Chapter Thirty-Two
Thirty-Two
Karma
I sink down on the sofa and the little dog immediately jumps up next to me and lays his head on my lap, as if he’s known me his whole life. I don’t know what to do. It feels uncomfortable to go and wake up the strange man to try to get to the bottom of all this, when he’s clearly down with the flu or Covid or whatever, but until I figure this mess out, I’m a bit stuck.
The man knew I was the petsitter, at least, which is something.
Could I have really got the date mixed up? I distinctly remember reading Tuesday on my offer letter. Could I have misread it? Seen Thursday and filed it away in my brain as Tuesday?
It is more than probable.
Because, if an error has been made, it is generally me who has made it. Lord knows Scotty would back up this hypothesis, probably with diagrams, appendices and further reading.
I take out my phone and stare down at it. Calling my parents is one option.
They’d be sympathetic. They’re always sympathetic – maybe that’s part of my problem.
What would I even say to them? ‘Hey, I’ve messed up again. There’s a mucus-y man in my bed and I don’t know why he’s there or when he’s leaving. Help.’
No, they’ll make a fuss and insist on coming to my rescue. They’ll want to ‘pop over’ and sort out all my problems for me or force me to come home and live with them.
I scroll down to Max because I still haven’t blocked his number on my phone. I meant to do it, but it just hasn’t felt like the right time. I haven’t been ready to burn that bridge yet.
But why on earth would I want to tell Max about any of this? It would just give him and Greta a good laugh. Max could talk about how absent-minded I am, and Greta could say pitying things about people who aren’t detail-oriented and exhibit classic ADHD traits.
I could call Henny. Henny has never judged me for getting things wrong, and she always cheers me up. Just the thought of her is like a fleecy, heated throw over my shoulders on a winter’s day.
Except for the fact that Henny is also a massive blabber. She’ll tell Scotty about all this, and he’ll be delighted, especially as I didn’t serve out the whole of my notice period. He won’t stop smiling. He’ll think it’s karma.
Maybe it is karma.
Out of a perverse desire to make myself feel even worse than I do now, I go to the YouTube app on my phone to check if Max has uploaded any new videos.
He has.
The title of which is: ‘Gold-Panning with THE Gorgeous Gothic Girl Greta’.
He and Greta are camping in the mountains of Scotland. They’re both dressed in waders and standing in a stream. For extra pizzazz, he’s added an overlay of a rainbow with them positioned at the bottom of it. The video won’t load because my phone signal is terrible here and I haven’t yet managed to connect to the island internet, so all I can see is the cover image and the episode notes.
They’ve gone ‘YouTube Official’ and, wow, do they look happy.
They’re panning for literal gold, and they’ll find it. Of course they’ll find it. A big pot of it at the end of their pretty little rainbow.
The sight of them hits me right in the gizzard, because as angry as I am with Max, as hurt as I feel… I still miss him. Even after everything, I still want to see him, run this situation past him and ask for his advice. Just hearing his voice would be nice.
I scroll the cursor across to the middle of the video’s progress bar and try to see if I can load a few frames. For a miraculous few seconds, it actually plays, using my shoddy phone data.
Footage of Max’s gold-panning apparatus cuts to warm yellow light and him saying that the sun is setting and they’re going to build a campfire.
Then the video stalls.
I can just imagine them picking out sticks and taking turns to place them in the perfect configuration.
They will no doubt zip their sleeping bags together, have energetic sex all night in their tent and wake up without a single bite from a midge.
Somehow, even this hideous visual doesn’t make me stop wanting to talk to him.
Which is madness, because if I send any sort of message to him, even in a crisis, he’ll be irritated. He doesn’t want to hear from me. I couldn’t even dress it up as a welfare update about Nemo. He doesn’t want to hear about him either. We’re his past, and his future is Gothic Girl Greta.
I scroll further forwards without success until, right at the end, I manage to play another few seconds of video.
Close-ups of flowering bushes and meadow grasses waving in the breeze. There’s classical music playing over the scenic shots of perfect wilderness.
It’s so beautiful. Max has clearly been working on his production values, trying to up his game to impress his new YouTube girlfriend.
I put down my phone and press my palms into my eye sockets.
Max has moved on,I say to myself, almost as a mantra.
I have to face the truth: there’s nobody who can help me or make me feel better. I have to sort this out on my own.
The dog’s gone to sleep on me, and Nemo seems comfortable up on high, so for the time being all I can do is hold tight and wait.
I can still hear heavy breathing, occasional coughs and snorts, and then, after what must be two hours, the room goes silent, and I hear a scrabbling sound.
He’s awake.