How to Get Over Your Ex

by Nikki Logan

  Float tanks, hypnosis, Bowen therapy—she tried something new every week for months. And nothing helped quite like the moment Zander walked into her class. The precious seconds before her brain reminded her not to get so excited. For those few breaths all the tension drained from her body.

  She lived for those moments.

  His garden was progressing, he’d told her one week, before passing her his phone to have a look at the design that flourished under the care of his landscaper. Irrational, blazing envy tormented her that she didn’t get to prune it or mow it or love it herself.

  But she just smiled and said, ‘That’s great,’ and handed the phone back.

  Another week he played her the completed Cappadocia segment and her heart squeezed both for the memories of Turkey and for the sublimely neutral expression on his face. Totally untroubled.

  She equally envied and grew infuriated by his lack of concern.

  Turning it off like that was a gift. Just not a very nice one.

  ‘Nice shot,’ Zander murmured, off to one side as a helper ran in and pried her arrow from the target.

  Nice condescension, she thought. But aloud she only thanked him. She lined up another arrow. The Amazons must have had some serious upper-body muscles because doing this just once a week had given her a perpetual muscle ache in her chest.

  Unless that was just her heart.

  ‘To the left,’ he murmured from her right side. She ignored him. ‘Your left, not my left.’

  She lowered her bow and turned. ‘Seriously, Zander? You’re going to back-seat drive?’

  ‘Here...’

  He stepped in behind her and told her to assume the firing position. Then he slid one hand along her extended bow arm and curled the other around her pulled back firing arm. And he reoriented her the tiniest bit to the left.

  ‘Just a smidge.’

  ‘Is that a professional archery measure?’ she muttered through tight teeth.

  His laugh was a puff of warm air against her ear and her whole neck broke out in gooseflesh.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘You know this because of your many years of competition in the sport.’ At the very last second she realised he could have archery experience. It was a solo enough sport to be right up his alley.

  ‘I miss you,’ he said, as though that was exactly what they’d just been talking about. And maybe they had.

  ‘You miss the sex.’

  ‘No. I could get that anywhere.’ Charming. ‘I miss you. I miss your conversation and your snark. I just wanted to feel you. Just for a moment.’

  She stood stiff and unyielding in his arms. It was the hardest thing she’d ever had to do. Even her eyes didn’t waver from the target across the room. ‘And have you had your fill of feeling me up?’

  ‘George—’

  The way he said her name...it caused her bow arm to tremble. She forced it to stillness.

  ‘—do you have to drag it down to such a level?’

  ‘What level should it be at? You’re not interested in a relationship but you’re not above a bit of casual sport at my expense?’

  His arms dropped. Not scorched, but definitely not relaxed. ‘I hate this.’

  ‘Not my fault. You set the rules.’

  ‘I don’t recall making any rules.’

  ‘By implication.’ She lowered her bow. There was no way it was safe to fire an arrow while she was this distracted. But she didn’t turn around. ‘Or have you changed your mind about relationships?’

  ‘Why can’t we just...feel our way?’

  She turned. ‘Are you asking me on a date?’

  Instantly he stiffened. ‘I’m... No. Aren’t we a bit beyond dates?’

  ‘So you’re asking me just to sleep with you at your request?’

  His brow folded. ‘No. George—’

  ‘You’re offering me sex with no commitment, Zander,’ she pointed out. ‘And that can’t work.’

  And, astonishingly, she saw clearly for the first time why.

  But he couldn’t. ‘Why not?’

  An insane kind of lightness flooded her. ‘Because I know who I am, now. And I know why I proposed to Dan.’ Even though it had been unconscious. To bring his lack of commitment to a head. And sure enough the very next relationship she walked into was the same. Worse.

  ‘What’s Dan got to do with this?’

  ‘Nothing. And everything. Dan had a dozen little ways of keeping me at emotional arm’s length. You have a hundred.’

  He lowered his head.

