‘OK. Hun, I’m going to have to love you and leave you as Nathan’s just walked in.’
‘OK, chat tomorrow. Oh, really quickly, before you go. Did you know Melissa was back working at Carrington’s?’ Sam always hears what’s going on, from the café.
‘Yes, apparently she didn’t like it at the prison – too many psychopaths for her liking, said she found it very hard not to want to fight them. You know how she’s into all that ninja warrior stuff … ’ We both laugh. Typical Mel.
We end the call and I make my way into the bathroom, smiling to myself at Sam’s comments. She’s such a queen of hearts, always trying to pair me up, ever the romantic. I turn on the bath taps and plop in my favourite vanilla-scented Lush bath bomb and take off my clothes, carefully hanging the dress and jacket on the back of the door, which I’ve left ajar, so the steam doesn’t ruin them.
I’ve submerged my body into the blissfully warm water and relaxed for a few minutes, when my mobile vibrates across the vanity unit next to the bath. After drying a hand on a towel, I reach for the phone and turn it over to see the screen.
And I don’t believe it.
It’s a text message.
From Tom! Just like that.
Seems Sam was right – let him go and he’ll come back …
I hurl myself up into a sitting position. Water splashes everywhere. My heart soars as I press to see the message. At last! Maybe he has been missing me. Maybe Eddie was right and KCTV engineered the horse-riding scene. Tom isn’t interested in Valentina at all. It was just for show. Of course it was. And he’s not interested in Zara, why would he be when he has me? I’ve been an absolute fool. Maybe he genuinely thought I’d love doing the show, a nice surprise, and to be honest … I’m not exactly hating it. I should never have doubted him. Or what we have together. He just needed a bit of time to get his head straight and now he wants to sort things out. All that rubbish about calling it a day – it was said in the heat of the argument, nothing more.
I’m so excited. Everything’s going to be wonderful after all. We’ll spend Christmas together and it’s going to be amazing. It will be all of the gorgeous romantic things we talked about. Hot chocolate. Tartan rugs by the fire. Bing singing in the background. There’s still time to find a log cabin. I could get on Lastminute.com. I can not wait. I read the message.
Yes I have moved on! I’m with somebody else now so stop stalking me, or you’ll lose your job too.
Stunned! I sit motionless in the water staring at the screen. Saliva drains from my mouth. Silent tears trickle down my cheeks. Is that what he thinks of me? A stalker! Oh God. How hideous. I feel like utter rubbish – humiliated too. Nauseous even. I’ve never been called a stalker before. And I’ve never seen this side of him. It’s horrible. I don’t believe it. And I don’t know what to do. And he has somebody else. A sob catches in my throat. Who is she? Valentina or Zara? And how can he be so callous? He knows how much my job at Carrington’s means to me. I stare again at the message. I type out a reply. I delete it. I type another reply. I delete it. And I type another. I delete it too. A hideous cold trickle of realisation seeps through me. This is it! Over. Really over. So he meant it after all. I can’t contact him again. Not now. Not ever. Because if I do, then his words will be true – a stalker! A bunny boiler. Whatever spin you want to put on it. And nobody wants to be likened to a looper who shoves a rabbit in a saucepan and freaks everyone out.
After what feels like an eternity, I place the phone back on the vanity unit and pull my knees up under my chin, wrapping my arms around my legs, I hug them into me. I’m shaking all over. I guess I really did get him completely wrong. I feel like such a fool. And then it occurs to me – this is like Brett all over again. I‘ve been dumped for another woman. For all I know, Tom could have already had his sights on Valentina – he did say he had a Skype meeting with a foreign supplier the morning after our hat trick; maybe it was with her. My mind races, mentally scouring our time together, searching for clues of his infidelity. Cold, miserable tears trickle down my face, slowly at first, but fast now, and they won’t stop. My chest heaves, in and out, until I’m sobbing uncontrollably.
Eventually, I manage to calm down. The water is cold, I feel trembly and weak with emotional exhaustion – euphoric elation, quickly followed by crashing devastation, does that, I guess. I manage to haul myself out of the bath and scrub myself dry before pulling on my oldest pair of Disney-themed fleecy pyjamas. They’re practically threadbare, with a hole at the knee and a button missing – but what does it matter, it’s not like I have an actual boyfriend to impress any more … just a fake date, and a list of Facebook strangers who are probably only interested because I’m on the telly.
Feeling numb now, and very sorry for myself, I grab my phone and quickly delete Tom’s message. I can’t bear to read it ever again. Then I delete every single one of his other messages – even the ones from the start, where we joked together, where he flirted, where he asked if I fancied having lunch with him, where he thanked me for a lovely evening, right through to his actual numbers – home and mobile. Until it’s as if he never existed in my phone, or my life at all. And then the penny drops – no wonder he wanted me to have Mr Cheeks, he bloody knew he was going away, he must have been talking and planning with KCTV for months. Well, I get the message, Tom! I hear you. Loud and clear.
I head into my bedroom and slump down on the bed, wondering what to do next. I try to think straight. The shock is subsiding into anger now. If I look at this rationally, then I haven’t done anything wrong, not really. All I did was ask him why he didn’t tell me about the filming. And he can’t blame me for retaliating when he said he wanted to call it a day. OK, I’ve tried to contact him a few times since, and yes, I did send a drunken text – well, seven times, to be precise! But then who hasn’t done that when they’ve had a few too many buck’s fizzes while trying to heal a broken heart? It’s not a crime. It’s not illegal. Because if it was, then the prisons would all be high-rise tower blocks, or makeshift cells would have to be set up all over the place, in sports halls, aircraft hangers and suchlike. They’d have to utilise those empty retail units down in the pedestrianised part of town, stack bunk beds in and install communal showers. And that would be totally ridiculous.
I turn my phone over and over in my hands, until I come to the realisation that I’m stronger now than I was after the split with Brett. I’m not going to sit around moping and worrying about what might have been with Tom. And I’m sure as hell not going to the wrap party on my own like some saddo, not while Tom’s there whooping it up with his new ‘somebody’. Eddie was right, I need to dive straight back into the dating pool. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
I take a deep breath before letting out a big long puff, and scroll through my contacts list until I find the number. It rings twice before he answers.
‘Georgie. Hi, how are you?’
‘Not bad thanks. How are you?’ I say, doing my best to sound assured and breezy, even though I still feel wobbly inside.
‘Good, much better for hearing from you.’
I brush away the last of the tears and swallow hard, remembering Sam’s words from our conversation earlier, which seems like an eternity ago now.
‘I was wondering about us getting together. And if the offer still stands, then I’d love to, Dan.’
It turns out that the council have had to scrap their plans for an ice rink in the centre of town. Sam found out from Mandy, who works in the town hall. She came in for her weekly chocolate orange cupcake with banoffee coffee and told Sam all about it – not enough funds left after their budget was slashed, apparently. But Mandy also said