Page 101 of The Rest is History
‘God.’ I stare at the ceiling. ‘How the hell am I supposed to go to school tomorrow and see him? How am I supposed to teach? Kids always know when something’s up. I’ll probably cry all night, and I won’t be able to function.’
‘I’ll give you one of my sleeping pills,’ Grace says. ‘The best thing you can do right now is knock yourself out.’
Grace is right. The pharmaceutical help is a lifesaver. I cry for a couple of hours, my body racked with sobs, before passing out hard. When I wake up, my body is horribly sluggish—whether from the pills or the grief, I’m not sure. Probably a double-whammy.
School.
I can’t imagine how it’s going to be today. I’ll have to focus with very fibre of my being on not losing my shit and not getting the slightest glimpse ofhim.
Because if I see him, I will fall apart.
I text Zara before I leave the house.
Charlie dumped me yesterday. I can’t see him. Any chance you can meet me by the bike racks? Need some moral support.
She responds with a flurry of outraged messages.
OMFG
Seriously?
WTF???????
Of course babe
I’ll get there early
Then I’ll kill that MF for you
I stare in the bathroom mirror. Jesus, I’m a mess. There’s not much I can do about my red, almost painfully swollen eyelids except cover them with shitloads of concealer. I slather the makeup on with a trowel and trudge downstairs.
The entire bike ride, I’m a mess of conflicting emotions. I’m terrified of seeing him and desperate to lay eyes on him in equal measure. I still can’t compute that our relationship has tumbled down around us so quickly. Maybe I was being blind, but it came out of nowhere. He’s pulled the plug and left me out in the cold, and no matter how pathetic it sounds, I feel like half a person.
I miss him already, and it’s only been one night.
I’m completely bereft.
My brain keeps ricocheting between small leaps of hope that I can convince him to change his mind and despair that what he did yesterday was one hundred percent deliberate. Final. I know he still feels for me. Sunday told me that. His text last night told me that. But whatever demon or general fuck-upness is making him cast his feelings aside is clearly a powerful force—in his head, at least.
But if I see him today, and he’s the old version of himself—cold, distant, dismissive, shut-off—I honestly think I will curl up and die. I’ll prostrate myself at his feet and beg for mercy. There’s a very real chance he will be a cold bastard from here on in. After all, he’s admitted to having had feelings for me since we first met, and look how he treated me for months.
Emotional walls are Charlie’s best allies, so I can imagine what his coping method for this breakup will be.
Locking up the fortress that is his heart, basically.
Maybe I should consider doing the same.
I ride through the staff carpark to the bike racks, my stomach flipping as I spot his car parked in his usual spot.
So he’s here.
Oh, Christ.
And I bet he’s well rested and peppy and ready to educate the next generation.
Maybe he’s a sociopath. It’s definitely a viable explanation.
Except it’s not. The Charlie I knew before could have fooled me into thinking he was utterly devoid of emotion, but the Charlie I’ve fallen in love with is a man who feels things.