  ‘I don’t want to beg and scrounge for scraps of emotional intimacy,’ she said. ‘I’m worth more than that.’

  ‘No one’s going to promise you a ring before you even begin exploring who you are as a couple, George.’

  His words cut deep. But she stayed strong. ‘You’ve ruled a commitment out right from the start. Why would I set myself up for that?’

  ‘Because of what we have?’

  ‘What do we have? Cracking chemistry? Intellectual compatibility?’ She started packing up her gear. ‘You’re either condemning me to still be waiting for you to throw me a bone when I’m eighty or a courteous breakup in two years when you tire of me. Either way I lose.’

  ‘You’re losing now.’

  It wasn’t conceit. She absolutely was losing. ‘I’m cutting my losses.’

  ‘So that’s it? New improved Georgia wants all or nothing?’

  ‘No.’ She looked up at him. ‘I definitely want it all. But I’ll choose nothing if I have to.’

  He stared, thinking. ‘Maybe I’ll change my mind?’

  ‘Really, Zander? Based on what? Give me some criteria for what will mean you can get over what happened to you in the past.’

  His lips thinned.

  ‘Because otherwise you’re expecting me to just limp along hoping I’m being the kind of girlfriend that a man like you changes his mind for. That I’m saying the right things, doing the right things, wearing the right things. Dying a thousand deaths every time I find that maybe I’m not.’

  ‘George—’

  ‘I’m not negotiating, Zander, I’m explaining. I’m telling you why I’m choosing nothing, because everything is not on the cards with you.’

  He hissed his displeasure.

  She took a long breath. ‘I’ll come back for the Valentine’s show but you should have enough audio to carry you through Christmas and January. I’m done rediscovering myself. I’m done with classes.’

  ‘You still have twenty thousand left—’

  ‘You can keep the change.’

  In more ways than one.

  ‘Wait...’ But he had nothing to say after that.

  She took a breath. Took a chance. Exhausted from holding it in. And lying to herself. ‘I love you, Zander. I love your dedication to your sport, I love your hermit ways, I love your big, pointless garden, and the joy I saw on your face in Turkey. I want it all with you. What are you going to do about it?’

  His eyes flared. He stared.

  But said nothing.

  Her heart crumpled inwards as if it were vacuum sealed. ‘And there we go.’

  She picked up her bag and moved to the door. He stopped her with a hand on her arm. Gentle. Uncertain.

  ‘So that’s it? I’m not going to see you again?’

  ‘Isn’t that how you prefer your life? As empty as your house? Surely it must be easier to keep yourself from forming relationships that way.’ She curled her fingers around his. ‘This isn’t judgement, Zander. This is my choice.’

  He stared, then dropped his eyes to her fingers as she used them to unclasp his from her arm.

  ‘Goodbye, Zander. Good luck.’

  And then she walked out. Straight. Steady.

  Just as an arrow through the heart should be.

  ELEVEN

  February

  There was only so much thermal a man could wear and still run comfortably. February meant he moved most of his outdoor exploits indoors. He hit the treadmill inst
ead of the highways, and he did endless laps of his grand staircase and reacquainted himself with his friendly neighbourhood indoor-climbing facility in lieu of hiking.

  It kept his event fitness up and his time occupied. In body if not in spirit.

  ‘Mr Rush,’ the guy belaying his stack said. He’d been coming here every winter for the last six years but still he was Mr Rush to them all. He’d never invited them to call him anything else.

  It’s Zander...he imagined saying.

  How hard could that be to say? Just a few short syllables. But the words were an overture for something else, something he wasn’t in a hurry to have. Acquaintances. God forbid, friends. You told a guy your Christian name one week and you were helping him move house the next.

  Georgia had accused him of having a hundred ways of keeping her at an emotional distance. Maybe that kind of thinking was just one of them. Most people would be too polite to push past that kind of passive resistance. And only some people had what it took to sneak past it.

