Page 79 of Hook, Line and Single

‘Bastard!’ Sam exclaims. ‘And you didn’t have a clue this was coming?’

‘Nope. I was completely blindsided. And you know what the worst part was? He actually seemed to be enjoying trashing me. Here was this boy that I loved with all my heart, that I thought I was going to build a life with, maybe even marry, being so cruel and looking like he was getting pleasure from it. I don’t know how long he spent sitting there telling me all the ways in which I wasn’t good enough for him, but it felt like I was standing in a boxing ring while he punched me in the face over and over again. And then, when he was done, he simply got up and walked out. I felt like my world had been torn apart, but that was just the beginning.’ Now that I’ve started to tell the story, the words are pouring out of me like a torrent. I couldn’t stop them if I tried.

‘When the initial shock started to wear off, I tried to call him, to reason with him, but he’d blocked my number already, so I went round to his house.’

‘Uh-oh,’ Sam murmurs. ‘I have a suspicion I know where this is going. She answered the door, right?’

‘Close. He answered, but she was right behind him. It looked like I’d disturbed them in the middle of sex. So not only had he seemingly taken pleasure in ruining my life, he’d hotfooted it straight back home for a celebratory fuck with my replacement.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I completely lost it. I screamed, I called him every name under the sun, I think I called her a few choice things too. None of it made any difference, of course. They just stood there while I ranted and, when I paused to draw breath, Olly smiled – the bastard actually smiled – and said, “You’re making a fool of yourself, Ruby. Go home,” and closed the door. I realised I’d played right into his hands. Bastard probably got a power kick out of it. If he wasn’t fucking new girl before I arrived, I’d lay money that he fucked her after I left. I was totally humiliated.’

‘Where is he now?’ Sam asks. ‘I’m going to find him and kill him.’

‘I don’t know. My therapist and I agreed it would be best if I didn’t look for him. Anyway, you’d think that would have been the end of it, wouldn’t you. I go away, lick my wounds and eventually move on. But Olly wasn’t having that. He was enjoying my humiliation far too much. He knew my regular haunts, my routines, and he made sure he and his new girlfriend were in my face wherever I went. It was like he was taunting me. In the end, I stopped going out unless I absolutely had to. I got paranoid about seeing them, convinced they’d be round every corner. I was on a downward spiral. I even contemplated suicide at one point. I stockpiled paracetamol and bought a big bottle of vodka, but thankfully that was as far as I went.’

Sam’s reaction is instant. She pulls me into her as the tears start to fall once more. ‘You poor, poor baby,’ she soothes, stroking my hair. I really want to stop telling the story now, but I’m not done. Now I’ve started, it all has to come out. I gently pull away from her and take another sip of my water.

‘It was Helen, one of my housemates, who decided to intervene. Without telling me, she rang my mum and said she was worried about me. Mum arrived the next day, took one look at me, and that was that. By that stage, I wasn’t even washing, just hanging around in my pyjamas when I wasn’t lying in bed feeling sorry for myself. Apparently, and I only found this out a long time later, I absolutely stank. Mum sent me straight upstairs to shower and wash my hair, laid out clean clothes for me and then took me out and made me eat a proper meal. She obviously found the vodka and the pills because I noticed they were gone when I came down from the shower, but she never mentioned it. She was brilliant. She dropped everything and stayed with me while I sat my finals. As soon as the last exam was done, she took me home and enrolled me with a therapist.’

‘Thank God for Helen and your mum,’ Sam says. ‘Why didn’t I notice any of this?’

‘You went off travelling immediately after you finished uni,’ I remind her. ‘I deliberately hid it from you because I knew you wouldn’t have gone if you were worried about me.’

‘Of course I wouldn’t have gone!’

‘Which is why I didn’t tell you. And then it just became easier not to tell you, so I changed the story and told it for so long I actually started to believe it myself. Anyway,’ I say, suddenly exhausted by letting this all out, ‘the therapist helped me to regain my perspective before eventually signing me off. I started to move on, but not before I’d made a solemn promise to myself.’

‘No more men,’ Sam murmurs.

‘No more men,’ I agree. ‘And it was working just fine until Cameron fucked it all up this afternoon.’

28

After my revelations, Sam and I sat on the sofa together in silence for a long time. I was immersed in my memories, and I imagine she was digesting what I’d told her. At some point, Samson had wandered in and curled up between us. It was obvious that neither of us was in the mood to cook, so Sam ordered a pizza for us to pick at and we’re now back on the sofa, nursing two enormous glasses of white wine. She doesn’t seem at all upset about the fact that I’ve lied to her about something so big for all these years, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. I feel raw, and dealing with her hurt and anger would have been very hard on top of everything I’ve shared this evening.

‘Can I ask something controversial?’ she asks, puncturing the silence.

‘You can ask whatever you like. I don’t have anything left to hide.’

‘Do you think it might be an idea to go back into therapy for a bit?’

I’m caught by surprise. ‘Why?’

‘I was just thinking it all through. You’ve ruled out another relationship because you’re scared you’ll lose control again if it all goes wrong, correct?’

‘It’s not that, so much. I’m not that person any more, and I’m not under the same pressures, but I guess I’ve protected myself for so long that it’s become second nature.’

‘But I hope you’d agree that you can’t carry on that way forever. You have so much to give in a relationship, and you deserve to be happy. And this is me talking, by the way. I think we can both agree that I have a master’s degree in failed relationships, so I know my stuff.’

I smile weakly. ‘You do have a strong dickhead count,’ I agree. ‘But now you’ve found Robin, and I think we can agree that I actually hold the top trump card for dickheads, don’t I?’

‘Yes, but here’s the thing. I don’t think it’s the dickheads you’re scared of, not that Cameron is a dickhead. It’s how you re-programme yourself to let your guard back down. That’s why I asked about therapy. It seems to me that your previous therapist helped you to close the door on Olly, and that’s good. But, in the process, you’ve closed the door on everyone, and it’s been closed for so long that the lock has rusted up and you’ve lost the key.’

I take a slurp of my wine. ‘Maybe I’m like Sleeping Beauty. I just need the right prince to cut down the jungle and force open the door.’

‘That’s a shit analogy, because the right prince was here today with his garden shears and you sent him packing. Unfortunately for you, no prince is going to be able to fix this. You have to fix it yourself.’

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