Page 18 of The Notecard
‘What are you doing tonight?’ says Fee from the hallway.
‘Just the usual. I’ll have a beer, watch a medical drama, and pick holes in all the mistakes.’
‘You don’t do that, do you?’ says Fee incredulously.
‘No, not really. My life is tragically sad, but I haven’t gone that low yet. Although Mum is coming over later because she has a date with the man upstairs.’
‘The Eighties music man?’ says Rob.
I nod.
‘Good for her. Getting out there again,’ says Fee with a smile.
‘I’ll pop over in the week,’ says Rob.
‘Not tomorrow?’ I say.
‘No, we have that thing,’ says Rob with a glum face.
Fee hits him on the arm.
‘Don’t say it like that,’ says Fee. ‘It’s my parents' wedding anniversary. We’re driving up in the morning and going for a meal with my family.’
‘Coventry,’ says Rob. ‘Might as well be the Outer Hebrides.’
‘Oh, stop it you old grouch,’ says Fee.
‘See you, mate,’ says Rob.
‘Enjoy the Outer Hebrides,’ I say.
‘Don’t encourage him,’ says Fee.
We all smile, and I’m about to go back into my flat when I hear a voice. It’s Michael from upstairs. He’s coming down the stairs. He asks to have a word and my heart sinks because I know what it’s about. It’s about Mum. It’s about what happened. What I did. The lie. I really don’t want to have this conversation, but I know it’s inevitable. Even less than I want to discuss Rob and Fee’s preferred sexual positions.
Meg
THEN
The pain in my heart is unbearable. It feels like it will never go away. It’s an actual pain. My heart physically hurts. I cry and cry, curled up in a ball on my bed. I had no idea it was possible to cry this much. That I could have so many tears inside of me. You’d think your body would eventually run out and there would be none left. My body aches and I just want to sleep. Sleep for weeks until the pain is gone. I want to wake up in a future where it never happened. Where James didn’t sleep with a girl from his work. Clara. She wasn’t even that attractive. She didn’t have large breasts, long legs, or even a particularly pretty face. James blew up our lives, destroyed our relationship for a plain girl from work called Clara. Seven years. I feel like my life is over and I will never be happy again. That the feeling of joy is gone, and it will never return. Instead there will be a void. An emptiness of emotion. Just a dull sadness.
I rang the doorbell to Keri’s flat. It was raining. Of course it was raining. Depression fuels depression. Grey clouds and fat rain hit the pavement. My hair was soaking wet. She opened the door and I fell into her and cried. We walked into her flat, she hugged me, held me, and I told her what had happened. I got home from Dublin and walked in on James and a girl having sex in our bed. Simple words with a lifetime of complications. The pain is still unbearable. Weeks after and I wake up and for a moment, for a split second, I forget. Then it drenches me in all of its horrible pain again. It sticks to me like glue.
James comes over and we talk. For hours. He talks. I listen. He says sorry so many times it loses all meaning. He’s explaining. But all I hear is his voice in our bedroom with that girl. The dark mound of bodies moving.
‘Fuck me.’
I never liked it when he talked during sex.
He begs me to give him another chance. It will never happen again. It was a mistake. A one off. It had nothing to do with me. He only loves me. He was drunk (as if that makes it okay). It was a work thing. He never intended to do it, and he doesn’t know why he did. It was a lapse in judgement. I angrily shout at him and then collapse into despair. He tries to hug me, and I tell him to leave me alone. Never touch me again. He begs me to give me another chance. He’ll be the best boyfriend in the world. We can’t give up seven years because of one stupid mistake. He’ll do anything. The painful part is that I think he’s being honest. He genuinely believes it. I almost want to say yes, let’s forget about it and move on, but I can’t because whenever I look at him, all I see is her grabbing her clothes, running out of the room, and James saying, ‘Fuck me.’
It doesn’t matter what he says because I heard that. You can’t take that back. You can’t say sorry and expect to come back from that. Sometimes I think that if he had just told me what happened, just explained it, and I hadn’t actually seen it, then maybe I could forgive him. The words, I slept with someone else, seem so much less awful than what I saw. What I heard. I live with the pain inside of me. A broken heart. James and I were supposed to do life together. Him and me. And now we’re not. I’m sad for so many reasons; for the children we would have had, for the house I dreamed of, the holidays and memories we would have made. Instead of that, I’m alone and I can still hear his voice in that room and her moaning. I can still remember how I felt and how my body trembled. It was awful, and I hope I never have to feel that pain again.
NOW
‘The main thing I’m worried about is my boobs,’ says Mum. ‘It’s alright when they’re all trussed up in the pushy up bra, but once they’re out they’re like a lukewarm trifle.’
‘That’s your main worry?’ says Laura.
