‘You know what?’ I say. ‘You need to give the two hundred pounds back. You’ve actually lost the challenge. Because you’vejust proved to me that, yes, all my relationships do fail. Even when I fall in love. There is no happily-ever-after for me.’
‘Andyouknow what?’ he yells. ‘I’ve lost too. Becauseyouhave just proved to me that there can be no happily-ever-after for me either. Because I’m never going to meet anyone again who I love like I love you, and you’ve just accepted the word of an evil, amoral, shit-stirring woman over mine, without listening to me atall. Goodbye.’ And he ends the call.
I sniff all the way home and then when I get there I crawl into bed and just howl.
22
JAKE
I am so pissed off. I raise my golf club and hit the ball as hard as I can. I mis-hit and it goes straight into the net in front of my driving range bay. I swing hard at the next one. That one connects and soars high into the air but far off to the left. I go for another massive hit and completely miss the ball, which never happens to me.
‘Mate?’ asks Dan from the next bay.
Like a toddler, I pretend I haven’t heard, and roll my shoulders to go for my next attempt.
I’m so angry. Or upset. Or let down. Or something.
Freya. Sonja. Freya.
I hit the ball half-heartedly and don’t bother to watch where it goes.
I shouldn’t have come. It was very kind of Dan to ask me but I think I should actually have stayed at home alone to sort through my thoughts. Or wallow. Or drown my sorrows. Something solitary, anyway. I am not good company right now.
‘Fucking Sonja,’ I say out loud.
‘Yeah,’ Dan agrees.
The woman is pure bloody evil. She and her producers obviously completely knew what they were doing when they set us up like that.
With no regard whatsoever for the feelings of the actual humans involved. Freya looked so stricken. And I’m not exactly happy right now either.
Really fucking unpleasant.
Okay, so I have my thoughts clear on Sonja. Unequivocal dislike of her inhuman nastiness.
I take a moment and then hit a good ball.
I hit another good ball before my thoughts resume their circular misery.
Maybe Sonja’s actually done me a favour.
Because Freya.
I thought wekneweach other. We’ve spent so much time together. We’ve laughed, we’ve spent time with other people, we’ve done stuff together.
We’ve made love. Well, I thought we were making love. Now I think we were just having great sex.
Because we’ve alsotalked. And I was open with Freya. I shared my thoughts, hopes, fears, beliefs with her. And I thought she did the same with me. I thought we understood each other.
I do a massive whack of another ball and hit it straight into the ground right in front of me.
I don’t know how I feel about Freya. Maybe justhurt. She gave me no opportunity whatsoever to explain.
I’m also angry with myself. I should have told her about the bet. Because she and I did talk. In a way that felt as though it was about everything. But I didn’t mention it to her.
‘I should have told her about the bet,’ I say out loud. ‘It didn’t mean anything, like it wasn’t a real bet, and it was made when we still barely knew each other, but I should have told her.’
‘Yeah,’ says Dan.
