A mixture of disappointment, anger and frustration swirled around inside of her. No more could she concentrate on what she was supposed to be buying. She set her basket down and abandoned her shop, rushing home as fast as she could, to duvet dive and lick her very deep wounds.
Returning home, she read his email in its entirety:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hey Sasha, I’m sorry, I was supposed to phone you last night and I didn’t. To be honest, I’d had quite a bit to drink and I simply conked out fast asleep.
I’m sorry for sending you all those emails and songs. As you can probably tell, I’m so confused at the moment. I really don’t know where my head’s at. I’m sorry for contacting you. It’s wrong of me to mess your head up also. It won’t happen again.
Wishing you all the best.
Kirk X
Sasha’s heart sank further. His message was full of love, yet, at the same time, full of goodbyes.
On the one hand, he was telling her that he still had feelings for her, still loved her, couldn’t help thinking about her. Yet, on the other hand, he was telling her goodbye; that he’d never write again.
If it was possible for her heart to break any further, she could have sworn she heard it crack in two.
Every iota of hope, every carrot that he had dangled, had disappeared for good. This really was the end.
Or was it?
Was he only saying that in the cold harsh sober light of day? What would happen when he drank again? Would his beer goggles and his boozy fingers find their way to her email address?
“For God’s sake!” Jason exclaimed when Sasha confided in him. “Please snap out of it!” His tone was harsh; impatient. She had never heard him talk like this before. He seemed exasperated with her; disappointed.
“But I…” Sasha began to argue.
“Sasha, please!” Jason cut in. “How many months is it now since you split up? How many months have you wasted pining over him?”
Sasha made a mental calculation. Too many, probably.
“This could go on, and on, and on for years,” Jason said tiredly. “Are you really going to let him drag this on and on? Can’t you find some way to block every avenue of contact from him?”
Sasha considered it. There probably was some way of creating a filter, so that no emails would pass through the barrier.
But was she really ready to do that yet? Was she really ready to cut off all contact?
What if he had a moment of clarity?
What if he realised his mistakes and came back to her?
What if he just missed her so much and realised he couldn’t live without her?
What if?
Chapter Thirteen
What did he mean, ‘he was so confused at the moment’? What was there to be confused about? He clearly did still love her. He clearly did still miss her. And he clearly did still think about her every day. It was nearly six months since they’d finished, for goodness sake! If he hadn’t moved on and forgotten about her by now, then why didn’t he just come back? He had asked to marry her at one point! That meant forever. In sickness and in health. Till death do us part.
Maybe that was why she found it so difficult to move on, she mused. Because at one point she had said yes to his proposal, and she had meant it with every inch of her being. She had wanted to be with him forever. That was why she couldn’t let go. That was why, all these months later, he was still the first thing she thought about in the morning and the last thing she thought about at night. That was why, with each email that he sent her, she harboured that tiny modicum of hope; that one day he’d be back, that all would be forgiven, that he couldn’t live without her, that they were destined to be together.
Sasha, then, started to understand when they talked about souls who wouldn’t let go. Ghosts that hung around after the physical body dies. Souls that can’t move on to the next life, because a loved one is still clinging on.
That was why Sasha couldn’t let go of Kirk. Because she knew his soul was still with her. The emails that kept popping up showed her that he hadn’t moved on.
So it was a big shock that night when she came across photos of him on Facebook with a new girlfriend.
It was one of those horrible, unnecessary Facebook stalking sessions. The sort where she clicked on names she shouldn’t have, reminiscing about old times. And there he was, his name. Too tempting not to look at. His profile was pretty public – she could view all his photos. And there, on his timeline, was a photo of him next to a pretty girl, the two of them grinning happily, both wearing sunglasses, both looking like they were at a festival. Her mind lurched in shock as her finger kept scrolling down his profile, looking for further confirmation that this was what she thought it was.
And there, like a kick in the stomach, was a photo of his new girlfriend lying sprawled on a bed, looking up at the camera, looking at him, smiling.
Sasha’s heart hammered in revulsion. What! How could this be? But he was emailing me just the other night, sending me loads of songs? Reminiscing about our time together? Opening old wounds? He’d been giving her hope that he missed her and still loved her, when he was rolling around on some hotel bed with some new bird.
Her anger was hammering; hammering through her blood so hard that she could actually feel it pulsating. It felt as if she had a ton of surplus angry energy pumping around her body that she needed to get rid of somehow. The only outlet she could think of that would appropriately expel this angry energy was actually to email Kirk herself. To write down all the insults and complaints that she could think of; in the hope that pressing ‘send’ would make her energy disappear over the internet towards him. She wanted to email him, to call him all the names of the day, to accuse him of stringing her along; of sending her constant reminiscing emails when actually, all along, he had already jumped into a new relationship with someone else. Not even a casual fuck-buddy set-up – but a bona fide publicly-pronounced relationship. Declaring a relationship on Facebook was making as public a statement as possible.
