by Anna Bell
Sian hasn’t noticed me yet; she’s too busy scrolling on her phone. I walk right up and stand in front of her. She glances up momentarily, but she doesn’t say anything and instead turns her attention back to her phone.
Has all that time hiding in my flat turned me invisible? I continue to stand there, waiting for her to notice me.
She looks up again, this time with a hint of annoyance on her face, before her jaw drops open.
‘Oh, my God. Abi!’
‘Hiya,’ I say, laughing. It’s not often that I shock my friend.
‘I can’t believe it’s you. Look at your hair.’
I tuck a bit behind my ear, self-consciously.
‘Do you like it?’ I say, holding my breath.
‘I don’t like it,’ she says, causing my heart to sink. ‘I love it! It really suits you. Wow. I can’t believe it’s you.’
I catch my reflection in the shop window, and I can’t believe it’s me either.
‘You’re like a completely different Abi from the tear-stained mess I left on Thursday night,’ she says, shaking her head, her mouth still hanging open. ‘You look bloody amazing.’
‘Thanks. It’s nice not to be told I look like shit.’
She’s been saying that to me so much lately that it has almost become her catchphrase.
‘You know I only told you that because I love you and I wanted you to crawl out from the rock you were hiding under, and see, now you have.’
I smile with a little bit of pride.
‘So shall we go for a coffee?’ I say.
‘Oh no, we’re going shopping. Hair like that deserves new clothes.’
‘I don’t know . . .’ I say, prodding my belly. I wanted to lose the extra break-up pounds before I bought any new clothes.
‘Nonsense. Come on.’
Sian turns and walks straight into the department store and makes a beeline for Womenswear. She’s like a woman on a mission as she flicks through the rails of clothes, holding up dresses here and there in my direction, before wrinkling her nose and returning them to the rack.
‘So what happened?’ she asks as she starts piling items over her arm. ‘I’ve been trying for weeks to get you to leave the house, and not only do you agree to meet me in town, but you also turn up looking like a model.’
‘Ha, a model in need of a lot of airbrushing,’ I say, shuddering at the thought of yesterday’s photo shoot. Sian looks back at me expectantly as if I haven’t answered her question. ‘I was feeling pretty crap as I’d had my photo taken at work and I looked awful. Then I walked into my flat and saw how gross it had become. And then it hit me that my flat was a reflection of me. So I felt like I needed to take matters into my own hands and I chopped my hair and spent the rest of the night cleaning.’
‘Wow, so you don’t need a biohazard symbol on your door any more?’
‘Very funny.’
I’d love to protest that it wasn’t that bad, but it really was.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘I’m glad as I was going to don my Marigolds and head over with a bottle of Cillit Bang.’
Blimey, that would have been proof of true friendship. I wouldn’t have wished last night’s cleaning on my worst enemy.
I watch as she throws a dress that is breaching the Trade Descriptions Act as it’s short enough to be a top over her arm.
‘Try these on,’ she says, thrusting the pile of garments at me.
I take them and walk towards the fitting room, managing to lose the top masquerading as a dress along the way. There’s no way that even Sian’s persuasive skills would have been able to get me and my tree trunk thighs to wear that.
I try the first dress on and stand back to look at myself for a moment before opening the curtain and allowing her to see.
‘That looks all right,’ she says. ‘But try one of the others on.’
I do as I’m told, and after putting a metallic body-con dress to one side – that ain’t ever going to happen – I settle on an electric-blue skater dress instead. At least it covers my bum and the skirt juts out, hiding my thighs.
‘That’s the one,’ says Sian, before I’ve barely made it out of the cubicle. ‘That’ll be perfect for going out for a few drinks tonight.’
‘Tonight? I’m still not sure I’m ready to go out,’ I say as I shut the curtain and slip the dress off.
‘With that dress, your new haircut and a bottle of wine, you’ll feel differently. We’ll go back to yours and shove some tunes on to get you in the mood.’
I slip my jeans and baggy jumper back on, and wonder if I could face going out.
I pay for the dress and we leave the shop, walking in the direction of my flat.
‘Look at the difference forty-eight hours makes,’ says Sian as we walk away from the High Street, and the shops give way to letting agents and restaurants.
‘I know. I’m beginning to feel a bit more like the old me.’
‘That’s good, I’ve missed her.’
The closer we get to the flat, the closer we are to the seafront and the biting wind that blows along it. The sun’s started to set and a chill’s descended on the air. I pull my coat tighter around me and Sian links her arm through mine.
‘So with all this change, does that mean that you’re getting over Joseph?’
‘I wouldn’t say I’m over him, but there’s no point moping around my flat. Consuming my bodyweight in crisps isn’t going to get him back.’
‘And having your hair cut is?’
I smile, and keep looking straight at the road in front of me. Sian knows me too well.
‘Well, it’s got to be a better look than hair so greasy I could cook chips in it.’
‘So you do still want him back then?’
‘Absolutely. He’s the one.’
She doesn’t reply and I can tell she’s itching to say something.
I’m not the only one who’s been acting out of character over the last few weeks. Sian’s one of the most outspoken people I know, but since I got dumped, she’s been unusually quiet.
