Page 3 of CowSex
I stare down into the cushion that is resting in my lap. A tear of defeat falls from my eye and lands on the grey fabric, causing a dark splodge to spread through the fibres. I attempt to control the tremble in my voice and the quiver to my lips as I whisper very quietly, “Summer’s too late for us, Reg. November was too late if we’re honest. We should’ve taken the time to put things right two or three years ago….”
“You don’t mean that, Grace. We’re okay. We’re good together. We’ve both been busy building our careers. I’m pretty much at the top of my game, so now you can slow down, and we can start planning a wedding and maybe kids if that’s what you want?”
“No, it’s not what I want, not now. We’re broken, Reg. Broken beyond repair. Marriage would be pointless, and I would never bring a child into the middle of what we’ve got.”
He moves from where he’s sitting on the edge of the armchair and joins me on the sofa. I watch him move. Watch as his arm reaches out and as his hand cups the side of my face, his thumb brushing over my cheekbone, swiping away my tears.
“I love you, Grace. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this right, to get us back on track.”
“Then take a month off work and come away with me to the cabin I’ve booked for us in Colorado. Spend a month with me, fixingus, makingusbetter.”
I know what his answer is gonna be as soon as his shoulders drop, his hand falls away from my face, and he exhales a short puff of air.
“I can’t.”
“Then we’re done.”
“MAYIHAVE ANOTHER GLASSof wine please?”
“Of course, Ms Elliott, it’s the cabernet sauvignon, correct?”
“Yes please.” I smile up at the stewardess as I reply and settle back into my seat, hoping I didn’t sound anywhere near as drunk as I actually am.
She returns a moment later with a fresh glass and tops it up from the bottle in her hand. I thank her, and she smiles, disappears, and then returns with a basket filled with bags of nuts, crisps, and pretzels. I take a bag of plain crisps and place them on the tray table at the side of my seat.
I couldn’t get a refund on the airline ticket I’d booked for Reggie, so I was determined to get my money’s worth out of the four grand I’d spent on my seat in business class by drinking as much wine as possible. The only problem is, I’m picking up a car when I get to the other end, so I have to get all of my alcohol consumption in at the beginning of the ten and a half hour flight. Hopefully, I’ll spend the second half of the journey sleeping it off and wake up fresh as a daisy, ready to take on the mountains of Colorado once we land. That’s the plan anyway.
We are three hours into the flight, and I am on my fifth glass of wine. “I wish they’d just leave me the bottle, so I didn’t have to keep asking,” I mumble to myself as I take a sip from my tiny, half glass of wine.
The woman sitting beside me aims a sympathetic smile my way. Fumes that scream ‘sad, broken, loser’ must be emanating from my pores, so best I drink quicker then and replace them with plain, old alcohol.
I open the fun-sized bag of crisps and tuck into them, too. We’ve already been served dinner, or lunch, depending on which time zone you’re basing it on. The food, which was a delicious four-course meal of smoked salmon and caper salad, Moroccan spiced chicken on a bed of couscous and roasted vegetables, a choice of dessert from the cart, and cheese and biscuits, was top bloody notch, considering it was plane food.
Since the split between Reggie and I two months ago, I have had zero appetite. The whole thing has been fantastic for my waistline, which has gone down two sizes, but I doubt it will last. Since boarding the plane, I’ve been ravenous, troughing out on anything that’s been offered.
I feel like a huge weight has finally been lifted from my chest, and that for the first time in months…. maybe years, I’m finally able to breathe again.
The last couple of months have been horrible. Absolute shit.
We’ve both remained living in our flat. I knew that I was going to be leaving and couldn’t get another place to live on a short-term lease.
Reggie hasn’t even mentioned either of us moving out, and after I’d slept in the spare bedroom two nights in a row, he’d actually asked me if it was a permanent thing.
He’d then graciously offered to let me keep the master suite, claiming that I had a lot more shit than he did and moving his stuff out would be easier.
This was very true, and so I accepted his offer feeling like even more of a bitch for calling this whole thing on.
Was it really such a bad thing that he loved his job more than me?
Things had remained amicable between us, just awkward. We hadn’t actually argued once since the decision was made.
Then about four weeks ago, Reggie stopped coming home on the weekends. I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt. It did. The first two weekends in a row, I’d laid in bed, wondering who he was with and what they were up to. Then I stalked his social media, looking for clues, but he hadn’t posted a single thing since the day before our split.
Even though I was the one who ended things, I still felt sick to my stomach the morning I found a shirt of his soaking in the sink in our utility room. The remnants of makeup still smudged all over it.
I had a breakfast meeting in West London that morning and had been up a couple of hours earlier than usual and probably wasn’t meant to see it. I pretended I didn’t and left for work without even making myself a coffee.
Despite this, Reggie still tried talking me out of our breakup and attempted to convince me more than once that we were good together and should try to work things out.
