Chapter 5
FML
Becca
Nothing – nothing at all in this world, living or dead – strikes fear into my heart quite the same as ‘we need to talk’ does.
In my lived experience, ‘we need to talk’ is never good.
Ever. Even if everything seems to be okay – as it does with Conal – those four words carry the weight of an atomic bomb ready to detonate.
It was how my now ex-husband Simon broached the whole ‘It’s not you, it’s me. I love you, but I’m not in love with you. I just need to find myself etc, etc’ monologue of bullshit before he walked out on me, and our two children, leaving devastation in his wake.
I still carry the emotional scars from that experience even though I have long since moved on and Simon Cooke no longer has any effect on my nervous system other than to give me the unholy ick.
Once my rose-coloured glasses fell from my eyes and I was able to see him for what he was – and more importantly began to see what he very much wasn’t – my healing truly began.
But it never quite finished. Several years of counselling have not been enough to stop the fear settling deep into my bones at the notion someone ‘needs to talk’.
I am aware that Conal is still talking – I can hear the tone and depth of his voice coming down the line, but I have no idea what he is saying.
The special talent he alluded to before – where I can create entire stories from one line of information – is in full swing.
He’s talking while I’m sitting in Asda wondering if this break-up is going to destroy my friendship with his sister, Laura.
There would some sort of irony in that – given that it was my split from Simon more than a decade ago that led to a horrible big freeze between Laura and me that we have not long thawed out from.
And now, I could lose her again. I could lose it all.
I could be back on the single shelf – a shelf I had been relatively happy to reside on for the last decade until Conal O’Hagan came back into my life.
Something tells me that after the joy and love, and yes, the sex, he has brought into my life over the last ten months, I will not find that shelf all that comfortable any more.
Was it something I did? Something I said?
Am I awful in bed? I mean, I’m not a prude by any means but could I be more adventurous?
Try a bit of light BDSM, or role-play? My face, which is already pretty scarlet thanks to the choking fit, is now roaring red at the very thought.
There’s no way I’d be able to take any of that carry-on seriously.
I couldn’t be calling him ‘Sir’ or, even worse, ‘Daddy’.
The very thought of it is enough to make my vagina want to atrophy.
And as for role-play? This peri-menopausal body was not made for a French maid’s costume.
Shit. I’m really going to get dumped, aren’t I? Again. In fairness I’ve only been dumped once before, but it was by my husband so the battle scars still sting a bit and I don’t think it would take too much to reopen them.
‘Becks?’ Conal’s voice cuts through my internal meltdown. ‘Would that be okay, then? We can take the dogs for a walk around the park.’
I nod, momentarily forgetting that he cannot see me, before I mutter a fairly unenthusiastic ‘Yes, okay.’
‘Great,’ he replies with the very opposite tone in his voice. ‘I’ll text you when we’re good to go. Lazlo will love seeing Daniel again.’
‘He will,’ I say as my brain runs through a hundred different shitty scenarios, all of them ending in me residing in Dumpsville. I wonder what Lazlo and Daniel will think if their little furry family becomes a broken home?
A peel of laughter distracts me, and I turn to see my mother and Mrs Bishop seemingly being manhandled by a burly security guard while they giggle like naughty schoolgirls. I swear to God if I find out my mother has been shoplifting it might just be the end of me.
‘Conal, I have to go,’ I say, not waiting for a response before I end the call and rush over to the scene of the commotion.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ I say – realising I can indeed use the word ‘sir’ perfectly well and without blushing in non-sexual situations – ‘can you tell me what is going on? This is my mother and her friend!’
‘Ah, Rebecca,’ my mother scolds, her laughter gone. ‘You just ruined our take!’
‘Your what?’
As Mrs Bishop descends even further into the giggles, my mother points behind me to where a smiling staff member is holding a phone – my mother’s phone if I’m not mistaken – and pointing it in our direction.
‘Our take. Jimmy here’ – she nods to the security man – ‘and Maggie there were helping us out.’
