Page 50 of Behind Frenemy Lines

“I think there’s been some confusion—”

“Please?” Loretta gazed at me, wide-eyed. “I feel like you’re the kind of person who keeps her promises.”

I couldn’t bring myself to lay waste to her illusions. It was her wedding day. I’d have to get Charles to explain everything to her later.

“I’ll try my best,” I said. That was true, at least. “He’s a good guy.”

“He is,” said Loretta. “He deserves someone like you.” She gave me another hug, glimpsed someone behind me, and shrieked, “Lexi!”

I turned around with a grim sense of inevitability.

Alexis hadn’t recognised me from the back. She checked as she approached us, blanching. Tom was with her.

“Hayley’s been looking everywhere for you,” said Loretta to Alexis. “Let’s go find her!” She glanced at Tom. “You’ll let me borrow her for a second, right?”

“Er,” said Tom, but Loretta was already dragging his girlfriend away.

I’d been spending the hours since returning to the wedding dreading another run-in with Tom. But now it had happened, it didn’t feel that bad. It helped that Tom was frozen to the spot, looking petrified.

“Hi, Tom,” I said.

He looked as though he thought I might bite his head off.

There had been a shift in power between us, I realised. I’d spent the final year of our relationship feeling cast aside, unimportant. And I’d invested so much energy into persuading myself it was fine. My feelings were my own concern, I’d told myself, not Tom’s. I shouldn’t trouble him with them. I needed to focus on supporting him.

Now, for the first time ever, I didn’t want anything from Tom. Not his attention or affection, not even an apology. Whatwould “sorry” do? I’d been with him from age twenty to thirty-three. I hadn’t been perfect, but I’d tried my best for him. I’d done all I could to build a good life for us, together. And he hadn’t even had the decency to be honest with me.

Learning what I had today had freed me from any longing I’d felt for what we used to have. I didn’t need anything from him anymore.

I could have walked away. But I found I had things to say to Tom. We were off by ourselves, and it was unlikely anyone would overhear us over the music.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I said.

“Kriya,” said Tom.

“Sorry I ran out earlier,” I said. “I needed a moment. Alexis told me how you guys got together, and I worked out what the timeline meant. I guess it was easier to dump me over text than to do it while we were living together and I was paying the rent.”

Tom winced. “That’s not fair.”

“Is it not?” I said, genuinely curious. “Which part of it was unfair?”

He hunched. Everything about Tom was so familiar, still—the timbre of his voice, the way he ducked his head, the hair curling at the back of his neck. After so many years together, his every gesture was imprinted on me. And yet I was looking at someone I had never truly known.

“Why didn’t you just break up with me when you left?” I said. “Or even better, before you started chatting to Alexis? Dragging it out didn’t do anyone any favours.”

Tom grimaced. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t know if you remember, but it wasn’t a good time for me, Kriya. I’m not proud of what I did—”

“Well, that’s something.”

Tom looked irritated. “Do you have to? I’m trying to apologise.”

“Are you seriously telling me off for being angry?”

“No, I’m just…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Perhaps the apology should have felt like a victory, or vindication, or something. But I’d been right. It didn’t feel like much of anything.

As I looked at him, round-shouldered and glum, my heart wrenched. Tom’s unhappiness had always elicited a complex knot of guilt and responsibility in me. I’d felt I had to fix it—that if he wasn’t happy, that was somehow due to my failings. As though, if I’d been happier with my direction in life, or been more present, or different in some way, that would have changed things for him. He wouldn’t have been so frustrated. He would have loved his job, and living in London, and all the things about our life that had pissed him off while we were together.

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