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I screwed up the phone number and threw it in the rubbish.
Since I was home on my own, I turned on the TV. Lately, silence annoyed me. It gave me even more room for my thoughts of Alex, of that night when he’d seemed almost to be in love with me. Every soft touch on my arm, the times he’d leaned in just a little too close to speak to me, the hard muscles of his body when I’d tackled him to the ground.
It wasn’t even a breakup. There’d been nothing to break, nothing tangible. In my melancholy, I remembered something. I got up and hunted for my leather jacket. I found it hanging on the back of a chair and pulled a bag out of the pocket. The jellybeans. They’d been there since Alex had given them to me.
I didn’t really see the point of them. Why’d he even given me a gift to remember the good times?
I took one out. A green one. As I put it in my mouth, a tear welled in my eye. Damn jellybean, making me cry.
I got another one. White. Even worse. Screw it all. I stuffed a handful into my mouth. I’d eat my feelings. Maybe then I’d feel better.
What could I have done? There was nothing I could have done differently with Alex. I hadn’t come here to seduce him or to make him fall in love with me. I’d come here to get revenge. The whole falling in love thing had happened despite myself.
That really sucked. I was in love with Alex. I’d denied it for so long. I’d tried to push those feeling away. Alex was a massive douchebag. The most selfish fucking person alive. He’d played with me like I was a little toy, one minute all caring and sweet, the next minute pushing me away. For what purpose, I couldn’t even work out. Maybe for his own amusement.
I should be more like Sally. She’d put Alex in her past and was moving on with her life. She’d probably meet some fantastic guy in Europe and would have an awesome life while I stayed here, withering away with unrequited love.
I got up and walked to the bin, fishing out the phone number Sally had given me. I could destroy him and I would. I smoothed out the paper. It smelt a bit of fish and had some oil stains, but the number was still readable. Since it was a cell phone, I could call now. I could make that call and reveal Alex for the person he really was.
I walked back into the living room to find my phone.
Before I found it, someone knocked at the door. It couldn’t be Sally home. She wouldn’t knock anyway. Alex? My heart raced. I squished down the rising happiness inside me. It wouldn’t be him and, even if it was, I refused to be happy about it. I almost tripped over a cord running across the floor in my rush to the door.
If it was Alex, the man I intended to destroy, the man I hated, why was I so pleased? Maybe I had some mental illness.
It wasn’t Alex.
I took in the cool, sophisticated woman standing on the doorstep. Her hair pulled back into a bun, her makeup immaculate. Tall, bone thin and a face like she’d sucked on a lemon.
What the fuck was Alex’s mother doing here?
She swept past me, into the kitchen. Her face screwed up as though she’d smelt something bad. Maybe she had. To be honest, neither of us were the best of housekeepers and the place had rising damp. But that was beside the point. Who was Alex’s mother to come here and get all haughty about our smells? What the hell was she doing here in the first place?
“We need to talk,” she said.
That woman scared the hell out of me. She was so imposing and as hard as granite. All things considered, it was amazing that Alex had ended up as sweet as he was, and he sure was no fluffy kitten. I’d never spoken to her before but everyone in our hometown knew who she was.
But screw all that. I made myself as tall as I could and pointed to a chair at the tiny kitchen table. I wouldn’t let this woman overpower me. She’d hunted me out, and that meant she must want something awfully bad.
“I want you to disappear,” she said. “And I’m prepared to pay for it.”
She sat with her fancy designer handbag on her lap, as though nowhere in the place was clean enough to set it. She even perched herself on the edge of the seat, as though it was not nearly clean enough for her.
“Is that right?” I said. I leaned against the bench, not wanting to sit down with her. Still, this kitchen was so small that I was almost touching her. She glared at me and I wanted to back away but there was nowhere to back to.
