Page 78 of Hook, Line and Single

‘Fuck.’

‘Exactly.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I told him that I couldn’t give him what he wanted, and then I dashed in here and hid until he drove away.’

She thinks for a while, evidently digesting the bombshell. ‘And you’re sure you didn’t get the wrong end of the stick? He wasn’t, for instance, just saying how much he’d enjoyed spending time with you and you maybe read more into it than there was?’

‘I didn’t get the wrong end of the stick, Sam. He told me he’d fallen for me. In fact, he said he’d fallen hard. I think that’s pretty bloody clear, don’t you?’

She thinks a little more before her face hardens. ‘Here’s what I don’t get,’ she says suddenly. ‘I’ve always accepted your no dating rule as just a part of your adult personality. You’re happy with your life as it is, etcetera etcetera. But if that’s all it is, you would have just told him that you were sorry, that’s not your vibe but you were happy to be friends, and moved on. There’s more to this than you’ve told me.’

Shit. I should have known she’d see through me. I can practically hear her brain whirring.

‘Now I come to think about it,’ she continues after a while, ‘you’ve also said you didn’t intend to be single forever. So, if that’s the case, and Cameron is falling at your feet, why turn him down? I mean, we know you like him, and we definitely know you fancy him. He’s a decent guy and you seem to have a lot of fun together. What am I missing?’

It’s like she’s found a loose end on a knitted jumper and is pulling on it. The more she tugs, the more the carefully crafted self-defence I’ve hidden behind for so many years starts to unravel. I’m just not sure I’m ready to bring the truth back out into the open, let alone share it with her. Apart from the people involved at the time, I’ve never told a soul what happened; I can feel myself filling with shame and embarrassment just thinking about it. The problem is that, having suppressed my feelings for so many years, it feels a bit like I’m shaking a mental Coke bottle full of memories. Any moment now the cap is going to burst off and they’ll all come flooding out, making a hell of a mess in the process.

‘Something happened,’ Sam continues thoughtfully. ‘You were never short of boyfriends at school. Then you went away to uni, went out with Olly, and nothing since then. You dumped Olly, broke his heart, but you’ve never dated anyone since. Oh, shit!’

She turns to me with her eyes wide. ‘He didn’t, you know, lose his shit and harm himself or something, did he? I mean, I know you broke his heart and everything, but was it worse than that? Is this a guilt trip thing?’

The Coke bottle in my mind explodes, and I suddenly need to be alone. I dash into the bathroom, plonking myself on the loo and resting my head in my hands as I let my mind transport me back. Now that they’re free, the memories are running amok and it feels like it all happened yesterday.

‘Ruby.’ Sam’s voice comes from the other side of the door. Her tone is gentle and full of concern. ‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ I call. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’

What the hell am I going to tell her? With the benefit of hindsight, my reaction to the events back then seems totally disproportionate, but it didn’t feel disproportionate at the time. Do I really want to rake over the implosion of Olly’s and my relationship again? Do I actually have a choice? Maybe it’s time to come clean, with Sam at least. The prospect both drains and terrifies me, but I’m not sure I have the energy to keep up the lie any more. Time to face the music.

‘Blimey, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ Sam observes when I eventually rejoin her in the living room. ‘Do you want a glass of water?’

‘Please,’ I whisper. If nothing else, it will get rid of her for a few more moments so I can carry on trying to put my whirling thoughts in order. While she’s gone, I perch on the sofa with my legs curled up underneath me and my arms wrapped round my chest. As my therapist would have observed, my body language is full-on self-protection.

‘Here you are,’ Sam says, setting a glass on the table next to me.

‘Thanks,’ I reply, taking a sip. The water is cold and very welcome, and it’s all I can do not to swallow down the whole glass in one go.

‘So…?’ she prompts after I’ve had a few sips.

I sigh. ‘You’re partly right,’ I tell her. ‘It does stem from my break-up with Olly. But the story I’ve always told you isn’t quite true. I didn’t break his heart. He broke mine. In fact, he didn’t just break it. He smashed it into smithereens and stamped on the broken shards.’

She looks confused. ‘So why didn’t you say that all along?’

‘I, umm, didn’t take it very well.’ That’s the understatement of the year. The memories are fully formed now. ‘The truth is, I had a bit of a breakdown.’

‘You? But you’re the most together person I’ve ever met.’

‘I am now, thanks to shit tons of therapy.’

‘What happened?’

‘It was just before our finals; I was already under a lot of pressure, but I was handling it well, or so I thought. Olly and I were planning our future after university, and the idea of that kept me going. And then…’ I dry up.

‘And then?’ she prompts again.

‘And then he called me one afternoon and asked if he could pop by to see me. He sounded totally normal, so I didn’t suspect anything. I thought maybe he was bored revising, like I was, and needed a bit of distraction. Ha. I couldn’t have got that more wrong. As soon as I opened the door to him, I could tell something was up. He had this look on his face that I’d never seen before, and he actually dodged when I tried to kiss him. I asked him what was wrong, and it all came tumbling out. He was seeing someone else; he didn’t want a future with me after all. He called me clinging and needy, said having sex with me had become a chore. He told me I was draining him, holding him back. He said he hadn’t realised, and I quote, how “utterly fucking miserable” I made him until he’d started seeing this other girl.’

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