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A blunder. This does not feel like a blunder, Ralph Nobleman. A blunder is a fumbled ASOS order. A blunder is spotting a naked bystander accidentally filmed in the background of aMarried at First Sightepisode. This isso muchmore than a blunder.
‘Oh, there you are!’ Petra stands at my reception desk, as always, willowy and beautiful and safe, her glossy brown curls like something from aVoguefull-page ad. I could cry at the sight of her. ‘I was starting to worry.’
I get to the ground floor. ‘Oh, Petra,’ I say.
But there’s something about her face. She looks worried. Her brown eyes, concerned circles, her lips, parted. Almost how she looked the morning after finding that flirty ‘Petra’s great but isn’t u’ sent message on her ex, Maria’s phone when they’d been together a whole entireyear.
‘Have you .?.?. have you had a chance to see everything that’s been sent?’ Petra asks quietly.
‘No. No, I haven’t even turned my computer on yet. God, Petra, how the hell did this even happen?’
Petra’s eyes close then, and her hand lands softly on my arm and I don’t even have the time to prepare for things somehow, amazingly, getting worse before Petra speaks. ‘Millie, there’s a reply you wrote to Owen’s engagement announcement,’ she says. ‘And it was sent to everyone. The entire company. Including Chloe.’
*
From: Millie Chandler
To: Owen Kalimeris; all UK office
Subject: Some Personal News
Dear Owen,
I can’t believe what I’ve just read. You’re getting married. You and Chloe are getting married. And to think, weeks ago, you told me it was nothing serious. And then you asked me out.
I started typing this in the hopes it would help me work out how I feel, to make sense of this sad, dark tornado in my chest, but I still don’t know. I don’t know how to feel. I just know I cried. I tried not to, tried to keep it in, swallow it down, but it happened almost instantly, the second I opened the email and saw the announcement. Two whole years we’ve been broken up and I cried just like that – ran into the work loos, like a perfect cliché, and wore sunglasses inside like bloody Bono in a maxi dress until home-time. I blamed a migraine. But everyone at work knew because they got your email too. I hope nobody tells you. I’m embarrassed. Argh, and I’m so bloody ashamed.
It’s midnight now, and I can’t sleep. I just got your old T-shirt out of my wardrobe to see if it still smells like you. (The black Vegas one you left me to wear when you went away, when we first met? The one I took the piss out of, but never gave back.) It doesn’t. It smells like .?.?. nothing. Ha. A metaphor if ever there was one. And God, what am I even doing? WHAT am I doing? Typing to you in my pyjamas, alone, while you are mere miles away, tucked up, oblivious and happy with Chloe. Your fiancée, Chloe Katz from the production team. Of course, Chloe. She always made you laugh.
It was getting easier too. The shitty, ironic thing was that it was finally getting easier. FINALLY. I was thinking about you less, dreading getting those work updates from your team in India less. Missing you less. And then Petra said the channel launch in India was done, and I was braced. Braced because I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw you again – that you popped into work.
And then, there you were.
And it wasn’t horrible, like I imagined it would be. It was .?.?. nice? Like it used to be when we first met. But the way you spoke about Chloe, Owen. That’s why this email felt more like a bomb landing on my desk, because two weeks ago you said it was ‘nothing serious’. You said her family were weirding you out and ‘too heavy’. And then you asked me out.Me. Your ex-girlfriend. The woman you dumped at your leaving dinner – I still can’t believe you did that. Canyoubelieve you did that? – before you pissed off to India with a new job, and a new life.
And I wondered if the lunch date was just a pleasantry or something. But then you emailed the next day suggesting a time, a date, and that new Thai place in Westcliff, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And I’d been so confused. But, mostly, and I feel SO ashamed about this, I wondered if we might be one of those couples. The types who break up, go away for a bit, grow up, and come back to each other. A story of ‘meant to be’. (Like Jen and Ben. Peyton and Lucas. Nathan and Cara fromLove Islandseries two.)
And then .?.?. this. This lands in my inbox. I keep reading it, checking it’s actually real, because you book us a table, we text, and then this!?!?! Not just an engagement announcement, but a wholewedding date. But then that’s just so you, isn’t it? You were always so nought to one hundred. It’s the reason I fell in love with you. It’s the reason you left. I didn’t have that drive you said. That ambition.
And I’m so thankful you’ll never ever see this. I’m glad you’ll never know how angry I am at you for hurting me. For discarding me so fast. For falling in love again, even faster. I’m glad you’ll never know I miss you. And that I still love you, Owen. I do. And I know I can safely say that here, because you’ll never see this. These words will only ever be for me and my stupid, naive heart. This email will never be sent.
Always,
Millie x
Chapter Four
‘Oh, Ralph, I can’t do much more of this.’
‘You need to know how the land lies, though, Millie,’ says Ralph. ‘Thirty-one left to read, then you’ll have no surprises. Knowledgeispower. Especially in these sorts of incidents.’
‘These sorts of incidents? Ralph, there’s neverbeenan incident like this. Name me a single comparable incident.’
Ralph says nothing, just taps on the next ‘sent item’, as, beside him on the sofa, I down my red wine and groan into the bowl of the glass.
When I got home from work and flopped through the flat door two hours ago, I had a plan: cry in bed.A lot.A big ugly, snotty, wailing, woe-is-me, my-life-is-over cry. Cry and cry and then do something totally immersive that would leave no room for thinking. Cook something new and involved, until the sink was brimming, and the fridge was so packed full of food that Ralph would start worrying about ‘overloading the fan system’ again. And maybe even submerge myself into an hour of the Duolingo German course I’ve just started, discover perhaps, what the German is for ‘I have ruined my life and require a new identity please.’ Definitely noLove Islandtonight, though, orMarried at First Sight. I never want to look at anything love-y ever again after today. Right now, I hate love. Love has duped me today. Love has snared me, fucked me well and truly over, ensured my dark, bitter heartbreak was seen by myentire workplace. I still can’t believe everyone has read it. Knowing everyone has seen that whole, massive email to Owen, thatChloehas seen it, feels like the world has seen me without clothes on. Without a shred ofskin .?.?.
And although I did follow through with my crying itinerary, I’ve instead cried on the sofa, beside Ralph, who had already pre-empted my sad, lonely plan and had lured me here, as I walked through the front door, using my favourite stuffed-crust pizza as bait. My knackered heart bloomed at the sight of it. My favourite pizza with one of my favourite people, in my cosy flat-share (with the most perfect view in Leigh-on-Sea there is, in my opinion) is just what I needed. But that was until I’d seen Ralph’s laptop on the coffee table, and two flickering candles, as if it were being blessed before being opened to a huge stampede – one-hundred-and-seven to be precise – of email demons.
