Chapter 7
7
I still have the letter, the only proof—to be Ziploc-bagged as evidence, or put inside an illuminated glass box in a museum. It’s on lined paper torn neatly from a pad. When I’m feeling sentimental enough about old times—or angry enough to want vindication—I open the envelope and unfold the sheets, and I’m right back in my cupboard-size room at Leeds, hands trembling. He’d sent it in the first week, no playing it cool.
There is the inscription, in black pen, that proves Ed Cooper’s heart once belonged to me.
Dearest Eve (E.R.H.),
As promised! HI. Wow, I couldn’t wait to write to you and now I’ve got writer’s block. Or whatever the equivalent is when you’re not a writer, but sat here chewing your pen in the Refectory worrying you’re going to sound like a total idiot. OK, so—I picked my moment, didn’t I?! Hope you’re settling in. Newcastle’s great but it’s cold, and there’s no Eve, which makes it seem colder.
You’re probably wondering why I left it until three minutes before we left to say something. I can answer that in a word: cowardice. I’ve been so terrified of rejection he wasn’t a villain. But then maybe I needed the simplicity of implacable villainy to move on. Letter or not, he still didn’t love me enough, those months later, to end it with Hester. She was a sensational catch. I could see that. The year’s convalescence for her sister seemed something Ed should stick around for, and then that was that, they were a done deal.
Every so often, Ed will let his guard drop and I will get a clue that some of his feelings for me are still there, somewhere. Often enough that I can never lose faith.
Holding my eyes seconds too long, after laughing together. Fretting my internet dates might be Ted Bundy. The way his eyes avert if I wear anything lower or tighter than usual, in a way it never seems to around any other female. Or the way he sits it out, silent, if Justin or Susie make ripe jokes in regards to my love life. His general skepticism about, and small but noticeable distance he kept from, my ex, Mark. Calling me to talk about family or work problems, and I know, without a doubt, he’s using me as a more reliable sounding board than the volatile Hester. You give such great advice , he says.
The way he makes it clear that if I needed him, he’d drop everything. And anyone. Almost anyone.
Sometimes my friendship with Ed feels amazing and beneficial, because it’s good to know I can feel that way with someone, and to see him glow with adoration in return. Other times it’s like endlessly overperforming in an interview for a job where the position’s already been filled.
I know what someone sensible would say about Ed Cooper if I confided in them (though I never have).
If he really was right for you, if he felt what he needed to feel—he’d have left her.
Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s weakness of character. Perhaps he feels more for Hester than he ever could for me, and after all, there’s no nice way to express that?
But believing that if he didn’t want me enough, then he can’t be good enough to have made me happy—isn’t that a fancy version of sour grapes? A way we rationalize that our disappointments don’t really exist? “What’s for you won’t pass you.” Everyone knows that’s a fantasy to give us consolation and that things that could be for us pass us all the time.
Oh, and the imaginary confidante also tells me that, had shoddy plumbing not done for my letter, and Ed and I had slightly inept, fumbling but thrilling intimate encounters throughout the first term, it would’ve probably burned itself out by age twenty, what with youthful love affairs tending not to last.
Maybe, maybe not. Or, we’d be the ones engaged right now? Hester lasted. He can do monogamy, and commitment.
My conclusion is this: there’s no rule that says the unavailable person you waste your life being in love with has to be the greatest human you ever met.
It doesn’t make the loss of him any less painful.