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With Stefan, the bitterness emerged quickly, and the regret, but also disappointment. I’d begun to see a future to our relationship, and even with my backing out on Sunday, there had been no sign of discontent on his part. For fuck’s sake, he had asked me to stay, not go.
Clearly, sex was it for him. I’d failed to deliver, so he’d gone to another of his readily available, gullible sex nymphs. Just like me, she stripped for him and lay her soul out to be devoured.
I pulled my bike up the curb, locked it in the shed in the back yard and fumbled for my house key. Abandoning my bike helmet on the kitchen table, I headed to my bedroom and threw my shattered body onto the bed. There I lay, sobbing uncontrollably.
I awoke in the middle of the night, still dressed. I’d cried myself into a state of slumber. I undressed, drank a glassful of water and tumbled back under the covers. I lay awake, wondering how I was going to recover my dignity. The look he had given me through the window was shock. I’d caught him in the act. He couldn’t deny it. Why hadn’t he chased after me, try to explain or justify his actions?
I flitted in my head. I was curious to know why he done what he had, but I also wanted to tell him to get lost. How would I go forward? I couldn’t face knowing the truth, not yet. I switched off my phone.
Car headlights occasionally tracked across the wall of my bedroom. The odd late-night vehicle. I had to be at work early tomorrow and smell all those roses and lilies. Tears trickled down my inflamed cheeks.
Stefan had broken my heart.
* * * *
The texts arrived first thi
ng in the morning. Pleading ones, asking me to ring him. I deleted each one in a haze of anger. He’d left voice messages too. I couldn’t bear to hear his voice, so I erased those without listening.
By the time Bridget arrived at the florist, I’d switched the phone off.
I knew from the bathroom mirror that my eyes were still red and puffy. Her observant eyes would not miss my soulful appearance. She put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a hug. “Not Micah again?”
I shook my head. “Can’t talk about it,” I croaked. My throat hadn’t recovered from my night of bawling. Why was I taking this so hard? We’d barely been together for a couple of weeks and I was behaving as if I’d lost a lifelong lover.
“Oh, sweetie.” She hugged me harder. “Men are fickle, but they’re also simple. Unless you spell it out to them, they’re blind.”
She made me a strong cup of coffee and opened a packet of chocolate digestives.
Everyone assumed Bridget and Al were married, a couple. They were business partners, nothing more. Bridget lived the life of a single woman with passion. Al was happily married to an unassuming woman and between them, they’d raised three children. It made for an interesting time at work. Bridget and Al treated each other with respect, courtesy, but no deep friendship. They rarely met outside of work and didn’t bother with birthday cards or presents. They shared a love of flowers and little else.
Their advice reflected their differing states. Bridget, throughout the day, suggested that life without men was the simplest course of action. “Make friends, not lovers.” Al, on the other hand, said I simply hadn’t met the right man. They batted back and forth, and me in the middle, confused and despondent.
“But I thought I’d made a connection. The music. The…” I couldn’t say the word sex.
“Sex, sweetie, overrated,” capped Bridget with zeal.
Al scowled. “It doesn’t have to be about sex, but if you discover the chemistry, it sustains the relationship.”
“Chemistry. Baloney.”
On and on, they dueled. Never becoming harsh or unpleasant, they agreed to disagree on many points until a customer arrived. I rushed out to the shop front to serve the man, desperate to escape my employers’ nitpicking of relationships.
I left my mobile switched off and prayed that Stefan didn’t come calling.
* * * *
I gathered up the bunch of flowers and dropped them into a bucket of water. Alone in the florist—Al out delivering and Bridget at the post office—I had the place to myself post-lunch.
A bell rang. The door to the shop had an old-fashioned ding-a-ling bell. Neither Al nor Bridget favored electronic devices, they just about managed the till. I carried the bucket out of the cold storage room and nudged the door shut with my bottom.
On the threshold of the doorway between the back rooms and the shop front, I froze on the spot. That familiar heart-pounding sensation hit the back of my throat.
Stefan stood by the counter. His face seemed drained of energy with bags under his eyes. I suspected his was a mirror image of my own face—a hollowed out expression of sleep deprivation. Part of me was pleased at his unhappy appearance, but some other hidden part of my psyche bordered on sadness, brought on by empathy. I shook my head slightly, snapping myself out of those sympathetic thoughts.
“I suppose this is the downside of you knowing where I work.” I dropped the pail on the floor with a clatter. Stefan flinched.
“You won’t answer my messages,” he said.
