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