Chapter One
WILL
People tell me I’m melodramatic. It’s something I always argue against.
But as my knees make contact with the supermarket aisle floor, phone clutched to my breathless chest, the truth is they might be right.
Well, isn’tthatfantastic?
Ollie Pankhurst’s getting married. Married! We’ve only recently broken up… well, three years ago, but still. Who’s counting?
Married!
No, that cannotbe right.
Opening WhatsApp, I video call my best friend, Alice.
‘Will. Why are you on the floor of Tesco?’
‘Ollie Pankhurst is getting married.’
‘No.’ Alice, somewhere on the high street, falls to her knees, too. Her dark hair is out from under a yellow beanie hat, and her sleeves are rolled up despite the chill in the air. ‘Are you sure?’
‘He posted a photo on Insta. A photo of him and Alec showing off their engagement rings. He definitely didn’t skimp on the diamonds.’
‘How do you know he asked?’
‘Because Ollie is a romantic.’
Ollie was an ideal boyfriend. We’d met on an English Literature undergraduate course at Cardiff University, and it hadn’t been long before we’d gone official. Three years zoomed by in a sexy, romantic, wonderful blur, until Ollie got on one knee and asked me to marry him at our graduation.
I said no.
We were too young. We needed to figure ourselves out. Figure out who we were together when we were serious professionals and not hungover students. Ollie agreed, reluctantly, and we spent the next seven years together facing the world head-on. Stronger than yesterday, as Britney might say.
He went back to university, got his Masters, and at his graduation ceremony, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.
He had a ‘proposing at graduation ceremonies’ fetish, apparently.
I said no.
Two weeks later, we’d broken up.
‘We want different things,’ Ollie said. ‘I’m letting you go.’
Why did I say no, when we’d been together so long and when I loved him dearly? Truthfully, I wasn’t ready. We were already living like a married couple. Why make it official? I’ve been trying to answer this question through countless therapy sessions. Therapy sessions that brought to light fear. Fear of what a wedding ring meant. Fear of laws and official registry and how much everything would cost when I was broke. Fear that one day Ollie would wake up, tell me he didn’t love me anymore,and divorce me, just like what happened with my parents. God, that was messy. Their dynamic still makes me uneasy today. If all of that happened, it would have ruined me further. It would become complicated and messy. At least without the ring a break-up would be cleaner.Wascleaner.
He didn’t understand it. Honestly, I don’t understand it. But despite people fighting for our rights to marry, I still couldn’t go through with it.
I haven’t even been able to watchMarried at First Sight.
I grasp for a tub of delicious-looking ice cream in the freezers across from me and hug it with a sigh. ‘Can you get me a spoon?’
The woman standing near me blinks, before heading towards the canteen. I’m optimistic she will return, even though my life has been shredded in front of my eyes, my blood oozing out of me, my breath dying upon my lips.
Okay, so there’s a chance Iammelodramatic.
‘How are you feeling?’ Alice asks.
