Page 12 of Love, Academically
“Jason might be looking,” he replied simply. If he was going to be a fake boyfriend, he was going to damn well do it properly.
Lila
Lila was comfortable with Rhys’s arm around her, but she couldn’t push away that crushing self-doubt that always came after a conversation with Jason. The ‘don’t do too much’, ‘you know how you get’, ‘you can’t cope’. It had been true, she couldn’t cope when she had been with him. She couldn’t have taken this new job in the History Department, she justcouldn’t. Past tense.
“What did that knob want?” Jasmeet asked, as soon as Lila had taken a fortifying gulp of wine. “Does he not have a girlfriend to get back to?”
“Oh, you know,” Lila said, waving a dismissive hand. “Just to say hi. He’s worried about me, am I sleeping enough, I look tired – you know, the usual,”
“I don’t think you look tired,” Rhys said with a frown. Bless him.
“And?” Jasmeet knew Jason all too well.
Lila sighed. “He doesn’t know who this ‘Rhys’ guy is, and is worried whether he’s good enough for me,” Rhys choked a little on his drink. “Jason just feels that I shouldn’t overstretch myself with this new job.”
“Fuck boy over there deservesmy heel up his arse,” Jasmeet said, knocking back another shot. “What a dick. Why can’t he just bugger off and leave you alone?”
Lila knew better than to argue with Jasmeet. But Jason was only trying to look out for her, perhaps out of guilt, but now they’d broken up, it felt misplaced. She’d put herself and her life back together in this past year and a half after Jason. New house, new car, new job, new clothes. New, happy, positive, Technicolour Lila.
“He’s your ex, right?” Dan asked. “I bet his girlfriend isn’t best pleased that he’s running over here to talk to you.”
“Probably not.” Lila cringed. God, what must Leanne think? Probably that Lila was so desperate and so much of a mess that she needed Saviour Jason to come and make sure she was okay.
“I bet he told that skank that he is the only one who can help you and that he needs to keep an eye out after whathedid,” Jasmeet said, shaking her head. “Wanker.”
“What did he do?” Rhys asked, and she caught Dan shake his head slightly at her fake boyfriend. “Oh, am I not supposed to ask?”
Rhys looked between her and Dan quickly, confused.
Lila reassured him with a smile. “No, it’s fine.” She bumped him slightly with her shoulder. “He cheated on me with Leanne for about a year.” She shrugged again.
Rhys’s frown deepened. “Why would anyone do that? If you don’t want to be with someone, you split up with them.”
She looked at him. It was so black and white for Rhys, and she didn’t know how to explain it. Not that she shouldhaveto explain Jason’s reasoning. Actually, Rhys was one hundred percent right. If you didn’t want to be with someone, you break up. The end.
“He didn’t want to split up with her because Lila was supporting him through his medical qualifications. She was working two jobs so he could ‘study’, supported his lazy ass, paid all the rent, and then—” Jasmeet shut her mouth quickly with a snap. “Sorry Lila, it’s your story to tell. That man just grips my shit.”
“It’s okay, Jas.” Lila swallowed. “We were together for years and years, from university, and Jasmeet is right. I supported him throughout his medical training, then it was supposed to be his turn to support me to go back to university to do a postgrad.”
Rhys nodded, eyes pinned on her.
“He was on student rotation at the hospital over my birthday one year, so Jasmeet and Maddy—”
“Who’s Maddy?” Rhys interrupted. “The lady on the phone?”
“Yeah. So Jasmeet and Maddy took me out to a posh restaurant. We were just about to start our main course when Jason walks in with Leanne, arm around her, kissing her. There was no way they weren’t together. Turns out it was her birthday as well.” Lila smiled sadly. “What are the odds, eh? Two women, same birthday?”
She’d replayed the moment she’d seen them over and over in her mind, especially in the first few months after Jason had moved out and before she’d moved to a house closer to the university. She’d replayed it so many times that the sharpness had faded and it lost its colour, like an old VHS tape. Sometimes there were replays of things that hadn’t happened; throwing her drink over Jason, making all the scathing arguments that she thought of three days after the fact, sweeping out of the restaurant on the arm of a dashing young man.
What actually happened was that Jasmeet had thrown her drink over Jason, Maddy had laid into him, and she had slunk out of the restaurant into the late March rain and waited in the taxi rank by herself.
The stabbing pain whenever she thought about him with Leanne had dulled into a slight ache, and then, after a few more months, into nothingness. She mourned her time with Jason, but not because of him, but because ofher. She’d wasted so much time supporting him, living for him, that it had been difficult to find herself again. They’d been together for so long, it was hard to know who she was without him.
“Oh,” Rhys said, and there was little else for him to say.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that, Lila,” Dan said, those sparkling eyes settling on her earnestly.
She smiled at him across the table. “That’s kind of you to say, Dan.”
