As soon as I was strong enough to sit up, or at least prop myself up, I sent a text to my colleague at work to explain I would be late in, but that I would be on my way as soon as possible. It was another half an hour though before I had the strength to stand and make my way gingerly to the bathroom.
As soon as I was in the office I headed to my boss to apologise for my tardiness and to explain the reasoning. She was sympathetic if a little unsure, as I could not give any guarantees that it wouldn’t happen again.
Luckily it didn’t return that week, or the week after. Then again I didn’t hear anything from Ed at the same time. By the Friday of the second week I had come to terms with his decision and having barely eaten anything during this period of purgatory I had lost almost a stone in weight. No bad thing. If not the healthy way to lose weight, heartbreak is definitely an effective diet.
On Saturday as I was leaving the house I told myself, It’s time to get a grip of yourself, stop dwelling on what might have been, time to start afresh, although I had no intention of any new starts in the love arena. I had firmly closed, locked and thrown away the key to that particular door. Never again, I promised myself.
The first steps on this road to recovery were to make me feel better about myself. First stop was a haircut, followed up with a manicure. For the first time in a fortnight I fully accepted that Ed and I were over. I was not doing this for Ed, or any future suitor, I was doing this for me, because I deserved it and because I could. I wanted to feel good about myself for me and for no one but me.
The appointments didn’t take long. My fair hair does not take much to cut but I had booked in for the full service: shampoo, conditioner, head massage, cut and blow dry followed by a manicure including a French polish.
An hour later I walked out of the salon looking at my white-tipped nails, knowing they wouldn’t remain chip free for long. I was far too clumsy to make them last, but I enjoyed them while I could.
Obviously I couldn’t fill all the emptiness with trivial acts of self-indulgence, but it helped.
I took my new hairdo and nails to Starbucks for my usual and stopped on the Common to watch the world go by. I lost track of time watching groups of friends chatting, sprawled out on the grass, couples huddled in secretive discussions making my heart twinge as I looked on, jealous of their happiness.
The Common was busy this sunny Saturday afternoon. A new path had been laid across the bottom of the large green, flanked by elaborate wrought iron lights.
The new children’s playground was filled with excited youngsters swinging, climbing and sliding whilst their parents engaged in animated conversations with each other, half an eye on their children, watching for potential danger.
Being in the sun, surrounded by people having fun, helped to lift my spirits. Life was not all bad, just a little lonely at times. It was with a lighter heart that I weaved my way through the groups, dropping my empty coffee cup in the bin by the exit, and made my way home.
twelve.
When changes are changed
I stopped short at my gate.
I held my breath.
I looked left and right to check I was not mistaken. But every time I looked back there he was. Sitting on my doorstep. Looking at his shoes.
He hadn’t seen me and for a moment I thought about turning and running back up the street.
He looked up and caught my eye.
“Ed?” I said in little more than a whisper, as much a question as a statement.
I was glued to the spot unable to move. I put my hand out to steady myself on the wall.
Ed looked sheepish as he slowly rose and stepped to one side as if to allow me room to unlock my door, but I still couldn’t move.
His expression changed to one of concern. “Are you okay?”
“Umm, no I don’t think I am,” I confessed. My brain was a mess, my thoughts a washing machine in its final spin. I couldn’t grasp onto any of them. I couldn’t focus. I felt dizzy. I held on to the wall as if my life depended on it. I didn’t want to black out on the street.
Too late. I felt my knees buckle beneath me, unconscious before my body settled on the dry, dusty pavement beneath me.
I came to with Ed leaning over me, staring at me, talking into his phone. “She just collapsed.” A pause as he listened intently. “I don’t know what happened. She’s diabetic.”
I reached up and touched his hand. “I’m okay. I just fainted again. No need for an ambulance,” I said, putting two and two together on who he was speaking to.
He was still holding the phone to his ear but was no longer talking.
“Give me a hand and I’ll get up,” I suggested, concerned I was making quite a spectacle in the street.
Ed stood and held a hand out for me then a disembodied voice asked what was happening. He returned his attention to the call. “Sorry, she’s awake. She says she is okay, that she just fainted.” He responded to a few questions and nodded to whatever instructions he was being given. He promised he would follow up with 111 once I was inside, then signed off with, “Sorry to have troubled you.”
Ed helped me stand.
“I’m okay,” I said, wrenching myself from the arm that was supporting me, patting off the dust from my clothes. I may have sounded rather harsher than was necessary, as he was only helping, and he looked hurt. Well, good, I thought. It’s the least you deserve.
I walked through the gate which Ed had left open in his rush to my side.
Now it was my turn to stand by my front door as Ed lingered by the gate looking awkward.
“Well, are you coming?” Again my tone harsh, protecting myself by making it clear to him that I was hurt and I was not going to let that continue.
For the first time since we had met he had lost the spring from his step as he returned to my front door. Following me in, slowly and pausing, he softly closed the door behind him.
