My Great Ex-Scape

by MacIntosh, Portia

  I toss my phone to one side and get out of bed. As if this situation wasn’t bad enough, I just had to go viral, didn’t I? And not just in the UK, oh no, worldwide! Absolutely fantastic!

  I wander into the kitchen and put the kettle on. I take a mug from the cupboard and toss in a teabag. I watch as the kettle boils, only to abandon it the second it does. What am I doing? Why am I carrying on like nothing has happened? My life is over. I’m humiliated.

  I wonder if £50k can buy me a new identity. I wonder what I can actually do with it… I could go on holiday. I could quit the job I hate, using the cash as a buffer while I find another one. It is such a soul-destroying gig; I’d love nothing more than to leave. I’m an adult though, so I won’t. I might call in sick today, but I need to make sure I keep going to work and acting like everything is fine – things will catch up eventually, right? And at least I’ll be around allies of sorts, rather than reliving my mortification.

  I grab my phone and call Sam.

  ‘Rosie, oh my God, are you OK?’ she asks, answering after one ring.

  ‘Oh, you know,’ I say as casually as I can, though of course she knows – everyone knows. ‘I’m just ringing to call in sick. I’m dying of embarrassment. Hoping I’ll feel better tomorrow.’

  She laughs sympathetically. There aren’t many bosses who would accept embarrassment as a legitimate reason for a sick day.

  ‘I’ve been trying to call you,’ she says. ‘Gemma wants to write a news piece about the local girl who works for the paper who went viral overnight. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but the powers that be have signed off on it… so…’

  ‘Oh, OK,’ I say. Typical Gemma, that backstabbing snake. I’ll bet she’s over the moon that this has happened to me – and in front of her too. She was smiling like the cat that got the cream all the way home in the taxi last night. ‘I guess I quit then.’

  ‘You quit?’ Sam replies.

  ‘Yeah… I quit.’ The words leave my lips so effortlessly, so softly, they tickle. It’s one of the easiest things I have ever done. That’s money for you, it makes everything easier. Anyone who insists that money doesn’t bring happiness has obviously never been trapped in a dead-end job that sucks the life out of them.

  ‘Well, I understand,’ she says. ‘And I know you’ve just come into money, so I doubt I can say anything to change your mind. You know I’ll give you a glowing reference, right?’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I suppose I haven’t been happy for a while and this money has just given me the push I needed. I thought all this was going to blow over but… meh.’

  ‘I’ll make sure the article is sympathetic, it’s the least I can do,’ she replies.

  I hang up the phone, wondering what I am the most annoyed about – that Gemma is going to write this article about me, or that Gemma is getting to write articles. Real ones, not adverts pretending to be articles.

  I’m about to discard my phone when it buzzes again. Since I deactivated my social media accounts, the barrage of notifications have stopped. Anything that comes through now can only be from people who have my number – and that’s a pretty short list these days.

  When I see it’s from David, I stare at my phone suspiciously as I wonder what he wants. With that obviously getting me nowhere, I give in and open the message. He wants to see me. He’s asked me if I’ll go over. Why does he want to see me? He can’t be mad at me for not telling him we were live on TV when I called him because he didn’t even give me the chance… Even if he was going to break up with me anyway, David is an introvert. He’d never want to do it on TV, he’s not that hurtful. Perhaps he wants to apologise? I suppose I just gave him a scare, making him think I wanted to move in together or whatever… Hmm.

  I hurry on a tracksuit and pull my long blonde hair into a bun on the top of my head. I put on a little foundation, but that’s it. Now that spring is starting to edge closer to summer, it’s quite bright out on a morning, so I’ll just hide behind my sunglasses. I want to keep things incognito anyway. I’ll just low-key slink over to David’s place, hear what he has to say for himself, and then work out what the hell I’m supposed to do with myself now that I’m internet famous and unemployed. I swear to God, this is how most people get into the porn business. I’m yet to receive an offer, as far as I can tell, but I’m not sure I’d accept anyway. My boobs are nowhere near big enough, my arse is covered in cellulite and I don’t even have a washing machine in my diddy apartment, so no chance of it breaking down.

  I’m about to head for the door when someone knocks on it. I instinctively drop behind my sofa – a pointless move, living in a first-floor apartment, but still. I’m terrified of who might be behind it. They knock again, but I remain in cover. I allow them a few minutes before slowly getting up and looking through the spyhole. Confident there is no one there, I open the door to leave. I’m about to step through the door when I stop myself just in time. There’s a flower arrangement sitting on my doormat.

  I pick it up and take it into the kitchen. It’s a beautiful bouquet, with white oriental lilies, creamy white chrysanthemums and baby pink roses. I remove the card to see who they are from.

  ‘I love you. I should never have let you go. I want you back.’

  Oh my gosh, they must be from David. This must be why he wants to see me.

  I grab the only vase I own (which is empty and just waiting to be used, but that’s because no one ever buys me flowers, not because I’m super tidy or organised) and place my flowers in water before heading back into my bedroom to get changed.

  If David and I are getting back together, I don’t want to be dressed like a shamed TV star hiding from the paparazzi… even if I do kind of feel like one right now.