  Georgia had it. Straight in under his skin. Between his ribs. Into his thoracic cavity where his heart hung out.

  He’d never imagined that having all his time back just for himself would be such a burden. He’d whinged long and hard to Casey about Georgia’s endless classes, the impost on his time, and she’d tutted and said all the things a boss liked to hear—Yes, Mr Rush. I’ll see to it, Mr Rush—yet, somehow they’d snuck up on him and started to feel normal. So that when they were gone he felt...

  Bereft.

  As if a part of him were missing. Yet it was much bigger than the sum total of the hours he’d put in at class.

  He smiled at his spotter as he finished fixing his rigging. ‘Thanks, Roger.’

  See...Roger. How hard was that? But still he didn’t say it. Call me Zander.

  He forced his mind off his bloody social skills and onto the stack ahead of him. Newcomers climbed the left—hard but civilised—regulars got the fierce alignment. A good brutal climb was definitely in order.

  It worked for about six minutes. People thought the point of indoor climbing was to spider monkey up the fastest, like some kind of country-fair attraction. For a free stuffed elephant. To him, the point of indoor climbing was stamina and endurance. Taking it slow and making it hard. Making it hurt.

  Pain had a way of putting everything else into perspective.

  Except today. Today it wasn’t working.

  Isn’t that how you prefer your life? she’d said. As empty as your house?

  No, actually it wasn’t. He liked it quiet. He liked it predictable and undemanding. But he didn’t actually choose empty. Empty chose him. When you worked as hard and as long as he did, when you had the kind of responsibility the network had entrusted him with and the kind of income they offered, then there really wasn’t a lot of room for anything but empty.

  Of course Georgia would have called those excuses. She would have asked him what he really wanted to do with his life and then challenged him to do it. No matter what.

  Which kind of relied on him knowing what he wanted to do. And he had no idea.

  He just knew what he was doing now definitely wasn’t it.

  His hand slipped on a misplaced transfer and he slammed hard against the wall, braced only on one foot peg, two fingers taking his entire weight.

  Now wasn’t it. The network wasn’t it. EROS wasn’t it.

  The enormous gulf those missing classes had left started to make some sense. He’d enjoyed those. A lot. Recording the experiences, capturing people’s stories. He’d exercised creative muscles that he’d let wither over the past corporate decade. He’d plucked remembered strands from something he’d been passionate about before the network. Before Lara.

  His roots.

  And audio production was a thousand miles from what he was doing now. What he’d grown rich and famous on.

  What he’d grown empty on.

  He tried not to imagine his big empty house, because every time he did the same thing happened. He saw it full of life, and colour.

  And Georgia.

  She’d planted the seeds of herself as surely in his imagination as she did plants in her garden. And she’d grown there, like some kind of invasive creeper vine. Tangling. Binding.

  Bonding.

  Until he could barely separate the reality of what he was left with from the fantasy of his imagination.

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  A grunt to his left drew him out of his self-obsessed focus. How long had he been hanging here, not moving? Roger knew him too well to think he was in difficulty, but while he was off absorbed in fanciful thoughts another climber had managed to get fully rigged and halfway up the wall. Albeit the easier configuration.

  He turned to look at the new guy and nearly lost his finger hold again.

  Bradford.

  No question. He’d been in enough newspaper articles and on enough gossip sites to be recognisable anywhere. Even sweaty and bulging on a rockface. However simulated.

  An insane rage overcame him.

  This man had rejected Georgia. She gifted him her unique heart—she risked and exposed herself—and this guy thought himself too good for her. He hadn’t fought for her when she ended it and he’d wasted no time in picking up with someone new once he was free to.

  Bradford glanced at him, frowning, and then very purposefully climbed ahead.

  Every hormone in Zander’s body urged him to speak. To demand Bradford justify himself. Explain in what universe hurting the most gentle, courageous woman on the planet was acceptable. Except then he remembered that he’d done effectively the same thing and much more recently.

