Anyway, I don’t like being with him. It took me years to get over the feeling that I was somehow incomplete without him in my life and, even though overall he seemsverydifferent from how he used to be, he’s also the same in some ways. Like his smile. And his face. And his bigness. And the little edge to his voice when he’s being sarcastic. And the fact that (when he’s sober) you feel like nothing can really go wrong when he’s there.
Apart from maybe having your heart broken.
And on the heartbreak point, something very, very horrible is starting to creep into my mind and solidify as an actual thought. I thought we really loved each other and I have memories of us together as the perfect love. We didn’t break up because we didn’t love each other any more; we broke up because I couldn’t deal with Callum’swildnessany more – I was terrified that he’d do something terrible to himself – and he couldn’t stop with the wildness.
These thoughts – memories – are starting to cause a very twisty feeling in my stomach, almost physical pain, because they’re leading to something that has been quite nebulous in my brain since I first realised this morning that Callum wasCallumand looking like a completely different Callum from the one I used to know.
He’s a lawyer, according to Azim, as in he holds down a job with regular working hours and presumably turns up every day when he should do and is sober when he turns up. And presumably he no longer does things like staying out for three nights in a row and turning up on a beach in Barcelona when his mother thought he was at his cousin’s house in Edinburgh, drunk and dressed head to toe in a stranger’s clothes, or accidentally investing his (not very big) life savings in a two per cent share of a llama farm in Poland, or taking a job as a sushichef after pretending he’d grown up in Japan and being fired on day three. (Surprised it took that long.)
Or trying to drive off in a stranger’s car while very drunk the day he passed his driving test, which was our last big argument. After that, the next day – the last time we saw each other – we didn’t argue, we both just got sad.
I’m guessing that his lack of licence now might relate to an occasion when he didn’t have me there stopping him doing something terrible while drunk.
He isn’t drunk now, though, is he.Now, he’s really annoyed because my van does not have working windscreen wipers and that’sdangerous.
He’s right. It is obviously very dangerous to drive in the rain without working windscreen wipers and I was stupid not to get them fixed immediately.However, he’s being very hypocritical given what he tried to do driving-wise when we were young.
I’m like whatever about the hypocrisy, though.
What I am now about to admit to myself, which I’m really upset about, is that I really, really believed – and still did until today – that we loved each other as much – almost more than – anyone could ever love anyone else. We split up because he was destroying himself and he wouldn’t get help and I couldn’t bear to see it and he didn’t want me to see it. And when in desperation I gave him a clean-yourself-up-or-we’re-done ultimatum, he said fine, I’ll see you again when I’m sorted.
And that was that.
And I waited. And waited. Because I really believed that he would sort himself out and that he would come back to me.
I never changed my number or my email address.
He never came back.
And until today I just thought that he must be living some out-of-control life somewhere and that I’d never see the Callum that I thought he could have been – the one who would havebeen my life partner. I didn’t actually ever think that version of Callum could exist in this universe.
Basically, I acknowledge to myself as I kick a pile of pine needles and then regret it when some get stuck between my foot and the bottom of my flip-flop, I am deeply hurt that he got clean and then clearly chose to make his new, clean, functional lifewithoutme.
The fact is: it turns out that sensible, sober Callum didn’t love me.
Which should befine. Water under the bridge. It’s allwayin the past.
I am hurt, though, I think as I shake my flip-flop to get rid of all the pine needles still sticking to it, and then put it back on and start walking round the clearing. I’m sick-to-the-stomach, unable-to-raise-a-smile, life-feels-suddenly-incredibly-empty level hurt.
As I reach the board that Callum was looking at, I can’t help thinking that I’m more upset by this than I was by my split with Dev.
It isn’t because I loved Callum more though, not really. It’s just the youth versus maturity thing. Probably everything feels bigger when you’re young and you don’t know how to deal with your emotions; that’s all.
The board is not that interesting. We’re in a national park and it’s got trails and stuff. It is not going to be taking my attention away from my thoughts.
I don’t want to be wallowing in what-might-have-beens or my-first-love-did-not-love-me-as-much-as-I-loved-him thoughts.
I need to phone a friend. Solitude is unhealthy.
I choose Samira, because she was there through the Callum years and the just-post-Callum years so I won’t need to explain anything to her.
‘Ems.’ Just hearing her voice is good. ‘Don’t tell me, you’re somewhere amazingly beautiful in Italy while I’m sneaking a fag break in a really smelly alleyway where I might get murdered any minute.’
‘You should put the cigarette out and go straight back inside.’ I’m already feeling a bit better just from hearing her voice. Myfriendsare my reality. Callum is just a weird blast from the past. That’s all. ‘What’s your weather like?’
‘Weather? Actually very nice and sunny today in London, so I’m genuinely not going to be jealous about yours.’
‘Rightly so because here it’s raining more heavily than I’ve seen for a very long time and I don’t have working windscreen wipers so I’m stuck in a forest in the middle of nowhere and I can’t go anywhere.’