She had tracked back through his photos. The first photo of them had been posted three months previously. That was only three months after he had split up with her. So three months later, he was going public on Facebook in a new relationship? Please. That meant they’d got together even before that. A huge possibility that there was overlap between the two of them.
Sasha felt sickened to her stomach. To think she had held on to hope, when all along he was screwing someone else.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Kirk, I am in shock. I have just seen on Facebook that you’re in a new relationship and have been for months. WHY have you been emailing me and stringing me along if you are seeing someone else? PRICK.
Sasha pressed send on the email before giving herself any more time to think about it. Rather than the anger dissipating, it seemed to have the opposite effect. Her heart only hammered harder; her adrenalin only soared further and she couldn’t help but picture Kirk’s response when he opened her email and read the contents.
She expected a reply of similar angry proportions from him. She expected him to retaliate; to fire back angry insults. But instead, there was nothing. No reply. His silence spoke volumes. He silence said that he didn’t give a flying fuck.
Instead, his reply came the next day. Rather than an angry response, he replied with calm decorum; a tone that spoke from the moral high ground. He was the calm and sorted therapist; she was the fucked-up and insecure patient.
“I emailed you those times over the last few months…” he said, “to tell you about my dad and his health difficulties. I thought you would understand my situation because you had met my dad and you knew how unwell he was. I was confiding in you as a friend. I am sorry if you mistook my emails as ‘stringing you along’ or as signs that I wanted our relationship to continue. I should not have emailed you about my dad – I’m sorry.”<
br />
Sasha stared at the screen in shock. His email was like a slap across the face with a dead fish. He might as well have said;
• You’re deluded
• You’re reading into my emails
You’re mistaking my chat about my dad as thinking I want to be back with you
• I’ve moved on
You’re pathetic
Sasha’s cheeks burned with anger and embarrassment. Not only was she annoyed by his attitude and his implication that she was deluded, but she knew that he was lying. If he had really wanted to confide in someone about his dad’s ill health, he could have talked to his sister, or a friend, or another therapist. He had no need to discuss it with his ex-girlfriend. And furthermore, he had no need to pepper his emails with songs and photos that reminisced about their relationship.
Lying prick, she thought scathingly. Again, she emailed him.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Yes. You’re right. You shouldn’t have emailed me about your dad. Nor should you have sent me so many songs and photos reminiscing about our relationship. Would your new girlfriend like to know how much you’ve been emailing me?
She knew it was a mild threat; a mild blackmail. But she couldn’t help herself, so angry was she at his holier-than-thou attitude.
But the holiness continued. Again he waited another full day to respond, as though he had much better things to do with his time than attend to an angry ex-girlfriend. Sasha imagined him sitting on his moral high horse, trying to think up some non-committal statement, like a dodgy politician trying to body-swerve awkward questions.
“I’m sorry you’re upset. I won’t contact you again. I would ask you not to contact me either. I am in a committed relationship with Denise.”
His words came like a bullet to the heart. Cold. Formal. Patronising. A complete change from his late night email of songs and reminiscing comments. She half-expected that the late night emails were when he was drunk; the cold formal emails came in the sober cold light of day.
Closure. If ever there was definite closure, this was it. It was definitely over. It had come from the horse’s mouth. There’d be no more emails.
Or would there?
Chapter Fourteen
Sasha kept staring at the words in his email; ‘I won’t contact you again. I would ask you not to contact me either. I am in a committed relationship with Denise.’
She should have felt rejected. She should have felt angry. She should have felt embarrassed. After all, his message was a ‘fuck away off and don’t contact me again’ email. It was as if he was treating her like some sort of bunny boiler from hell; someone that he had to beg to leave him alone. She imagined that he sat in beer gardens with mates, complaining about his ‘obsessive ex-girlfriend’, saying ‘Wait d’ye hear what she’s done this time.’ As though she was some sort of laughing stock among his friends. She should have been mortified. But for some reason, she felt none of these awkward emotions. It was as if, for the first time in a long time, she was beginning to see sense.
The embarrassment was non-existent. The shame was nowhere to be seen. And she refused to beat herself up for their email communication.
This is not one-sided, she told herself. It is Kirk who emails me – especially late at night, possibly when he’s drunk. This is not all my fault. Kirk can be as stand-offish, hurtful and erratic as he wants. But I can choose to be calm. I can choose my thoughts. I can choose to walk away.
It is my choice to disengage myself from him. It is my choice to walk away from the drama.
The thoughts liberated her. She felt free. Like a bird able to fly anywhere. She no longer had to obsess about what Kirk was thinking of saying. She could just walk away.
Funny, she thought. How it is possible to fall in love with someone so quickly – and then fall out of love in time. Why would you keep loving someone when they continued to treat you worse than a dog? Giving you only tit-bits of treats and then leaving you out in the dark for weeks on end? Then another bit of attention to get your hopes up again. And then dismissed to the cold darkness again.