He looked small, no longer the strapping, trustworthy member of the community. He was diminutive in my eyes now. Now he needed me to make it easier for him. I would of course, but not too quickly. First he had to feel my pain, even if it was only a fraction of it.
I stared at him, my eyes boring into his. I felt incredulous. Why was he here now?
Eventually I sat down on the sofa and indicated for him to sit in the Orkney chair in front of me. He slowly did as I suggested, still barely able to look me in the eye.
“Well?” I asked, cold as ice. Somehow I had managed to completely switch off my emotions. I don’t know how I managed it but something hard and alien took over me, perhaps a survival technique or some hidden strength I didn’t know I had, but luckily it came from somewhere just when I needed it most.
“So I guess this is the point when you tell me what the hell’s going on,” I chided. Ed suddenly looked up at me, shock etched on his face. He hadn’t seen me like this and I guessed it surprised him. To be honest I didn’t care if he liked it or not, I was, finally, in control.
The sheepish look returned. “I… well, you know how I felt… feel… sorry, feel about you…” He paused, clearly unsure of how to say whatever it was he had come to say.
“Freudian slip?” I enquired.
“What?”
“Felt, you said felt.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just trying to get the words right. I thought I had it straight in my head but now I don’t know where to start and I’m getting this all wrong,” he said woefully, each word pushed out slowly and deliberately.
“Well, why don’t you do what everyone does at this point and start at the beginning. Maybe start with when you left here all loved up a couple of weeks ago and go from there,” I suggested, the anger still brutally evident in my tone as I looked at his sheepish face.
“Oh heck,” he sighed, looking at his hands and feet. Finally looking at me he began, “Okay. After
I got home Clare called. She was in floods of tears and asked to come over. It was late but I said it was okay, as I had never heard her so upset. Well, not since we split up. I sent you a quick text to let you know I was home safe while I waited. I had every intention of calling you in a day or two.”
He stopped to cough, his throat dry.
I stood up in silence and fetched a glass of water from the kitchen, placing it in front of him on the low table. I said nothing.
“Thank you,” he acknowledged as I returned to my spot on the sofa, and he sipped the tap water, grateful for a break in his story, gathering his nerve for what was to come. My mind had already started to connect the dots and I thought I knew where it was going, but I hoped I had it wrong. Hope, does it not spring eternal? Whether I was right or wrong, I needed to hear it from him.
“So Clare came over and we talked. She was in floods of tears. She had had a terrible fight with Steve and things had been said. I won’t give you the details, that wouldn’t be right, but trust me when I say it was a mean, dirty fight which ended in Clare walking out with just her handbag and nothing else. She was confused and didn’t know what to do. She still loves Steve but couldn’t see a way back from the fight and wasn’t even sure if she wanted to.
“We talked late into the night. I was genuinely trying to help and support her. I know Steve, almost as well as I know Clare, so I played devil’s advocate, but Clare still couldn’t decide what to do. She was too scared to go home and it was too late for her to check into a hotel so I said she could stay with me.
“I showed her to her room.” Ed sighed, at this point clearly preparing himself for the maelstrom he anticipated erupting from me in the not-too-distant future. “I sorted out towels and an old spare T-shirt for her to sleep in.” He was providing far too much detail in a vain attempt to put off the inevitable, but as sure as night follows day, he was going to have to get the truth out at some point.
I sat patiently, not interrupting, not saying or doing anything to stop the flow. Ed might have been hoping that I would, that somehow I was going to make this easier for him. Clearly he didn’t know me as well as he thought.
I stared at him, my facial expression never changing from hostile.
“When it came to saying goodnight we hugged as we have often done before. I realised in that moment how vulnerable she was and how I wanted to protect and care for her. We have a history together and a son,” he said, trying to justify whatever it was that he had done.
Ed shifted awkwardly in his hard chair and continued, “Nothing happened.” He looked up and stared at me. “I swear, nothing happened, neither Clare nor I wanted anything to happen and we went our separate ways.”
He paused. Summoning the strength to get to the point. I was uncertain now, I had been convinced he was about to admit that they had kissed or worse still, but either way, it would have been cheating. He claimed nothing happened. Did I believe him? Maybe the story was not over, maybe that was still to come. I leant forward, eager to get this out of the way.
He stuttered and then continued, focusing on his hands, wrapped together in his lap, nervously picking at a button on his shirt.
“I couldn’t sleep. I kept tossing and turning. Thinking about Clare.” He glanced up to gauge my reaction. I was not surprised, she was all he had talked about since he had arrived. Still, I was hurt that I was no longer part of his thought process or consideration.
“I hadn’t expected to feel this way. Seeing her so upset had awakened old feelings, feelings I thought were long past and buried. I realised I love her, I still love her. I promise you though, nothing has happened between us.” He stopped talking like he had completed the account. Clearly, as far as I was concerned, he had not.
