Page 50 of The Reboot
‘Well done. It sounds like you’re achieving everything you were aiming for.’
‘Oh, and my doctoral thesis was the basis of a chapter in a book co-authored by Cyril Leavy. It was published last year.’
Cyril Leavy had been Andrew’s thesis supervisor. ‘Congratulations! I didn’t know.’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly a bestseller.’ There was that self-deprecation again. It was new and she liked it. ‘I’m really glad we’re doing this. I wanted to call you so many times. But I always chickened out.’
She frowned. ‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I felt shitty about the way things ended.’ He glanced away. ‘I should have talked to you, instead of … disappearing, basically.’
There’d been no drama in their break-up. Andrew hadn’t shagged her best friend or dumped her for someone else or even ghosted her. He’d just quietly slid out of her life, so gradually she couldn’t even say exactly when it had ended.
‘It must have been confusing for you. I mean, it’s not as if we’d been having problems in the relationship.’
‘Hadn’t we?’ She could hardly remember now, but she seemed to recall arguments. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. It was my illness, wasn’t it?’
He grimaced.
‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ she said quickly. ‘I mean, I get it. It was kind of impossible to be in a relationship with me then.’
‘That makes me sound like such a dick.’
‘No! It’s understandable. We were young. It was a lot for a twenty-something to be lumbered with. Believe me, ifIcould have run away from it, I would have.’
He sighed. ‘I guess I just didn’t like always being the asshole, you know?’
She frowned, puzzled.
‘I mean, you were sick. You couldn’t help it, and you were dealing with this huge, life-changing thing. My problems seemed –were– ridiculous in comparison. If I’d had a bad day or, I don’t know, got a terrible haircut—’
Ella laughed. ‘Oh my god, that time you got the mullet!’
He grinned. ‘Okay, thatwasa ridiculous problem. But I never felt like I could talk about my bad day because you’d always had a worse one. You’d had a whole year of them. I couldn’t complain about a bad meal in a restaurant or a horrible train journey because you couldn’t even go to a restaurant or get on a train. It was like there was no room formyfeelings – no space for me to be a bit down or disappointed.’
‘I get it. You didn’t feel entitled to your feelings.’
‘This is going to sound like such a cliché, but it wasn’t you. I didn’t like whoIwas in our relationship.’
‘You were tiptoeing around me the whole time. It sounds like it wasallabout me.’
‘Because it had to be all about you, I understood that. What you were dealing with was … all-consuming.’
That was true. It had eaten away at her entire life, swallowed everything down whole, including her relationship with him.
‘I guess I was just too immature to deal with it,’ he said with a shrug.
‘You didn’t have to. It wasn’t that I was any more mature or brave or anything. I just didn’t have any choice.’
‘Still, I felt so guilty for abandoning you when you most needed someone. I wish I’d handled it better, been there for you. I wouldn’t blame you if you hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you.’ She smiled. If she was honest, she’d been more relieved than anything when he’d dumped her because making an effort for him had been exhausting and it meant she could finally give up. They’d stopped going out because it took too much out of her, and she’d conserved all her energy for the nights they’d spend together. She’d tried to be a good girlfriend – engaged, sympathetic, interesting, sexy – but as her illness progressed, it became more and more of a strain, and one she couldn’t afford. Sex had become a chore that she avoided as much as possible and got through increasingly rarely in an attempt to preserve the relationship, her nerves jangling with the strain of trying to enjoy it when really she just wanted it to be over so she could sleep. When they broke up, any sadness she’d felt had been far outweighed by the bliss of being able to surrender to vegging out in front of the TV.
‘Don’t beat yourself up about it,’ she told him now. ‘You were young, you’re supposed to be immature.’
He looked at her wonderingly. ‘You’re amazing.’
‘Really? Based on what?’
