Chapter 5 #2
“It sounds dumb, I know, but I told myself that I’d give it a full twelve months from when I moved back in with him on May
Day for us to... recalibrate; heal, if you like. Some people’s relationships reset for the better after something like
this”—so said another of those stupid books—“and I hoped that might happen to us; I hoped we could make it right. The idea
of splitting up and starting again back then was too big for my head; I was crushed and it was so much easier to stay and
hope than leave for good. For a while I really thought we’d recover, but then he just stopped putting the effort in, all the
things he’d promised didn’t happen, and I realized that after nearly a year of trying, I couldn’t forgive and I’d never forget.”
“So why the heck did you say yes to being a flaming bridesmaid? You could have been out of it all by now.”
“You have to have met Camay to understand,” said Polly, though she knew it was a weak answer. “She sort of cornered me in
a roomful of family after announcing this mad, impulsive wedding idea”— “And of course Polly will be the bridesmaid, won’t you, Polly?
” —“and I couldn’t think of a viable reason why not at the time, other than I was hoping to have left her brother by then.
I rang later to suggest maybe she should ask Chris’s daughter instead, but she was insistent I was the best person for the job and she would not take no for an answer.
” Polly rubbed her forehead and groaned, realizing how pathetic she sounded even though Sheridan couldn’t begin to imagine how forceful Camay could be when she wanted her own way on things.
“I thought about just leaving Chris when I said I would and not even thinking about the wedding, but then the house I’d had lined up fell through at the last minute and Camay seemed so excited about everything and it was all moving so fast and becoming so complicated that in the end I thought, what difference is another couple of weeks going to make?
Let her have her day without me spoiling the run-up to it, even if she does scribble out my face on all the photos afterward. ”
“I’d be scribbling out your dress before your face,” said Sheridan. Then softly she asked, “What promises did Chris make to
you, Pol?”
“Nothing big,” said Polly. “Just that he’d take time off from work so we could go off for a mini break, or the cinema, a meal,
even though he thinks eating out is a waste of cash.”
“But you like going out for meals,” said Sheridan, with emphasis.
Polly swallowed because she knew that what she was about to say would hurt herself.
“When I went back to him, I found a restaurant receipt in the pocket of his suit. He’d taken someone out for fillet steaks,
an expensive bottle of wine, porn star martinis, and truffles with their coffees.”
“Ouch,” said Sheridan with a grimace. “I’m figuring he wasn’t such an insensitive twat when you first started going out with
him.”
“Charm personified. I’d just lost my mum and it had raked up a lot of feelings, so I suppose I was vulnerable. He was ten
years older than me and he said all the right things, like ‘You need someone to look after you.’”
“Are you sure you didn’t mishear and what he actually said was, ‘I need someone to look after me’?”
Polly chuckled. “Maybe I did.”
“Did he seduce you with fillet steaks and porn star martinis?” asked Sheridan.
“Not even in our early days. I think he bought me a rump once, in a Wetherspoons.”
Sheridan’s turn to feel teary. “Oh Pol.”
“I don’t know when we became the couple we are now. I don’t know how it happened.”
“What about friends, Polly? You never talk about any. Is there no bestie you can call on for some support?”
Polly shook her head slowly. Her once close friends had moved away, had families, found new close friends.
Sheridan took a deep breath that lifted up her shoulders before she exhaled, letting them drop.
“So, what’s the plan?”
“I’m going to move into a hotel just outside Wakefield for a week or so. It’ll be handy for here until I can find a place
to rent.”
“If you need any help shifting anything, Dmitri’s dad has a van,” Sheridan offered.
Polly smiled at her. “Thank you, that’s very kind of you.” In an ideal world, Chris would play fair and they’d part as friends.
He’d store the things she couldn’t get in her car until she could move them out, but she was ready to cut and run with only
the cases she could get in her car. A punctured ego had the same power as a broken heart to make someone volatile, and she
was pretty sure, if anything, he’d be suffering from the former more.
Polly glanced at her watch. “We’d better get back upstairs,” she said. “I’m sorry I laid all that on you, Sheridan. It’s not
fair and—”
“Shut up,” said Sheridan. “I wish I could do more to help you. You sound as if you need a good mate.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” said Polly, smiling a smile that sat precariously on her lips. A smile she didn’t feel. A smile that lied
she was all right, when really she was anything but.