  3

  What kind of apartment do you expect a university lecturer to live in? Something stylish and studious? Books – lots and lots of books – but neatly and sensibly organised? Browns and greens and maybe, just maybe, the occasional bit of red? I always imagined David’s apartment being like that. A bit like Sherlock Holmes’s office, I suppose… but David’s apartment isn’t like that at all.

  For starters, while he does have a lot of books, he has even more magazines. Piles and piles of them everywhere. On the coffee table, on the kitchen worktop – he’s even using an especially tall pile as a table for his keys to live on by his front door.

  And then there’s all the dinosaur junk – not that I’d ever refer to it as that in front of him. I suppose it’s good that he’s passionate about his work, but it’s two kinds of creepy, in my opinion. It’s creepy to have bits of real bones and replica skulls and whatnot lying around, but it’s potentially even weirder that he has dinosaur toys all over the place. Yes, kids’ toys, stationery – he’s even just handed me a cup of tea in a dinosaur mug. I glance down at it. It features a cartoon image of an especially sad-looking diplodocus, his head hanging low with a little frown and heavy eyes, accompanied by the caption ‘All my friends are dead’. I can’t help but smile to myself.

  ‘So, you wanted to talk,’ I say, getting the conversation going.

  If he wants me back, he’s crazy if he thinks I’m going to give him an easy time of it. Well, how can I just take him back after what he put me through last night. I know that he didn’t know we were live on TV, and that I scared him with my choice of words, but he’s going to have to show me that he’s serious about me, that he made a mistake last night, and that he’s really sorry.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, placing his own dinosaur mug on a coaster in front of him. His mug features a T-Rex along with the caption ‘Tea Rex’, which is about what I’ve come to expect from dinosaur mugs. They don’t get much better than that.

  ‘I know you never meant to embarrass me,’ I say, immediately kicking myself for making this easier for him.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he replies. ‘I would never do that to you – I’d never do that to anyone. I panicked. When you said you had a big question for me, I thought you were trying to propos
e or something…’

  ‘Yeah, you said,’ I reply, trying to laugh that wild assumption off. It was too soon for us to even think about marriage. ‘But the show is called One Big Question, and when you call someone to ask them this One Big Question, you have to say “I’ve got One Big Question”…’

  ‘It makes sense now,’ he says with an awkward smile. ‘How’s the fallout?’

  ‘Nuclear,’ I reply. ‘I’ve had to deactivate my social media accounts, people won’t stop messaging me, some of them are being actually really quite mean – even I was shocked – and then there’s the fact I quit my job.’

  ‘You quit your job?’ he says. His tone of voice would suggest that he doesn’t think that was a smart move.

  ‘I did. I hated it. And I’m too embarrassed to go in at the moment anyway. And now I have this money, I can use some of it to keep me going while I find myself a new job. I suppose I’ll wait a few days, for this “gone viral” business to calm down, I don’t want job interviewers bringing it up, but then, yeah, I’m sure I’ll find something.’

  I’m hoping that’s true.

  ‘Not the smartest move,’ he replies. ‘But I’m sure you’ve thought this through.’

  It was more of a go-with-your-gut reaction, if I’m being honest. But even now, after I’ve had a little time to think about it, and seen David’s reaction to it, I still feel like it was the right thing to do.

  ‘Of course I have,’ I reply. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to start paying for everything.’

  ‘I mean, why would I?’ he says. ‘We broke up.’

  I look at him with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Rosie, I broke up with you last night,’ he says clearly, in a way you would speak if you were trying to explain something to someone who was completely delusional. ‘You know that, right?’

  ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘You come over here all dressed up, talking about me looking after you now you’ve quit your job—’

  ‘Whoa, that’s not exactly true,’ I insist. ‘And I’m here because you said you needed to talk to me.’

  ‘Yes, I want to talk to you about the money,’ he says. ‘The prize money.’

  ‘OK…’

  ‘I think I deserve a share – potentially half of it.’

  I laugh, until I realise he’s serious.

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  ‘You don’t know what a Kosmoceratops is,’ he says.

  ‘I do,’ I reply confidently. ‘It’s a dinosaur with fifteen horns.’

  ‘You didn’t know until I told you,’ he clarifies, as though that might make me change my mind.

  ‘David, are you joking? You humiliated me on TV.’

  ‘You don’t think it was embarrassing for me?’ he replies. ‘My students are calling me Dinosaur Dave; they’ve lost all respect for me. It’s all over the uni intranet.’

  ‘Embarrassing for you? Embarrassing for you?’ I plonk my dinosaur mug down on his table – without a coaster – and pace in front of him angrily. ‘If you hadn’t been so quick to dump me…’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ he starts. ‘I dumped you. Have you even stopped to think about why or are you too busy having a pity party and counting your money that you didn’t earn?’

  ‘OK, wow, that’s it,’ I say, grabbing my coat from the hook next to the door. ‘Well, I’m not sharing the money with you and there’s no way I’m taking you back. You can stick your flowers where the sun doesn’t shine.’

  ‘What flowers?’ he asks.

