Chapter 17 #2
I decided to give Theo some space. It felt like the right thing to do – especially since I needed room to sort through my own feelings, not just about him, but about what he’d said before leaving: ‘You don’t really seem like the type who needs validation from others.
’ He wasn’t wrong – I didn’t. But at the same time, the idea of being with someone who felt the need to keep themselves sexually available to others?
That wasn’t something I could easily accept.
I looked down at my phone, which had the screensaver of my baby nephew Aaron, and thought about my role being an aunt and what that meant.
Not trying to live up to my parents’ expectations.
Setting new traditions in my family based not on judgement and expectations, but on unconditional love, grace and acceptance.
I lay down on my sofa and before I knew what was coming, the tears had begun. What had I done?
Sade wasted no time in letting me have it over the next few weeks.
‘Girl. I’ve never seen someone fumble this hard in a long time,’ she chastised over drinks one day.
‘I still can’t believe you? You had this prime steak of a man; premium quality-grade beef!
Tall! Sexy! Charming! Witty! Sexy! Confident!
Self-made! Well dressed! A good lay! Did I mention sexy?
? And you let it slip through your fingers because you somehow turned into a slut-shaming hypocrite. I’m still screaming!’
‘Ahh, Sade, don’t, man. We’ve gone through this,’ I replied, exasperated as I pressed the cool, chilled wine glass to my forehead, numbing the headache I could feel coming. We’d gone through this at least six times now.
‘I know, I know. Sorry, babe. But if you ask me, I do think you’ve kind of fucked this up a little.
That was a GOOD man, Savannah,’ she said, mocking the famous quote from one of our favourite movies Waiting to Exhale.
‘I know you had your reasons, but you said he mentioned that if you two started dating exclusively, he might be willing to drop his other clients. And honestly, you wouldn’t even have to tell your family about OuiMeet – there’s no way they’d have ever found out. ’
‘I miss him,’ I sobbed, burying my face in my arms as Sade pulled me into a tight embrace. I knew I’d messed up – let go of a genuinely good man for no real reason. But now, all I could do was sit with regret, because there was nothing left to fix – at least I didn’t think so anyway.
‘I know this is really bad timing,’ Sade continued, ‘but have you found a date to your mum’s wedding yet? It’s in a month or something, isn’t it?’
I’ve been trying to forget.
I’d spent the last month helping out with the guest invite list; replying to RSVPs and sorting out the seating arrangements.
Luckily, it was set to be a super small wedding, with only fifty guests in total; twenty-five from each side.
In a bid to try and have an excuse to ditch my plus one, I’d tried to invite a couple of distant relatives, but hadn’t heard back as of yet, annoyingly.
My mum – probably distracted by the wedding – had yet to ask again about my lack of date, which is how I needed it to stay.
The arrival of my nephew Aaron seemed to have mellowed Dad out a bit.
He’d started leaning into the role of doting grandfather; spending more time with Steven and his family, and less time hovering around Mum or unloading his emotional baggage on me.
It made the following few weeks easier to get through.
Still, with the wedding fast approaching, I’d started to toy with the idea of logging back onto OuiMeet to hire someone else, just to get it over with.
But I couldn’t stop imagining what it would’ve been like to walk in with Theo.
My aunties – and a few distant cousins I barely spoke to – would’ve been seething with jealousy.
And honestly, that alone would’ve been worth it.
I spent my lunchtimes at work scrolling through Theo’s Instagram, thinking about what he was probably getting up to.
He’d uploaded new photos of him on nights out, alongside a couple of videos of him playing football.
How he found the time to do a nine to five, do his OuiMeet stuff and still have an active social life was beyond me.
He looked happy enough in the photos – happy without me.
It’s strange how someone could leave such a deep mark on your life in such a short amount of time, but here we were.
I often thought of reaching out to him, but the fear of being rejected had taken hold of me.
This was all my fault, and I had to deal with the consequences.
My thoughts eventually went back to Jeff. I’d been avoiding him again at work since finding out about his secret family – although could it be considered a ‘secret’ if I never really asked about it in the first place?
For someone who had a whole family at home, it definitely felt like he was trying his luck.
Not on me, but on some of the other female staff members.
All sans a wedding ring too, although that could be argued that because he was a surgeon, wearing a ring all the time at work could be seen as impractical.
But still. The next time I bumped into him was in the staffroom; I was in the corner scrolling through my phone, polishing off my packed lunch when he rolled into the room, grabbing his mug of coffee as always.
He caught my eye and I smiled awkwardly, returning to my phone, but it was too late.
He sauntered over and plonked himself down, that smug grin of his instantly giving me the ick. Honestly, it made me wonder if charming female colleagues was just part of his onboarding process at every job. Nothing said ‘faithful husband’ like borderline sleaze in the staffroom.
‘Heyyyy, Cassie, how are you doing? What have you got there?’ He nodded at my sandwich.
I decided to turn up the sass and replied, ‘Hey Jeff; I’m good, thanks.
Well, in most societies, this is known as a sandwich,’ and I took a huge bite.
Jeff just grinned, which for some reason annoyed me more.
Could a girl not enjoy her lunch break in peace?
I should have stayed in the office with Kofi instead.
‘Ha ha, very funny. I mean what’s in it?’ he replied, taking a sip of his coffee, his glasses perched delicately on the bridge of his nose, making him look pensive. ‘Cheese and ham,’ I said simply, trying to engage as little as possible.
‘Nice, nice. Oh! Also, are you all set for your mum’s wedding? It’s quite soon, isn’t it? Got your outfit ready and everything?’
I needed to nip this in the bud; this was excruciating. I went for it:
‘Yeah, I’m all set! I didn’t know weddings could be that stressful, with all the different options for outfits and making sure they kinda match with the rest of the wedding party.
It’s been such a ball ache. Did you have to go through all of this at your wedding?
’ And I smiled the biggest, most innocent smile I could muster, fluttering my eyelashes at him.
Jeff stared at me – stumped. He then looked down at the place where his wedding ring should have been, and began to rub his ring finger frantically. Gotcha, bitch!
‘Oh, um … yeah, haha, it was erm—’ he started, and I could see his eyes darting back and forth from me to his ring finger, no doubt probably trying to come up with an excuse. I had to admit that it was delicious seeing him scramble in such a way.
‘Haha, yeah, it was quite the day. Weddings can be quite frantic, I suppose—’ he caught me looking at his left hand, no doubt noticing the phantom ring, and continued to spill.
‘I don’t usually wear my ring at work if you’re wondering – I’ve always either got my hands in water or in someone’s body and it’s too easy to get lost, you know … haha’
I smiled. He was positively panicking now. I took another bite of my sandwich, finishing up my lunch. My work was done here.
‘Oh, don’t worry! It’s easily understandable – I do that with some of my jewellery too. Anyway, I’m gonna get back to the office now; there’s a few forms I need to draft up for you to fill out today, so I’ll send the PDF forms to you a bit later this afternoon, if that’s OK?’
And with the biggest smile I could muster, I got up and left, leaving Jeff squirming in his seat.