For reasons I’ve never understood, she’s never been Joseph’s biggest fan, yet since we broke up she’s barely uttered a word against him. Sure, she’s trotted out the usual, ‘if he can’t see you’re wonderful then he’s not worth it’ and ‘who needs a man to be happy’, but she hasn’t got personal.
‘I know you don’t think that he was the one,’ I say, ‘but I really do, and I don’t think that feeling’s going to go away any time soon.’
Sian sighs and I can’t take it any longer.
‘You can tell me what you really think.’
I stop walking and unlink our arms. I close my eyes and tense my body, waiting for what she has to throw at me.
‘It’s just . . .’ she hesitates. ‘I never got the impression that he was that into you.’
‘Not that into me? He was the one that insisted we were boyfriend and girlfriend from our second date,’ I reply, momentarily stunned. Of all the men I’ve dated he was the most committed – he would happily throw around the L word, and introduce me as his girlfriend to people we met.
Joseph’s the polar opposite of his best friend Marcus who’s dated more women than I’ve had hot dinners. He’s a Tinder cruiser, hooking up with girls who are lucky if they’re even taken out to breakfast. But Joseph’s like the anti-Marcus, monogamous to the max and happily so.
‘Not that into me . . .’ I repeat, this time with a hint of a laugh and a shake of my head. ‘Whatever gave you that impression?’
‘Well, you were dating for almost a year and you never made any plans for the future. You never booked any holidays together, he took his sister as a plus one to his friend’s wedding that time and he never introduced you to his family.’
I make a guttural noise and try to hold my tears at bay. They’re all observations that have played on my mind in the weeks since Joseph dumped me, but it’s something else to have someone say them out loud. That’s the problem with having a bes
t friend that you tell absolutely everything to – they can use their knowledge to hurt you at a later date.
Over the weeks I’ve tried to think of plausible reasons for Joseph’s odd behaviour. We never made future plans, like moving in together, because Joseph liked coming and spending time in my seafront flat. And as much as it would have been a godsend financially for me to have moved into his three-bedroom town house, it would have been a right pain in the arse for me to get to and from his for work.
With regards to that wedding, it did make more sense to take his sister as she had met his uni friends on numerous occasions, whereas I had only met them in passing once. Not everyone is like me and goes so completely mushy at weddings that they want to spend the whole night whispering sweet nothings and fantasising with their other half about their own magical day.
And from what Joseph told me about his family, he did me a favour not introducing me to them. They sound like a nightmare – all intense and clingy. Joseph said that if I met them we’d be expected at their house all the time and his mother would keep inviting me to the opera or the ballet, and Joseph wanted me all to himself instead. If anything that proves that he was too into me.
‘Those are exceptions to the rule,’ I say, knowing that Sian will never understand. ‘And besides he always took me on all those romantic dates.’
Sian’s lips are still pursed.
‘Come on, we were always doing romantic things. Going to the theatre, eating at fancy restaurants, exploring National Trust properties.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call them romantic,’ she says, rolling her eyes.
‘Of course they were. There was no shortage of candlelit suppers or roses in our relationship. You, Miss Ice Maiden, don’t get it as you don’t have a romantic bone in your body.’
‘OK, I know I’m not all into hearts and roses, but really, was that stuff actually romantic? I mean, it always seemed so clichéd and before you got together with him I never thought it would be the kind of stuff you’d like doing week in, week out.’
I try and avoid eye contact. I can’t say that I am a natural theatre-goer, and before I met Joseph I thought a sommelier was someone from Somalia, but that doesn’t mean to say that I didn’t grow to enjoy our dates.
‘And don’t you think that it was a bit weird how you went from one date to being all loved-up? It happened so quickly and whenever I met him, I got the impression that he didn’t seem to really know you at all.’
‘Sometimes you don’t need to know each other first; sometimes there’s just that spark,’ I say, wishing I’d never asked Sian what she thought. I start to walk again and we hurry across a road whilst there’s a gap in the traffic. ‘I knew the day I met him that he was the one. Back in the –’
‘Back in the coffee shop, I know. You told me the story. He took your caramel latte and you took his mocha choca-lata-ya-ya – or whatever.’
I’ve probably bored her to death with the story of how we met a hundred times, but she still doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand the connection Joseph and I had. The jolt of electricity I felt when we first touched hands as we swapped drinks. The look he gave me when he stared into my eyes, as if he was looking right down into my soul. The warmness I felt for him when he rambled along, apologising profusely for nibbling my cream, and then blushing in recognition of what he’d said.
It was then that I knew that I was destined to fall for this man. And fall for him I did. It felt like I’d gone head-over-heels and tumbled down a million flights of stairs. It’s going to take me a bloody long time, and more than a haircut, to get back up that staircase.
I blink back a rogue tear. I will not cry. I will not cry. I’ve come so far over the last twenty-four hours; I don’t want to go back to that pathetic excuse for myself.
We round the corner of my road, and Sian relinks her arm through mine. We’re pushed along by the strong wind whistling off the sea behind us and it propels us closer to my block of flats.
‘Look, Abs, I don’t want to upset you. I know it’s going to take time for you to get over him, and I’ll be here whilst you do.’
