Chapter Five
It has only been – I check my watch, god, seriously?
– about thirteen hours since we last saw one another.
Thirteen hours since I finally stormed out of that restaurant still shouting about his mum.
Thirteen hours since my life became pure turd.
But I feel like I haven’t seen Justin’s face for aeons.
I study it now on the phone screen, drinking him in as he waits patiently outside our building.
His long, straight nose, his thick eyebrows.
He pushes his hair away from his face now; a habit I once adored. Still do, actually.
‘Let’s ignore it,’ Sam says firmly, and I gasp.
‘We can’t do that,’ I tell her. ‘He’s come to see if I’m okay.
This is so sweet.’ I cling to a sudden hope.
‘Maybe all of this can be undone, Sam! He’ll take back his dumping and tell the world we were just messing about in that video.
We’ll show everyone how very in love we are – he might even propose for real now!
– and Spencer frog-face will forget all about this silly therapy idea.
Everything will be good again. We can undo this! ’
Sam squints at me. ‘You are majorly in denial, Tiramisu Girl. This arse-knob dumped you. The whole world has seen it. And just because he’s here doing the halfway decent thing of checking you’re all right after something awful happened, it doesn’t make him a good guy.
It makes him a human being at its most basic level.
’ She grins. ‘Plus, it’s funnier to ignore him.
Look at his stupid face getting more and more irate. ’
I tut at her, hitting the buzzer and telling Justin in my nicest voice that he should come on up.
A light tap on our front door comes a minute later and I quickly check my reflection in the hallway mirror.
Jools’ make-up is holding firm and everything looks good, apart from the missing eyebrows.
Ah well. Justin has seen me without eyebrows before.
Never without mascara, but a few times minus eyebrows.
It was quite funny actually. He knew something was wrong with my face and I kept catching him examining me curiously, but it was obvious he couldn’t figure out what. Men and eyebrows, LOL.
‘Justin,’ I say breathlessly as I yank open the door.
‘Er, hi.’ He nods nervously.
‘Justin,’ Sam acknowledges archly from over my shoulder. He gives her wings a quizzical look. She doesn’t offer an explanation, and he doesn’t ask.
‘Come in,’ I tell him warmly, and he steps awkwardly over the threshold.
‘Umm, Samira.’ I turn to her. ‘Can you…’ I gesture for her to go away, and she rolls her eyes.
‘No fair!’ she pouts. ‘I want to listen.’ We glare at one another for a long second, before she sighs.
‘Fine, I get it. I’ll give you guys some space.
’ She stays standing there for another moment, glaring at Justin, before finally turning in the direction of her room.
She hops awkwardly along the hallway, then glances back at me.
‘What? I don’t know how a daddy long-legs would walk,’ she explains as she continues to hobble-jump out of sight. I try not to laugh as I turn my attention back to Justin.
‘Is she…?’ He peers after her, his eyebrows knitted together with confusion. ‘What is…’
‘She’s a daddy long-legs,’ I tell him simply.
He frowns. ‘Daddy long… Aren’t you scared of them?’ he asks, and my heart gets all warm. He remembers. See, he does care about me.
Although, I suppose it probably helped that I talked about them a lot. One of our most in-depth chats ever was about what happens with a plural or singular daddy long-legs. Is it a daddy long-leg or are they daddy long-legses?
I smile and he clears his throat. ‘I messaged but you didn’t reply…’ he begins.
‘I haven’t looked at my phone.’ I shrug apologetically. ‘I was avoiding it. For obvious reasons.’
‘Right.’ He swallows. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Not really,’ I admit. ‘It’s been pretty awful. My boss is going mad, my phone is radioactive.’ I sigh. ‘I can’t believe those restaurant dickheads did this…’
He frowns. ‘Wait, what? Why would your boss be angry? What’s the restaurant got to do with it?’ His eyes narrow. ‘Are they charging you for getting cheesecake all over the tablecloth? And damaging that spoon with your nail?’
I stare at him. ‘Er, Spencer’s upset about the… y’know, the videos.’
Justin stares back. ‘What videos?’ He shakes his head. ‘I thought you were upset about the break-up – avoiding your phone because of me. I thought this was about me du—’ He swallows the words, but I know what he was going to say. I thought this was about me dumping you.
Jesus.
I take a deep breath. So, he doesn’t know about Tiramisu Girl and the viral videos of me. Of us. How is that possible? I suppose it was mostly zoomed in on my face and I’m the one on TV, maybe no one’s recognised him yet.
