George has gone. He’s left me and this is how he’s done it. After six years of love, or what I thought was love.
No reply to the text I sent him as Andy packed away his things. No answer to:What the hell is going on?But then I suppose—actions speak louder than words—it’s pretty obvious what’s going on.
A thought occurs to me and my thumb hovers over the Instagram search icon on my phone. I know this way madness lies. If I start down this road things will get very painful, very quickly, and yet in a way I want the pain. Pain will fill the room with something at least now that Andy has gone, taking all of George’s things with him.
I tap out her name…
Her verified account springs up. Her curated, muted-tone online existence exactly as I would have imagined it. Naomi Fairn and her achingly cool life. There’s a post from two days ago, a Polaroid photo of a script with her pale hand obscuring the title card, a plain gold band on her middle finger, clear nail polish, and the sleeve of a gray hoodie.
@Naomifairn:New job. Can’t say yet but this one’s special.
The crop emoji. I always thought that one just represented a generic crop but now on closer inspection I see it is actually supposed to symbolize rye. A fun clue for her intrepid followers. I’m suddenly reminded that she’s only twenty-one.
I scroll through her earlier posts looking for him, looking for anything that can explain my now empty house. Something catches my eye. Posted last week.
@Naomifairn:Shadows.
January 29th. Hampstead Heath.
A photo of two people’s shadows elongated in the winter sun along a path in Hampstead Heath; the tips of her white Converses are in shot and, partially obscured, to their right, the edge of the other person’s shoe. My stomach flips; I know that shoe. I pinch and zoom, hunched over and squinting at the phone screen like an octogenarian in my lonely kitchen.
A scuffed navy Adidas. His shoe. I was there the day he bought them. I’ve gathered them up, abandoned about the house, and put them away for him a thousand times. My heart yawns wide deep inside my chest followed sharply by the acid burn of anger.
He left me for her. How could he think it was okay to do this to me, like this? After everything we’ve said and been to each other. Six years. No word. No explanation. Just gone.The anger inside me twists around itself, a beast ready to scream.
I exit Naomi’s account and put my phone up on the kitchen counter. Best to leave it there for now.
I concentrate on my breathing. I try to fight the fresh prickle of tears stinging my eyes. I need to stay calm.
I can’t blame Naomi for this. God knows if George even told her about me; she might not even know I exist. I tell myself I can’t blame her because I remember being twenty-one, I remember being in love. I need to remember it’s him not her. He left; he wasn’t taken.
She is twenty-one and George is thirty in November. In the interests of self-preservation, I leave that thought there because that’s someone else’s problem now.
I let my eyes play across the kitchen, across our things. The ones left behind. Shouldn’t we have more to show by now: more than a flat, and a kettle, and a toaster, and a smoothie maker? I know it’s not a decision for right now but I wonder if I should sell the flat. I guess it is mine. I put the deposit down and my name is on the mortgage. We’re not married after all. I’ve been covering the full mortgage payment for the last five months anyway. I’ve been covering most things for quite a while now. In a way, I guess, he hasn’t really been here for quite some time. I wonder how on earth I will tell anyone what’s happened without dying inside. Without being forced into the role of victim. I am not a victim.
My anger stretches taut again. How could I have been so stupid to love him? To trust him?
I sit up straight, take a breath, and try to refocus. I need to work out what I’m actually going to do.
There was a reframing trick I used to use when I hit a dead end working onEyre.When things threatened to overwhelm me. When I suddenly felt the weight and responsibility of carrying Charlotte Brontë’s story. Whenever a scene wasn’t working or I was too cold or tired or scared I’d ask myself—what would Jane do? Not what would I do. But what would Jane do if she were here, now.
So I ask myself:What would Jane do?
And without a second thought, I know. I’ve lived with her now for so long.
In the book Jane asks herself:Who in the world cares for you?The answer is:I care for myself.
I need to care for myself.
She would cut her losses. She would protect herself. Jane would move on. Cauterize the wound to protect from infection. That’s what I need to do: control the fallout, change the story he’s written me into.
If I were Jane, I’d send a letter, an email. I’d secure another position, far from here. I’d move on and I’d adapt.
I think of my one lifeline, my bright bolt of good news in the darkness. The next few months are going to hurt, but I’m going to be okay. I will not play the role he’s cast me in. I will write my own story.
On the counter my phone sits silently. No word from him. Not even an apology. Nothing. I am not even worth a sorry.
Jane would not crack, or cry, or drunk-text. Jane would focus her mind.