‘These two are some craic,’ Jimmy says, his stern expression from before replaced with a wide smile. Maggie, still holding the phone up and recording, responds from twenty feet away with a thumbs-up.
‘Will I stop filming now, Roisin?’ she asks, as if she’s Stephen Spielberg’s second in command.
‘I think we need to take it from the top if you don’t mind,’ my mother replies.
‘I don’t mind at all.’ Maggie looks utterly delighted to be doing something that doesn’t involve stacking shelves or tidying up racks of clothes left in a state by eager shoppers.
‘You know, I don’t think she got my best side the last time,’ Jimmy says as they turn to walk back to their starting position, leaving me standing in the middle of the shop floor wondering if this is actually real or if I’m just in some sort of fever dream.
When I get back to my table, my coffee and the remainder of my caramel square have been cleared away.
Although I know I left them unattended, and it was completely reasonable for the café staff to assume I had just cleared off, I am still so shocked that this discovery is enough to bring tears to my eyes.
I slump into my seat, looking at the table in front of me, barren save for a few of the crumbs I had sprayed across it when I thought I might die, and I try my very best not to spiral further.
I must remember that feelings are not facts.
I must examine the evidence as I see it in front of me.
Conal had been his usual, jokey self. Would he have been his usual jokey self if he was, in fact, planning on dumping me?
Surely I would have some inkling myself that things are on the rocks.
After all, I had done with Simon. While his departure still came with its own share of shock and disbelief, once the dust had settled I was able to admit to myself and others that I’d probably spent the last three to four years of our marriage expecting this outcome.
We weren’t miserable, we just weren’t happy.
And yes, it would’ve been so much nicer if he had approached the whole thing like an adult instead of escaping into the sunset and finding a replacement but… it wasn’t a total shock.
Conal is different though. Conal makes me happy and I thought I made him happy too.
If my mother wasn’t putting on an Oscar-worthy performance in the knitwear aisle of Asda I would sit her across from me and demand she talk sense into me until my spiral stops spiralling – but I don’t want to ruin her fun day out and budding influencer career just yet.
Okay, I think. I can call Laura. She will reassure me that her brother still loves me and all is good.
She might even phone him and ask for insider info on the big chat.
But as I’m lifting my phone to call her, I remember that today is her first day at uni and the last thing she needs is me having a breakdown at her over the phone.
So, instead, I tap in a quick ‘Hope your morning is going well’ message and then sit back and wonder who else I can possibly turn to.
Niamh – my wonderful, beautiful friend Niamh – will most likely be in the classroom herself imparting her knowledge of all things scientific to young people who, if she is to be believed, have no attention span, let alone any interest in osmosis, or the life cycle of a caterpillar.
Still, I know my wonderful, beautiful Niamh enough to know that she is also never very far away from her phone and loves a little middle-of-the-day gossip to keep her from – in her own words – ‘wanting to yeet herself off the top of the school building’. I tap out a message:
Niamh, we have a code red… or brown maybe.
For when the brown stuff hits the fan. Conal has said ‘we need to talk’.
I’m getting dumped, aren’t I? I was so stupid to think this could work and that he would really be interested in me.
I’m not sure I can take it. Will I have to start listening to Taylor Swift?
Do you think Fiadh would loan me her CDs?
I am blessed with the beep of a quick reply and I glance at my phone.
CDs? We’re not in the early 2000s now! I’m not sure Fiadh even knows what a CD is!
But I’m sure your goddaughter will be only too happy to make you a playlist on Spotify and share it with you.
Chin up. Conal loves you. There will be no dumping.
Gotta go… the wee shites in Year 8 are at the Bunsen burners. I swear they get worse each year.
I am reassured but also a little horrified by Niamh’s message.
Yes, of course I know no one uses CDs any more…
Don’t I? I still have mine. Not that I have a CD player any more, but I digress.
I read the ‘There will be no dumping’ portion of the message again and try to burn it into my brain.
And if Niamh is wrong, I can always join her and Year 8 in some sort of Bunsen burner-ageddon.
It will be the least I deserve for trusting my stupid heart again.