It took me far too long to get my keys in the door, and when I finally managed to force my way in, I flipped on the lights only to illuminate five years of happy memories lining our hallway. Holiday snaps, concert tickets, napkins from restaurants, postcards from holidays, everything we’d collected over the duration of our relationship, mounted, framed, hung, down to the receipt for the drinks on our first date. He’d kept that and given it to me the day we’d moved in together. There was no way this was actually happening.
Exhausted, I turned the light out and turned into the bedroom, kicking off my shoes and scrambling out of my vest and jeans as I went. I’d made the bed before I left, hoping to be falling into it with Simon and not tearstains and a scraped knee. Despite the fact that I’d been sleeping on my own for a few weeks, this was the first night since ‘the break’ that I’d felt lonely. This was the first time I was alone. I swapped my uncomfortable underwear for an old T-shirt of Simon’s that I kept hidden inside my pillowcase along with a dodgy old pair of boxer shorts that had no elastic left. I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling, Simon’s words buzzing through my brain as if I’d left the TV on. Sleep wasn’t coming but the most ridiculous things kept popping into my mind. My credit card payment was due. I still had two episodes of Glee to watch on Sky Plus and it was running out of memory. Tonight would be the first night I hadn’t washed my face in over four years. This was why I had to write lists. Regardless of my relationship status, no one wanted to work with a spotty make-up artist. I slid off the bed, hitching up the baggy boxers as I went.
In the hallway, I reached out to touch my favourite photo of us, taken at Emelie’s birthday the year before. Simon was laughing at something Matthew had said and I had my arms linked around his neck, my face leaning into his shoulder. He looked handsome, I didn’t look fat and we were happy. The perfect picture. I could feel the sobs building in my chest when I heard scuffling at the front door. Turning on the lights, I peered through the glass. It was Simon. I waited a couple of seconds, my mind completely empty, before I flipped the lock and swung the door open.
His left eye was already turning purple and, although someone had tried to clean him up, his nose was bloody and his lip was bust. Between his messed-up face and my seductive ensemble, this was so far removed from the perfect picture, I could have smiled. Could have.
‘The lock needs some WD-40 or something,’ I muttered, one hand holding up my shorts.
‘I’m sorry,’ Simon was still hovering outside the door.
‘Not your fault,’ I shrugged. ‘It’s been sticky for ages.’
‘No, I’m sorry,’ he said again.
I moved away from the door to let him in, my back pressed against the wall of photos. He paused right in front of me and opened his mouth to say something before changing his mind.
‘Simon?’
He stopped, turned around and looked me up and down.
‘Is that my T-shirt?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ I pulled at the frayed hem. ‘It’s comfy to sleep in.’
‘I thought you’d thrown it out,’ he replied.
Feeling my bottom lip start to tremble, I shook my head. I squeezed my toes and feigned a yawn so I could push back the tears.
‘Right,’ he said, his hands deep in his pockets.
I nodded. He just stood there, battered, bruised, miserable and staring at the shoes I’d never seen before. I knew I had to say something and say it now. By the morning, it would be over. Relationships like ours always died quietly in the night; we weren’t ones for violent, bloody deaths played out in public. Far too English for that. But my tongue was tied up with too many questions and my heart was already playing dead. Swallowing hard, I opened my mouth, no idea what was going to come out.
‘New shoes?’
For a moment, I really didn’t know what was happening, I was still staring at Simon’s shoes as they came over and then his arms were around me, his hot, damp face on mine. It wasn’t until I felt a picture frame digging into my shoulder blade that I realized we were kissing, that his hands were running up and down my back and then tangling themselves in my hair and back down again.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said into my hair. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Instinctively, my arms went up around his neck and my lips took his kisses on autopilot, but the sharp corner of the photo was still cutting into my back. It was only when he moved the kisses from my mouth down to my throat that I realized my eyes were open and my mind was completely quiet. What was wrong? This was the plan. Simon paused and looked up at me with a new expression on his face, half confused and half desperate to get his end away. I’d seen them both independently of each other enough times over the last five years but this was a new combo.
‘Rach?’ he panted. His concern was reasonable: firstly, kissing my neck was the surefire way to get into my pants, as he well knew; and secondly, I’d wanted this so badly for so long, I ought to be responding at least. Something was just off. ‘Rach, honest, I’m sorry.’
‘Stop. You can stop saying that,’ said a voice that sounded like mine. If he apologized, that meant he had something to apologize for and I couldn’t deal with that right now.
‘OK.’ He reached around my neck and scooped my hair over one shoulder, a gesture so familiar my stomach dropped through the floor. ‘OK.’
I nodded and closed my eyes when he leaned in to kiss me again. I kissed him back, trying not to hurt his split lip. But he didn’t care about his split lip. For the first time in a month, he wanted me, so I let him turn me towards the bedroom door, push me onto the bed and I felt the comfortable weight of his body on top of me. I didn’t need to think, I didn’t need to act, his hands started on their regular route around my body, lips making their way across my collarbone, my left leg curling up around his waist. I’d missed this so much. I’d missed him so much. My body should be screaming for him, not just reacting. It was just weird because it had been so long, that was all. And so I ignored the little voice in my head, intent on chanting ‘not the one, not the one, not the one’ over and over and over. Instead I closed my eyes and began playing my part. I had him back. And that was what I wanted. He was what I wanted. And he was mine again.
The next morning came like any other, the sun streaming in through the too-sheer curtains on the bedroom window that I never bought blackout curtains for, because Simon liked to wake up to natural light. And, as though he’d never been away, there he was beside me, that natural light illuminating his dark blond hair until it was almost golden. I lay on my side, a few inches away from him, just watching him sleep. Last night had been strange, I hadn’t been able to quite shake off the feeling that we should have talked before Simon jumped back into my bed, but this morning everything felt right. We were back on track. Whatever madness he’d been suffering, he was over it.
I turned onto my back, trying not to wake him and smiled to myself while I thought about my daily chores. Perhaps I could let myself off the list today: the post could wait at the post office until Monday and I’d get Matthew’s birthday card tomorrow. But I did need to go to the supermarket – we were out of everything. I slid off the bed, not budging the mattress, and grabbed last night’s jeans and tank top that were still lying in a sad puddle on the floor. I got dressed in the hallway, grabbing my phone, cash card, keys and a cardigan on my way out through the door, pausing just for a second to straighten the frame we’d dislodged the night before. Nothing was really aligned, but to see it there, cockeyed and nudging the next photo, made me come over all OCD. I put it back where it had been before but it still didn’t look right. Instead of fannying around and making too much noise, I took it down and propped it against the wall, making a mental note in my temporary to-do list to put it back up later on. After breakfast. After whatever Simon wanted to do today. I’d rewrite the list for tomorrow. OCD assuaged.
It was super-early for a Saturday