Page 120 of Power Play
But I get up the next morning anyway.
I get up, shower and pull on a clean jumper that doesn’t smell like him, and I make coffee. I toast a bagel and water the plant he gave me for my birthday that I forgot to kill. I even answer a work email with only one spelling error.
I do normal things. Mundane things. Because if I stop moving, I might break.
Mia’s still here. She spent the night on the sofa, and I didn’t even have to ask. She just showed up with a bottle of red and a face mask she never got to use. Apparently, Dylan was out with a friend last night and she didn’t want to be home alone. I know she’s lying, God love her. Now she’s in my kitchen, wearing my dressing gown and pretending to care about the news while she keeps one eye on me.
“You sure you don’t want me to call in sick for you?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I need the distraction.”
She gives me a look. Not exactly pity, but something close. She knows what it took for me to get out of bed this morning. And how many times I picked up my phone and put it back down again.
I haven’t blocked Murphy, but I haven’t answered his messages or calls either.
I haven’t even read the messages. Just saw the preview pop up on my screen last night and then let it fade.
They came after he left. After he stood in my hallway shouting through the door like a man on fire. After I handed him that bin bag and told him we were done. After I shut the door and collapsed onto Mia’s shoulder, shaking.
He didn’t fight me then. Not really. Not in the wayI wanted him to. He just looked wrecked. As though someone had scooped out the inside of him and left the shell behind.
Maybe it should’ve been enough. But it wasn’t.
Because all I could see was that picture. Tabloid Girl clinging to him like she’d never left. His hands not pushing her away. His face not even surprised.
It hurt in a way I didn’t know things could hurt.
I sip my coffee and pretend it doesn’t still taste like grief.
Mia eventually leaves for work, hugging me for longer than she needs to. I tell her I’m fine but she knows I’m not.
I sit in the quiet for a while. Clean the flat. Fold the washing. Then I go out.
Not far, just to the shop. I tell myself I need milk but I don’t really. But I walk there anyway because I don’t know what else to do.
The air is cold and crisp, so I pull my scarf tighter and keep my head down and shove my hands inside my pockets.
And somehow, everything reminds me of him.
The bus stop where he made me laugh so hard I dropped my sandwich. The corner shop where we argued about which crisps were superior. The cafe where he’d steal my tea when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I don’t let myself cry. Not here.
But inside, I’m unravelling.
When I get back, there’s another message. Still him. Still unread.
I put my phone on silent.
I don’t know what he could possibly say that would make it better. What words could erase the way my stomach dropped when I saw that photo. How humiliated and stupid I felt.
I let myself fall for someone in the spotlight thinking I could handle it. I thought I mattered enough that nothing would shake us.
Turns out I was wrong.
I lie on the sofa and watch a film I’ve seen a hundred times because it doesn’t ask anything of me. Because I know it ends okay.
But real life doesn’t come with guaranteed endings sadly.