I sat in silence for a while, gathering my thoughts. My head spun and I struggled to stay focused. Ed seemed to think the point here was that nothing had happened. I was grateful for that of course, but the glaringly obvious elephant in the room were the words ‘I still love her’.
If he still felt that way it would explain why he hadn’t been in touch, but it didn’t explain why he was here now. Maybe, this was the ‘closure’ part of this episode of my life. At least he had thought enough of me to have the decency to tell me himself, face to face, I had to give him some credit for that. Was my recently turned-to-stone heart beginning to melt? Not quite yet.
I stirred in my seat. Now the tables were reversed and it was my time to talk and Ed looked at me expectantly, lost, hoping for a lifeline.
I hadn’t been looking for love, I was content with my life. He had barged into that, he had made me love him and now he wanted me to rescue him. I felt sick. I felt the anger begin to bubble inside me, churning in my stomach. Heat flashed to my face.
“Well, thank you, Ed,” I said in a dead, ice-cold tone, “that’s quite a confession. But you seem to have missed the ending.” I paused. He looked at me confused. I allowed time for him to retrace his steps through what he had said but he continued to look at me blankly.
I sighed, deliberately, loud and deep.
“You just told me that you are still in love with your ex-wife. So what does that mean?”
“What do you mean?” he asked clumsily.
“I don’t think it’s my job to spell this out.” I tried to control my voice. The tears were beginning to form, to spike the corners of my eyes as I felt the well of emotion take over me.
“Oh, I see. Yes. No. I don’t know. This is what I’ve been trying to work out. That’s why I went into radio silence. I needed time to think, to decide.”
“Time to decide? Time to decide who to be with?” I yelled at a shocked Ed, as I was no longer able to control my anger. “I’m not a commodity on a comparison website and neither is Clare.” I could not believe I was standing up for her.
“And anyway,” I continued, “how does she feel about you?”
Why am I asking that? How will asking it help me or this situation? I thought.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled, his head in his hands. “I’ve not spoken to her since the morning after. We had breakfast. We were both exhausted from lack of sleep, but she had made a decision.”
Unlike you, I thought.
“She told me that she would go home and try to build bridges with Steve. I haven’t heard from her since so I’m guessing things worked out okay. I was just…”
The phone in his pocket rudely interrupted his flow and he pulled the phone out, glancing at the screen, then at me, then back to the screen, unsure of what to do next.
“Take it if you need to,” I said with a steely tone as I stood and went to the kitchen to get a cold drink and try to steady my nerves.
I could not hear what Ed was saying as he spoke quietly and calmly into the receiver, obviously trying to hide both the identity of the caller and the content of the conversation.
After a couple of minutes I heard the sound of the phone being placed on the table and made my way back to the sitting room.
“All done?” I asked a crestfallen, sad-looking Ed.
“Yes, that was Clare,” he confessed. “She’s back with Steve, they’ve made up and she just rang to thank me for listening to her and putting up with her moaning and tears.”
He looked upset at what he had heard. So he cares about her tears, but not mine, it struck me and I realised his true feelings at that moment. We were over. The minute Clare turned to him for support there was nothing left between us except, perhaps, one day, friendship. I softened my tone.
“Did you tell her you love her?” I asked.
“No,” he said, shooting me a look. “Well, yes, but only as we always sign off calls with love to you and the family, but no I didn’t tell her about my feelings. She’s happy. She has her life. I don’t need to mess that up. Not that she would feel the same way anyway…” He trailed off, clearly upset, perhaps taking stock of what he had
said and coming to the true realisation of his feelings, as had I.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Ed.” He looked up, hopeful. “I don’t know the purpose of your visit, whether you’re here to finish with me, or explain your absence, or just be honest about your feelings.” I paused, unable to gauge his feelings, no facial giveaways as I spoke so I continued, “I have to think of myself and protect myself.”
The tears began to flow silently down my cheeks as I continued, “I can see that you still love Clare and clearly you can’t love us both. It wouldn’t be fair on me if you stay with me whilst in love with another woman. So,” I said slowly, rising to my feet, “I’ll make the decision for you.” Deep breath. “We’re over. You are free to do what you need to do. You no longer have a place in my life,” I said as firmly and decisively as I could muster as I moved towards the front door. I opened it, making it clear our conversation was over.
Ed took the hint. He stood, put his hand in his pocket and silently withdrew a key, the spare key to my home, and placed it gently and somewhat reluctantly on the coffee table. At least he had the respect not to use that when he arrived and discovered I was not at home I thought.
Ed followed me to the door. He squeezed my arm as he passed. I guess it was an understanding.
How different to the bittersweet departure the last time, now it was just bitter. This was goodbye.
The tears became more urgent and pressing. I pushed the door closed but not quick enough, as Ed saw my tear-stained face as he turned to close the gate.
I leant against the closed door, sinking to the floor and letting the darkness take over. I sat there howling with hurt until I was exhausted and crawled to the sofa, wrapping myself in the blanket that ran across the back and fell into an exhausted sleep.
Loves Lost and Found Page 17