Which means… he’s not here because he was worried about me.
But he could still be here to retract the break-up! To get back together?
‘What are you doing here, Justin?’ I ask and he looks away. ‘Did you want to talk about us? About where we left things last night?’
‘Erm, no,’ he replies too quickly, looking at me all boggle-eyed.
‘Christ no. I think we said all we needed to say. It’s better off this way.
Definitely.’ He pauses. ‘But I really need my washing back. I forgot you had all my underwear and these boxers I’m wearing are on day five.
’ He smiles bashfully like this is adorable.
I frown. He’s not here because he’s worried I’m upset about millions of people on the internet watching and mocking my tantrum.
He’s not here to plead forgiveness and ask me to be his girlfriend again.
He’s definitely not here to propose with a huge diamond ring like he was supposed to in the first place.
He’s here because he needs his underpants.
I feel the rage bubbling up in my belly again. It froths and sloshes there, fermenting in its own livid juices. And suddenly I want to hide under a table with sugary foods all over again.
I take a long, deep breath. Letting my anger win has already ruined my life enough for one week. I push it way back down, deep down inside myself and inhale slowly.
‘It’s in the tumble dryer,’ I say after a moment. ‘I’ll go get it for you.’ I turn for the kitchen and then turn back, fresh annoyance flooding me. ‘Actually, no, I won’t get it for you. You go get it for you.’
He nods silently, looking around himself helplessly. I sigh. ‘The dryer is in the kitchen.’ I pause, as he still looks baffled. ‘Stacked on top of the washing machine?’ He still has the same look. ‘Fine!’ I snap. ‘Just follow me, I’ll show you.’
I lead the way, muttering about how often he’s stayed here over the last year. I point towards the machine and he approaches it cautiously. He pulls hard at the door handle. It doesn’t open.
‘There’s a door release button,’ I explain as nicely as I can. ‘There is a clue in the form of the words door release?’
He nods, finding the clearly labelled button and gingerly pressing it.
The door pops open and a waft of lovely floral softener fills the room.
I bought those special dryer sheets just for his washing.
Just so he could smell the extra effort and realise how much I care.
Cared. No, care, present tense. I still want him to notice the smell.
But he doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t.
He peers inside the drum with some trepidation. ‘So, I just… reach inside?’
He cannot be this incompetent.
When I first met Justin at my birthday party, I delighted in him being a whole ten years older than me.
Of course, I thought, he must know sooo much about life.
He must be so wise and experienced. Naturally, he’d be much more mature than men my own age, so much less shallow.
He would understand women and know about the world.
But here he is; regarding the inside of my dryer like it contains a waiting Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile.
I step forward, unable to cope with this level of uselessness. I pull out the pile of clean washing, dump it on the kitchen table and begin folding. He watches.
‘Should I help?’ he asks, sounding reluctant, and I shake my head.
From across the room, I hear Sam’s horrified gasp.
‘You’re not!’ she says, ‘Please, Liv, tell me you’re not folding Justin’s washing for him? He’s an adult man with an adult job. He knows how to do his own washing.’
Justin attempts a weak protest. ‘It’s a different kind of machine than the one I’m used to…’
Sam ignores him. ‘And you’re helping him with his clothes twelve hours after he dumped you in the middle of a restaurant.’
‘I offered to do it!’ he cries. ‘She wanted to fold them!’ I tut at him.
‘He doesn’t know how to do it!’ I tell her, and I can hear the defensiveness in my voice.
Sam was never Justin’s biggest fan. She’d constantly tell me off for doing his washing; for letting him manspread across our whole sofa; for letting him mansplain her own job to her; for – in Sam’s words – letting him man all over the apartment.
‘He’s in his forties, Liv!’ she almost shouts now, and he looks put out.
‘Only just,’ he says huffily. ‘I’m only just forty-two. My birthday was only a few months ago.’
‘I remember.’ Sam eyes him coolly. ‘Because you had Liv organise and host a party for you here. And then you turned up late, already drunk, and left us to talk to your boring old friends about how much they all hate their wives and kids.’
‘My friends are not old!’ he cries, missing so much of the point.
‘Liv, this’—Sam waves at the pile of laundry I’m folding—‘is weaponised incompetence and you know it is! He’s pretending not to have any clue so you’ll just get sick of watching him fail and do it for him.’