Page 64 of Seven Exes

‘How could you?’ he says at last, his voice breaking almost imperceptibly on the final word. It sends me into another spiral and I press the duvet to my face to stop the tears. I don’t deserve to cry right now. He does.

‘I don’t know,’ I say lamely, when I can speak again. ‘It happened, I was drunk, and I’m a fucking bitch. I know you must hate me, I’m so sorry. You have no idea how sorry.’

There is another silence before he turns to look at me, his eyes red and watery.

‘I don’t hate you,’ he says in a low, sad voice. ‘I couldn’t ever hate you.’

I stand to pull him close and we hold onto each other for a very long time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Entente Cordiale

Dear Esther,

Firstly, sorry about the above ‘dear’, this message felt like it called for some level of formality. But also hello! It’s nice to hear from you, I hope everything is good and happy in your life.

I’ve thought a lot about your request to meet up and I’m going to have to say no. Sorry. I’m not sure how much Sven passes along to Louise about what’s going on with me and my life (probably not much, he’s always going on about an ‘ethical firewall’) but in case he hasn’t mentioned: I’m engaged now! Her name is Amy and she’s absolutely brilliant. We’ve been togetherfor just over a year and she makes me really happy. Life is good.

If it matters, I did speak to her about your email, and she encouraged me to see you. She thought it might be nice for us to catch up. But ultimately, I didn’t feel right about it, and I’m not sure what it would really achieve.

That’s not to say I don’t still care about you. I really loved you a lot, our relationship was important to me – I’m sure you know/knew that – and you will always mean a lot to me. I don’t feel any regret about what happened, so I hope you don’t either. I know it ended in a pretty shitty way and was all a bit abrupt, but I feel quite strongly now that even all the sad stuff was how it had to happen. I know we were both hurt, but I’m OK now, and I hope you are too. I really mean that. I hope you’ve found all the happiness in the world, Esther. You deserve it.

Best wishes,

Iddy x

PS. Nice subject line. I see your half a term of history at uni didn’t go entirely to waste…

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Best wishes.

Best wishes.

Best FUCKING wishes!

That is a shitty sign-off when it comes from your boss, never mind the man you spent three years of your life in love with.

Ugh, I cannot believe the adultness. Thegrown-up, fucking maturity of that email. Howdarehe be so mature and so over it and so happy and so completely fine. HOW DARE HE!

UGH, and fuckingAmy! All perfect and sweet and laid-back about her fiancé getting an email from the former love of his life. She encouraged him to meet up with me! Did she horseshit. Actually, I bet she did! I would have pretended to be fine with it, too.

‘Ooh, yeah, baby, tewwwwwtally go meet up with your ex-girlfriend! I’m fiiiiiiiine with it! I’m not like those other saddo women who feel insecure and threatened by exes. I’m chiiiiiiilled out! Why don’t you kiss her and have sex with her as well, I’m cooooooool.’

What a load of monkey turd.

I stomp through the flat to Bibi’s room, computer in hand.

‘Can I come in?’ I shout, banging on her door. ‘I need you to look at this.’

‘Hold on,’ her half-asleep voice mumbles after a minute before she appears at the door. ‘What is it?’ She sounds annoyed.

Whoops, I’ve woken her up. I got up at six to head to work early because – let’s face it – I have a lot of making up to do with my poor assistant Katie. She’s been picking up my slack all over the place.

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