Page 22 of The Little Board Game Café

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. She walked over to the sink, ran some water onto a cloth and began to mop up some of the mess.

Peter stood up and came over to her. She could sense him behind her. She froze, expecting him to put his arms around her, to hold her. Perhaps he was going to make that attempt to persuade her to change her mind. But he didn’t. He tried to pull the cloth from her hand and said, ‘Leave it, Em. The cleaner’s coming on Monday. Just go. Please. Get this over with.’

She couldn’t bear to look at him. She knew she didn’t want to be with him, but she still cared about this man. Perhaps not in the way that Kate was besotted with each and every one of her boyfriends, but in her own quiet way, she had loved him. She let go of the cloth, rushed upstairs and packed hastily, shoving spare underwear and a spare t-shirt into an old rucksack.

Peter was standing in the hallway with puffy eyes, red cheeks and an air of resignation when she went back downstairs. Without a word, she handed him her keys, feeling strangely calm. As if she was going for a night away rather than leaving her fiancé.

Ex-fiancé now. Emily began to tug at the ring on her left hand, trying to ease it and cursing her chubby fingers.

‘No, Em,’ he said. ‘Keep it. Sell it. Whatever. I don’t want it back.’

‘Okay, thanks. Because it isn’t coming off.’ She looked up, her eyes meeting his for a second, before she looked away again.

She could feel him watching her from the doorway as she walked across the gravel, the rucksack slung over her shoulder.

‘Shall I give you a lift?’ he called. ‘What about your ankle?’

He could be kind, she thought with a pang of regret. Generous. Even at a time like this.

‘No, thanks. It’s not too bad now.’

‘Em, don’t worry about working out your notice. Take the rest of the month off. Otherwise…well, it might be awkward. You know. Under the circumstances. We’ll pay you anyway.’

Emily had always been surprisingly efficient at extricating herself from relationships. There was no point prolonging the pain, after all. Might as well make it sharp and swift. Better for both parties in the long run.

So only minutes after Peter had been moaning about the mess she’d made in the kitchen, she was on Kate’s doorstep with her rucksack full of spare knickers.

Chapter Nine

Books by Emily’s Kate’s spare bedside: Single Again!; The Breakup Bible; How to Heal Your Broken Heart. All Kate’s.

Emily glanced around at her new abode. The room wasn’t huge but it was, like the rest of Kate’s house, tastefully furnished and impeccably tidy. There was a single bed with fresh white linen, a teal-coloured throw and matching cushion.

‘I wish I could take break-ups as calmly as you do,’ Kate said as she hastily cleared some space in the wardrobe of her spare room so that her best friend could hang up some clothes. ‘Although…’

‘Although?’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Just a thought. I’m probably wrong.’

Kate no doubt had some explanation, gleaned from one of her self-help books, about why Emily found breaking up with boyfriends relatively easy whilst Kate herself was always distraught. Emily didn’t enquire further; past experience told her that her friend’s theory would be wide of the mark.

‘I still don’t get it,’ said Kate later as they sat at the table, drinking endless mugs of tea. ‘You split up over a messy kitchen? That’s the kind of thing you have a row over, not a break-up.’

‘I’ve always felt like a house-guest. He never once made me feel it was my home too.’

‘But you could have talked to him about that?’

‘I suppose. You’ve never liked him, Kate, so how come it feels like you’re on his side suddenly?’

‘It’s not that I didn’t like him. I just thought he wasn’t right for you. But you said you loved him so I don’t get why you’d walk away over this. It seems a bit…trivial.’

‘Firing me wasn’t trivial.’

‘Aha, I knew it. This is cos he made you redundant.’

‘I dunno. Suddenly I realised that I didn’t want to be with him anymore. Perhaps his reaction to my baking was the final straw.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, I’m surprised at how it ended, but I’m glad you ended it. I mean, it never worked, did it?’