  ‘The flowers… the ones you sent me.’

  ‘I didn’t send you any flowers.’

  Of course he didn’t. He dumped me on TV, he’s not going to want me back. He just wants a share of the prize money – well, he can think again.

  Ergh, I am so annoyed at myself for coming over. I'm not even sure what I ever saw in him now. I feel like girls are always willing to date guys, to give them time to come out of their shell, to see how things go, even if they’re not quite working. And guys just cut and run.

  I pop my sunglasses on and storm out. I’m outraged at his request – of course I am – but that’s not really on my mind right now. The only thing going through my head right now is a question: if Dinosaur Dave didn’t send those flowers, then who did?

  4

  It isn’t a long train journey to my parents’ house just outside Manchester, but it certainly feels like it is today.

  It doesn’t matter how old you get in life, when the shit hits the fan you can always go running home to your mummy and your daddy, with tears in your eyes and your tail between your legs, and no matter what you’ve done, they’ll probably forgive you. I say probably because I’m sure there are some things even the most forgiving parents couldn’t overlook… I’m not quite there yet, so here I am with a packed bag and a racing mind, hurrying to their house to hide out. I can sleep in my childhood bedroom (even if they have turned it into an office) and watch TV with my dad, help my mum peel potatoes – it will be just like Christmas, but without the presents and with my life completely coming apart at the seams.

  I arrived home from David’s place to a voicemail from Sam, saying that the team from This Morning had reached out to her in the hope of getting in touch with me. Apparently they want me to go on the show and talk about what happened. As much as I’d love to meet Phil and Holly, I never ever want to be on TV again, and I certainly don’t want to relive the single most embarrassing moment of my life.

  It was that, combined with those bloody flowers sitting on my worktop, that drove me out of my own home.

  Without a name on the card, I am left wondering where they might have come from. Yes, I tried calling the florists, but, as per the data protection act, they can’t tell me who sent them. I tried to explain my particular circumstances to the lady on the phone, but she wasn’t very sympathetic to my cause. She mumbled something about ‘bloody GDPR’ and how busy she was before hanging up, so that wasn’t much use.

  Fortunately, because the card said ‘I want you back’, that means it must have come from one of my ex-boyfriends. I say fortunately because I have only had, including David, five ex-boyfriends. The reason I am so puzzled though, is because, of these five boyfriends, I have been dumped four and a half times. We’ll get to what constitutes a half dumping in a minute.

  I know what you’re probably thinking because I’m thinking it too. If every single one of my boyfriends has dumped me, is it me who is the problem? Am I just so unlovable – or at least easily dumpable – to the point where all my relationships end in (my) tears?

  Kevin was my first real boyfriend – well, as real as you can get when you’re fourteen years old. We met across a crowded, smoky food-tech room in year 9. Some pranksters thought it might be funny to put a wooden spoon in the oven, and it was – at least it was at the time. Everything is funny when you’re fourteen and don’t want to make scones. I look back at it now and just feel so, so sorry for the teacher. Anyone who teaches in a secondary school is a hero because I remember most of the kids being absolutely horrible.

  After that day, with the almost fire, we were split from our friendship pairings and made to work with a pupil of the opposite sex. I’ve never really been sure of the boy-girl system. How or why does it work? Seems like an archaic, sexist system to me, that is heavily reliant on the two genders not being friends.

  Anyway, I wound up working with Kevin. He was my next-door neighbour, so we’d been all the way through school together, but I honestly don’t think we’d ever said more than two words to each other up to that point, and it took us a while to have a proper conversation. At first we were both so shy and awkward, too scared to take the lead with our weekly cooking challenge. We’d edge around each other carefully, speaking as little to each other as possible, until one day our hands met over a slightly overcooked ham and pineapple pizza and we just hit it off. We became friends, then boyfriend and girlfriend. We stayed together all the way through school, but I stayed at
school to do my A Levels while Kevin went to college. Not exactly a long-distance relationship, but we were definitely moving in different directions.

  After Kevin, there was Eli. We had a reasonably brief relationship, lasting from towards the end of year 13 until not long after I started university. Eli worked at his dad’s mechanic workshop in town so, when I went to study English at uni in Bangor, we were far enough apart for it to cause a strain on our short-lived relationship.

  There was no one else, not who I had anything serious with, until after university, when I met super sexy Simon. I was doing an internship at a lifestyle magazine in Manchester where he was a photographer. He was forever going off to fancy places and snapping beautiful people. I always felt like I was punching above my weight with Simon, and it didn’t help seeing models constantly buzzing around him like excitable little wasps, desperate for him to catch their good side. Let’s just say that Simon and I had some… trust issues.

  My last ex, before Dinosaur Dave, was Josh. I feel like I did a lot of growing with Josh, but then we started growing apart. Unlucky for me, Josh realised the relationship wasn’t going to work within minutes of me realising the same, and it just so happened that he broke up with me before I could break up with him. Yes, I realise it’s not a competition, but when every boyfriend you’ve ever had has broken up with you, you start to worry that it’s a thing, and now that David has dumped me too, I am petrified that it’s a thing.