Chapter 10 #2
‘I got drenched yesterday and borrowed some things to come home in,’ I said, letting annoyance take over from hurt in an attempt to force him out. ‘Now, can you leave so I can get changed?’
‘Drenched how? It didn’t even rain,’ Richard said, refusing to let the subject drop.
‘I fell in the canal,’ I said bluntly, face growing hot in embarrassment.
‘Fell… you expect me to believe that? What would you be doing by the canal, for God’s sake…’
‘I was taking a long walk because someone,’ I raised my voice sharply, ‘someone I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with – someone I trusted and loved, just broke my heart into tiny little pieces over “no one”, Richard!’
That seemed to bring him up short and I ploughed on into the stunned silence.
The key was, I thought, just not letting him get away from the truth.
If he could edge that out of the conversation, he could talk me round.
I had to keep it central, a great big glaring tear through the fabric of our lives.
I had to stay strong until he was out of my sight.
‘So I went for a walk and slipped and fell in the canal, and had to wear some stranger’s clothes to come home in.
But even if you were right, and I’d gone out and found someone else in the day and a half since we broke up, that would be none of your business.
Because you stopped being my boyfriend when I walked in on you with your dick in someone else. ’
I winced. The word ‘dick’ bounced around the room like a crazy ball from the joke shop.
It seemed ludicrously childish for such a momentous betrayal.
Perhaps I should have gone with ‘cock’, or something more stately and serious, like ‘member’.
Well, it was too late now. At least I hadn’t accidentally let a ‘willy’ slip out mid-argument.
That really would have been the worst possible way to say it.
‘… fine,’ Richard seemed to deflate a little, and dropped the wet sweatshirt onto the bed. ‘I suppose I’ll pack some of my stuff and… give you a bit of space to think things through.’
I wanted to say I didn’t need space or time or any dimension in which to think things through.
I needed his absence and a clear plan for a Richard-free future.
But saying that now would, I knew, only restart the argument.
I just wanted to get to work and hopefully handle the rest of the break-up logistics through text.
While Richard took a holdall from the bottom of the wardrobe, I carried my clothes into the bathroom and locked the door.
In there I quickly washed, got dressed and started the process of taming my hair, yanking harder every time I thought about the man outside.
My stomach rumbled – fickle creature that it was.
I’d just have to get something to eat on my way to work.
‘Tabitha, where’s all my stuff?’ Richard called, confused.
‘What stuff?’ I opened the door, heated roll brush in hand, and found him frowning over a half-full bag.
‘My cardigans and sweaters and… you said you made me a jumper? I saw it when you…’ He cut himself off before he could mention me walking in on him. ‘It was blue and brown. I can’t find it?’
I felt my stomach squirm a little with guilt.
All right, so I hadn’t wanted to see any of that stuff again, but it was still very much Richard’s stuff.
I’d made it for him and gifted it to him (though the cashmere jumper was kind of a grey area).
I probably didn’t have the right to just get rid of it all, but I’d done it now and I wasn’t about to ask for forgiveness.
‘I donated everything I made you,’ I said, ‘to the charity shop in town. But I think it’s all been sold since yesterday.’
‘But you knitted that stuff for me,’ Richard said, clearly annoyed. ‘It was mine.’
‘It was crochet,’ I couldn’t resist pointing out. ‘And between donating the stuff I made you, and you cheating on me, I think I know what’s worse.’
He rolled his eyes at me then. ‘Maybe if you’d spent less time on your crochet, and your silly little hobby shop, this would never have happened.’
For a second I was speechless. Not just because he was trying to blame this all on me, but because I was afraid – afraid that he was right.
I had been obsessing over the shop lately and I had always been very into my crochet.
Hadn’t I thought, as I cleared out the cupboard, about all the times I’d had a project on the go around him?
On a romantic picnic, for God’s sake. Was I too obsessed to have seen this coming?
Had I basically ignored Richard until he started looking for someone else?
Reality came streaming back in. No, absolutely not.
I was not going to take the blame for what Richard had done.
I could have ignored him, but the answer to that was to talk to me or to leave.
Not to bring any old ‘no one’ back to our home to have sex on my things.
How dare he try to make this my fault? How dare he! ?
I felt my patience snap. ‘If that’s everything you’re taking, you can leave.’
I watched as Richard’s mouth thinned into a line. His eyes moved over me and I could feel him searching for a comeback, a retort that would give him the win he so obviously wanted.
‘Don’t give away any more of my stuff,’ he said finally, and grabbed the bag, heading for the door. ‘And if I find out you’ve been bringing another man back to our flat, I’ll…’
‘… remind yourself that you already brought a woman here while we were still together?’
He slammed the front door shut behind him and, for a moment, I was fiercely proud of my victory. Then I sat down on the bed and burst into tears.