  Rejected her.

  Returned the gift of her love. Unopened.

  Let her go without a fight.

  And he realised that Bradford was no more suited to for ever with a woman like Georgia than he was. And no more worthy.

  He signalled Roger, below, leaned back, and zipped to the floor. He fumbled his way out of the climbing gear in his haste and left it where it lay.

  And he got the hell out of there before he asked Bradford the only thing he really wanted to know.

  How did you get over her?

  * * *

  A year.

  An entire year had gone past since she’d last sat in EROS’ broadcast studios. Actually, it wasn’t the same studio, it was a twin, the mirror image of the one through the tinted glass that she’d first sprinted from twelve months ago when Dan turned her proposal down.

  Back then she’d thought that nothing could be worse than standing in the elevator with the aghast curiosity of the station’s entire staff directed at her, begging the doors to close.

  But coming back in here, today, was infinitely worse.

  Back into Zander’s territory.

  The man she hadn’t seen for over two months. A man she’d longed for over Christmas and cried for at New Year and absolutely dreaded seeing as Valentine’s Day approached.

  A day of love and celebration.

  Ugh.

  ‘Can I offer you a coffee?’ the segment producer said.

  Yes. A warm drink would take the February chill from her fingers even if it couldn’t do anything for the one in her heart. She knew because she’d been trying these past months. ‘Tea, please?’

  The producer shot a look at the teenaged girl by her side and she scarpered off to make Georgia’s tea, flushing.

  ‘Work experience,’ the producer grunted, tossing her hair.

  Dogsbody, Georgia thought and instantly sided with the kid.

  ‘Have a seat,’ the woman said, and then, as Georgia sat, she added, ‘So you were sent the questions?’

  ‘Yes.’ And she had notes for her answers. ‘What was the best activity? What will I be keeping up after today? What did I learn from my year?’

  ‘If there’s anything off-script you’d like to add, you can go for it.’

  Anything about Dan, she meant. The station was as good as their word—he’d not been
mentioned since she first signed the contract.

  ‘If it comes up,’ she agreed. But nothing more. She wasn’t going to be pressured on her last moments under EROS’ power.

  ‘I’ve heard Zander’s final segment,’ the producer said. ‘It’s good.’

  Georgia tried not to stiffen at the mere mention of his name.

  ‘Speak of the devil...’ one of the announcers murmured without the slightest change in facial expression and she did stiffen, then. Fully. But turning to look would have been too obvious.

  The producer also pretended not to notice his arrival in the studio next to theirs, but her eyes flicked briefly to the darkened glass behind Georgia. ‘Great. Nothing like being watched to improve performance,’ she muttered while slightly diverting her face.

  The announcer laughed.

  The disrespect at Zander’s expense irked Georgia. She might have cut all ties with him but this was their boss they were sniggering about. A decent—if complicated—man, with a tough job to do.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the producer said, misreading her face and leaning in to pretend to adjust Georgia’s headset. ‘He can’t hear us until I press the button. Soundproof.’

  ‘Then you’d better hope he can’t lip-read,’ she murmured.

  Defending him was strangely pleasurable. Was she that desperate for a connection between them? Walking in here today was fifty per cent pain and fifty per cent anticipation that she might find him standing in the hallway.

  Where she’d first seen him.

  But no, he’d been predictably absent.

  Until now.

  ‘Guess he’s more interested than usual because they’re his segments.’ The producer tried to cover her gaffe.

  Or he just wanted to see her without being seen.

  Hopeless optimist.

  ‘Have I got time to go to the Ladies’?’ Georgia asked, out of nowhere, then tried to add veracity to her lie. ‘Nervous pee.’

  The producer huffed. They’d just got her settled and all wired up. ‘If you’re quick.’

  She scooted up out of her seat and crossed to the door without paying the tinted glass the slightest attention. Outside she turned right and walked in the opposite direction to the staff toilets.