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I climb into bed and the exhaustion of it all drags me under as I cry myself to sleep.
The alarm clock wakes me and I slam my hand against the off button. It’s set for seven, when we’d both usually get up together. He’s not in the bed with me and I don’t have to go to work today so I roll over and try to block out everything that’s happened.
However, I can’t rest, not now I’m awake. The pain is still there and it feels like I am carrying a lead weight between my legs.
I open the bedroom door to discover him passed out on the sofa, sprawled, his hand reaching out for the almost-empty bottle of vodka on the coffee table. He drunk until he passed out, huh?
I waddle to the bathroom, deal with the mess and re-right myself, then head for the kitchen and a cup of tea.
On my way home from the hospital last night in a taxi, I just kept thinking one thing, just one thing.
It’s still whirring around my head and it’s terrible, but it’s true.
I make two cups of tea and slam one down on the coffee table next to him. He jumps out of his skin, slurring and delirious as he opens his caked-shut eyes, rubbing them furiously.
“You’ll be late for work,” I shout, and he holds his head.
I head back for the bedroom, tuck myself in and scroll through my phone for signs of life.
Something catches my eye when I open my personal emails. It’s something from Theo, sent a few days ago.
Dear Lily,
Hi. Hey. How are you doing?
I’m writing because we haven’t spoken and it doesn’t feel right. I feel awful for how we left things, or rather how I left things, because you haven’t been in touch and so I realise I must have made you feel like I didn’t want to know anymore. For that, I’m sorry.
I will always be here for you, no matter how grumpy or idiotic I get, I will come running whenever you need me, you know that. You were there for me during my madness over Susan and maybe Paul’s your madness, I don’t know. I want so much to believe you can help him, heal him… change him. But in my experience a leopard never does change its spots. I’m sorry. Perhaps it’s a lesson you’ll have to learn.
I am your truest friend and I love you.
I’m back in the UK in the summer – see you then?
T x
His words bring a sad smile to my lips and I reply with just one sentence:Love you too, see you then xx
Maybe it’s true what they say, that once you’ve shagged someone, you can never, ever be friends again. Something happens, maybe, when two people exchange fluids and it makes you vulnerable to hurt and therefore, the friendship will always be bogged down by who loves who more and the possibility of betrayal. Perhaps Paul held out on me for so long because he thought I would one day betray him. Looking at it all through his point of view, he betrayed me, after all… so why shouldn’t I also be capable of that? I fear that all that time he kept me hanging, he was only ever protecting himself.
I hear Paul jump into the shower, groaning as he does. He leaves the shower and throws up in the toilet – the one I bled our baby out into just a few hours ago. How poetic.
He enters the room looking like death and grabs some clothes, saying nothing.
He leaves the room and throws up in the bathroom once more.
Then I overhear him on the phone. “I’m not going to be able to make it in today… I’ve got a stomach bug or something… yeah, I feel as terrible as it sounds… Okay, thanks, I will, thanks…”
He gets off the phone and stumbles into the room, carrying his cup of tea.
“Where did you go last night?”
He rubs his forehead. “I went drinking with Dad. I told him he was right.”
Paul turns and looks at me, tears in his eyes.
“How was he right?”
“About it not lasting. He was right.”