I try and smile. I know she’s doing her best, but it’s hard when she doesn’t appreciate what I’ve lost. She doesn’t understand relationships full stop, they’re not how she operates. I guess, thinking about it, she’s the less extreme, female equivalent of Marcus.
We walk the rest of the way to my flat in silence.
I’m on autopilot as I unlock the communal door and go through the lobby area, past the post-boxes. I’m too lost in my memories of Joseph to notice that Sian has stopped.
‘Abi, this is for you.’
I turn to see her manhandling a large, brown box off the floor.
The flaps are still open at the top – it’s clearly been hand delivered. A funny feeling washes over me and I know instinctively what it is and who it’s from, even before I recognise the handwriting.
‘What is it?’ asks Sian.
‘It’s the stuff I left at Joseph’s.’
I can’t believe he was standing here in my block of flats, in this very spot.
I’m gutted that I didn’t see him, and especially now that I’m sporting my super-hot I-don’t-care-about-you-honestly-I-don’t hair, but it’s more than that – that stuff was my only legitimate reason for seeing him again, and now he’s taken it away from me.
The only comforting thing in this whole break-up was that part of me was still at his house, even if it was in the guise of old CDs, books and a random assortment of clothes. I always thought that when I got myself a bit more together I’d casually drop by to pick them up looking like a super fox, and of course Joseph would realise the error of his ways and beg me to come back. Only now my stuff has been boxed up and rejected from his life like I have been.
‘Oh no,’ says Sian. ‘Don’t you dare turn back into a melancholy moper.’
‘Too late,’ I mutter, as I feel myself getting sucked back under the wave of sadness – only this time I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight it.
Chapter Three
Still four weeks since Joseph dumped me, and an unknown number of minutes or hours since he stood in my lobby.
‘Are we going to be staring at it all night, and if so can we at least open a bottle of wine?’ asks Sian.
I haven’t taken my eyes off the box since she picked it up and deposited it in the corner of my living room. It’s my last link to Joseph and I’m afraid if I look away from it it’ll disappear.
‘I think there’s half a bottle in the fridge,’ I say, waving her in the direction of my kitchen area.
I hear her opening the fridge door, before she starts chinking glasses together as she takes them down off the shelf. There’s a satisfying glug-glug-glug noise as she pours, before I’m handed a glass.
‘Here you go,’ she says.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking it as I continue to stare at the box. I take a large sip. I hadn’t realised until then that my hands are shaking.
‘Are you at least going to open it?’ Sian sits down on the sofa next to me.
‘I don’t think so, or at least not yet.’
If I don’t open it I can imagine that it might contain a heartfelt letter where Joseph reveals he’s made a mistake and begs for me back, or at the very least gives me an explanation as to why he broke up with me. His whole ‘we’re too different and we don’t want the same things in life’ is such bollocks. How does he know what I want? He never asked me whether I wanted a white picket fence and 2.4 kids, or whether I wanted to move to the big smoke and live in some flashy apartment sans children.
‘Right. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ve had enough of box-staring so I’m going to stare at this mark on your wall instead. At least with that I can try and guess what exactly it is. Hmmm, are you a splash of red wine? A bit of chocolate? The mind boggles,’ says Sian sarcastically.
Grudgingly, I smile. ‘Very funny, it’s spag bol.’
‘Seriously, Abi, it’s S
aturday night. I’m not staying in looking at a cardboard bloody box.’
‘I just don’t think I can go out now, not after coming home to that.’
For a split second I’d been looking forward to getting all dolled up and going out, but the thought of Joseph having been in my building has unnerved me. Did he ring my doorbell or drop it straight off without checking whether I was in? What if I’d been here when he’d dropped it off?
My mind’s racing so fast, thinking of what we might have been, that I can’t keep up with all the hypothetical situations.
It just seems so unjust that I’ve been in my flat almost 24/7 since we broke up, and the moment that I emerge from my hibernation he comes here.
‘But what about your new dress, and your hair? The box is still going to be here when you get back. In fact, you can spend all day tomorrow staring at it.’
I’d already planned to do that anyway.
‘I’m not in the mood to go out any more. You go. I’m sure that Ashley and Becca will be out somewhere.’
‘I’ve got a better idea,’ says Sian, practically downing her whole glass of wine.
I watch her as she walks over to the box and opens the flaps.
‘Don’t!’ I screech, getting off the sofa to stop her, but I’m too late. The box is open and she’s started to pull things out of it.
I settle by her side to help. It feels like she’s opened Pandora’s box and now there’s no going back.
‘Oh, I love this jumper of yours, and this top – you’ll be glad of that when the weather perks up a bit,’ she says, making a messy pile of clothes on my coffee table.
My eyes track every item that she pulls out. Each piece triggering a memory. The jumper I wore when we went on our trip to Cheltenham to watch the horse racing. The pair of thick wool socks I’d taken up to London with us to go ice skating at Somerset House, only we’d never made it past the cocktails at Las Iguanas on the South Bank. The black cocktail dress I’d worn to his work Christmas do.
‘You left a lot of stuff there,’ says Sian.
