Page 56 of Did My Love Life Shrink in the Wash?
‘Will…I…’ Tears race down my cheeks.
‘Nothing is happening there, nothing. I wanted to tell you the next day, I really did, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I met up with Jason that night for advice and he said to just hold on to it. You’ve just had a baby…’
‘We’vejust had a baby.’
I look down at Joe in his crib and the tears fall faster and harder, like rain.
‘Oh, Beth. You weren’t supposed to find out like this.’
‘I just wasn’t supposed to find out. You didn’t even come home that night, you went to your brother’s?’
‘I was so ashamed. I couldn’t face you. I knew I’d done something awful…’
The alcohol in my system makes me unsteady but now I feel nauseous. I can’t throw up in a child’s bedroom so I run to the bathroom and lock the door. I can feel the pulse in my neck quicken, like someone’s come with a wrecking ball and ploughed into me, completely unannounced. I hold my phone to my ear and hear him breathing on the other end.
‘Beth? Are you alright?’
‘No. I’m not. You came back that morning with a trifle. A fucking trifle. I’m so sad, Will.’
‘I’m so sorry…’
‘And I don’t know what I’m sadder about? The lies or the fact you’re not here. Why are you not here? Why aren’t you running back to me, right now, right this moment knowing what you’ve just told me?’
‘I left because I need to clear my head, all of it is so overwhelming.’
‘Overwhelming?Youare overwhelmed?’ This is my birthday. You’re not here. You’ve just told me, on my birthday, that you’ve kissed someone else.’ I want to staple that gift card into his face. I wish I could run from all of this. But I’m here and he’s there. The bitterness that has been stewing in me rises to a simmer. ‘What’s happened to us? This isn’t us. This is you running away from me. Where are you going? Kisses with other girls aside, I’ve lost you in the past months, to work, to something else. Why do I feel abandoned?’
‘You don’t understand the work stress I’m under…’
‘Then leave that, not me.’
‘And where do we live? Who pays the bills? What do we eat?’
I perch myself on the edge of the bath now and I look at my reflection in Emma’s bathroom mirror. The tears roll freely. Deep down, what breaks me is that he’s not confided any of this to me. All those times we sat together on our sofa, gawping at nothing on the television, sipping mugs of tea; the opportunity was there and he never said anything. And we’re now having this conversation in my sister’s bathroom. On the phone. Dressed in Disney.
‘I am sorry, Beth. I didn’t know how to talk about any of this. I was ashamed I’d let you down.’
‘So you went to Jason? Before me?’
‘He’s my best friend.’
I thought I was your best friend.
‘Do you want me to come back?’ he asks. I can hear the tremor of emotion in his voice. I want to stab him. But I also need him. I need a Will hug. A kiss on the forehead to take everything away. To hear him say ‘lemons’. I nod without saying a word.
‘I think maybe we just need some space to digest,’ he says. ‘Everything’s got so stressful: work, new house, Joe. And now you know what I’ve done and I feel awful. Maybe I’ll go stay at my brother’s for a few days to work some things out? I’m really hurting here.’
You’rehurting? Oh, Will. No. This is eight years of a relationship. There’s a baby in the picture. We can work this out together, not apart. Space from me? From Joe?
‘Is that what you want?’ I whisper.
‘Please don’t hate me.’
But I can’t answer him. I hang up the phone. My fingers hover over who to call, who to message. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Do I want to throw up? I want to sleep. Why can’t I stop crying? I’ll sleep in the bath. I swing a leg over to climb in and bottles from the bathroom shelf go flying. Grabbing at some towels, I curl up next to them, desperately clutching at anything to hold. He’s gone. My phone glows.
Well, that was fucked up.
It’s from Sean.