Why hadn’t she thought of this wonderful revelation months ago? But a little voice niggled inside of her. Perhaps you’re just getting over him now. Perhaps that’s all it is. Perhaps it’s just that time has passed and it’s not so raw and you’re just moving on. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps it has nothing to do with sense or reasoning. Perhaps it’s just time.
Time had allowed her to fall out of love. Time, and that last email.
She found it easy not to email him again. He certainly wasn’t sending any more songs to her. Perhaps this was closure, for once and for all.
Months passed and Christmas approached. She was determined to make it a good one. She was not going to drown in a pool of self-pity. She was going to move on, one day at a time. She would make an extra-special effort to buy lovely Christmas presents for her family. She would be in good form and add to their day. The atmosphere would be light and airy.
Was it really a year since Kirk had stormed out at Christmas, and left all his presents behind? Was it really a full year, where he had still been her every waking thought?
Christmas day was lovely. Her family gathered at her sister’s house. Everyone was in good spirits and the atmosphere was great. Her sister had gone to great effort to cook a massive dinner and the food was delicious. After dinner, they all sat around the living-room, opening presents and chatting. The day flew by. Sasha went home, realising that she hadn’t thought about Kirk all day. She hadn’t wallowed in any self-pity. She hadn’t berated herself for yet another ‘single’ Christmas. Instead she had just thought about her family and how she could make their day better. Contented and happy, she crawled into bed that night, delighted to have got Christmas over successfully.
So when she looked at her phone, she was very surprised to see Kirk’s name flash up on it.
Her heart jumped into her mouth. It was like seeing a ghost appear out of the darkness.
She held her breath as she clicked on the icon to read his email.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Hi Sasha, I know I said that we shouldn’t contact each other again but as it’s Christmas, I just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas. I hope you are doing okay?
I’m staying at my mum’s at the moment in the spare room. She’s not well unfortunately (breast cancer). Added to that, she’s never really recovered from losing my dad. Anyway, hope you’re well. If you’d rather not reply to me, I understand.
K x x
Sasha stared at the screen in disbelief. After months of no contact, here he was again, jumping out of the shadows as though nothing had ever happened. She should have been angry; rip-roaringly angry. But instead that pesky ‘See!’ voice had returned.
See? He’s still thinking about you. After all this time. He’s thinking about you on Christmas Day – the most emotional day of the year. He’s at his mum’s, alone, thinking about you. He’s not out with his girlfriend at Christmas; he’s lying on a single bed, thinking about you!
The gift box entitled closure had immediately popped open, the ribbon had been ripped off and all the old emotions were jumping out: denial; lack of acceptance; inability to move on; hope for a reunion. And on. And on. And on.
Sasha replied. Of course she did. She was too nice to ignore him. She was too nice to say, ‘fuck off! Are you having a laugh? You emailed me months ago telling me not to contact you again and now here you are, on Christmas day, the most emotion-laden day of the year, emailing me again? You absolute prick!’
Instead she said:
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hi Kirk, it’s nice to hear from you. And a happy Christmas to you too I’m sorry to hear that your mum is struggling so much. It can’t be easy for her. But it’s good that you’re there to support her.
My Christmas was nice, tha
nks. I spent it with all the family, and it was a lovely day.
Sasha x
That should have been it; niceties over, job done. But no. There then ensued a string of emails that went well into the early hours of the morning. Responses pinging back and forth immediately. It was like taking a long glug of water after a spell in the desert.
He was in reminiscing mode again.
“Remember when you used to read to me? Fantastic!”
“I remember your lovely cosy bedroom. I used to love lying there at night. You asleep. Me listening to the radio on my earphones. I felt so safe.”
They discussed books, and radio plays, and latest news. They were like a couple on a first date, eagerly getting to know each other.
And then… then it just stopped.
His replies stopped and Sasha realised that he’d probably fallen asleep. Drunk and asleep.
Sure enough, the next morning, in the cold sober light of day, his formal reply arrived.
“Sorry. I fell asleep last night. I was so relaxed. Thanks for the chat. Take care.
Best wishes. K x.”
Take. Care.
Take care.
Sasha knew what ‘take care’ meant. ‘Take care’ meant ‘fuck off again’. Take care meant, ‘I don’t want these emails to continue. I was just drunk last night. And maybe I’d taken drugs. I was feeling nostalgic. But today, in the cold light of day, I regret it. And I don’t want this string of emails to continue. I’ll be meeting up with my girlfriend today and I don’t want your name to be popping up on my phone.’
Take care. Why did those words sound so pleasant, yet actually mean the opposite?
Her heart sank with the weight of disappointment yet again. How many times was she going to be duped by him? How many times would he keep coming back to kick her in the stomach? How utterly, despicably unfair was he, to keep trampling over her like dirt and then just run away again?
The Year of No Rules Page 7
