Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
Sam looked at me, and I looked back at him. The silence between us felt heavy and thick, like something I could put my hand into. Or rather like something I wouldn’t want to put my hand into.
‘Shall we sit down?’ he said at last.
‘Okay.’ I put my laptop down on the kitchen worktop and poured us each a glass of water from the tap, and we sat on the stools there, not on the sofa where he and Ava had been.
The silence stretched between us again.
Then he said, ‘So…’
Just at the same time, I said, ‘Sam…’
And we both stopped again.
There was no guide to the conversation we were about to have. No way of knowing how it was going to go. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to be having it in the first place, which was why I’d avoided it for so long.
There was no avoiding it now.
He said, ‘Okay, I’ll start. I’m sorry you saw Ava here today. I’m sorry you read that… thing she wrote. I get how upsetting that must be for you. I wish you’d talked to me about it before.’
‘I tried, Sam!’ For all my desire to remain calm, I could hear the note of panic and desperation creeping into my voice.
‘I tried, over and over. But you were just like, “I’m seeing her, and I’m going to carry on seeing her, and I’m not going to tell you what’s going on, so you’ll just have to put up with it. ”’
‘So you snooped and you found that note?’
‘I did not snoop! I was doing washing. I went through your pockets like I always do because you always leave crap in there and it fucks up my clothes.’
Sam sighed. ‘Don’t play the housework blame game with me, Georgia. You know I do my share.’
‘I’m not saying you don’t. I’m saying you leave stuff in the pockets of your fricking clothes, so it’s perfectly reasonable for me to check them before I put them in the washing machine.’
‘Look, how about we run through our laundry system another time?’ Infuriatingly, he was changing the subject that he’d brought up in the first place. ‘I was trying to apologise – to explain – and you’re just having a go at me.’
‘Of course I’m having a go at you! I found a love letter from your ex in your jeans!’
‘It wasn’t a bloody love letter, Georgia, for God’s sake. Stop being so dramatic.’
‘Oh, so I’m being dramatic now?’ Anger was rising inside me, almost overwhelming the hurt and betrayal I felt. I could sense already that this was going all kinds of wrong – not that there was a right way it could have gone. ‘What are you going to call me next? Hysterical?’
‘That’s not a word I’d use. But you’re sure as fuck being unreasonable.’
It took an almost physical effort for me to subdue my fury.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Then how would a reasonable person react when she found that letter?’
‘Maybe,’ he began, his voice heavy with sarcasm, ‘just maybe, a reasonable person would have asked me about it and given me a chance to explain, instead of simmering over it for a week and a half and building it up into something it isn’t.’
‘And if I’d asked you about it, what would you have said? “It’s not a love letter, Georgia. There’s nothing going on between me and Ava, Georgia. I can’t tell you anything, Georgia. Shut up and get back in your box, Georgia—”’
‘I’ve never told you to shut up.’
‘You might as well have done. You’ve had zero consideration for my feelings since this whole thing with you and Ava started, Sam. You’ve completely disrespected me as well as hurt me. You’ve treated me like I just don’t matter.’
‘There is no “whole thing” between me and Ava. That’s what I’ve been trying to get you to understand.’
We looked at each other. It was like the Sam I knew had disappeared and been replaced by a cold, obdurate stranger, determined to say the same thing over and over again until I believed it.
But I didn’t believe it. I’d tried to and it hadn’t worked – and now I was totally over trying.
‘Then what was she doing here today? In our flat, on our sofa, having a lovely cry on your shoulder?’
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but his face got even colder – even harder.
‘If you thought that was a lovely cry, Georgia, you’re seriously lacking empathy.’
‘Empathy?’ I echoed incredulously. ‘Where’s the empathy for me? And what would you want me to say? “Oh, poor Ava, has something happened to upset her? Why don’t I make her a nice cup of tea?”’
‘That would have been a better start than having a massive temper tantrum because I’m comforting someone I care about when they’re upset.’ The calmness in his voice was infuriating.
‘I did not have a massive temper tantrum.’ Even as I said the words, I knew I sounded like someone who was about to have a massive temper tantrum. ‘And stop infantilising me!’
‘I’ll stop infantilising you when you stop acting like a child,’ he said.
‘I am not acting like a child!’ I exploded. ‘I’m acting like someone whose boyfriend has been—’
I stopped. This was awful. It was just as bad as I’d expected it to be, and we were getting nowhere – going round and round in circles with me making the same point over and over and Sam refusing to listen to me.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘This is stupid. If you want to be with Ava, you want to be with Ava, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
I’m not going to dance around you begging you to pick me.
But if you want to be with me, I need to know what’s been going on between you and her so I can make a decision about whether I want to be with you or not. ’
Sam turned his water glass around on the worktop slowly, as if he was inspecting it for something or trying to find the best angle to photograph it from – which was pointless because it was just the same all the way round. Then he picked it up and took a sip.
‘Here’s the thing, Georgia,’ he said slowly. ‘Just a little while ago – even a few weeks ago – if you’d asked me that question…’
‘What question?’ I drank some of my own water, but it did nothing to relieve the tightness in my throat or the dryness of my mouth.
‘Do I want to be with you,’ he explained patiently. ‘I’d have said, of course. I’d have said, Georgia’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. She makes me happy every single day, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her.’
‘But then Ava came back on the scene, and you had a bit of a rethink about that.’ My words dripped with bitterness.
‘No.’ Sam glared at me. There was anger in his eyes but also pain – pain he was apparently blaming me for causing.
‘Then Ava contacted me. I told you I was going to see her, even though I didn’t know why, because I didn’t want you to worry.
I never lied to you. I tried to reassure you. I tried to make it not affect us.’
‘And how’s that working out for you?’ I sniped.
‘You see!’ he burst out. ‘This is the whole point. This is what’s made me rethink things.
I try and talk to you, I try and make things okay and do the right thing, and this is what I get back.
You’ve been horrible, Georgia. Living with you has been no fun recently.
I come home and instead of looking forward to seeing you, I’m all on edge because I don’t know what’s going to happen. ’
‘That’s not my fault! How can I not be horrible?’
‘Maybe it’s not your fault,’ he said, ‘but it’s the way it is. And it’s made me see things differently. It’s made me realise you don’t trust me – maybe you never did. And it’s made me wonder whether I can trust you.’
‘Of course you can trust me! I’ve never—’
‘And without trust,’ Sam carried on as if I hadn’t spoken, ‘there’s not much point in trying to have a relationship with someone. Is there?’
‘Sam, what are you saying?’ My glass rattled on the countertop as I tried to lift it with my shaking hand.
‘I’m saying I don’t think this is working.’ His voice was gentle and sad.
‘What’s not working?’ I asked, my voice trembling.
‘You and me. Us.’ He took a breath that sounded as unsteady as mine felt.
‘I think we need to take a break, Georgia. I’ll stay at Jared’s for a bit.
His flatmate’s working away for a few weeks, so there’s a spare bed there.
I’ll still pay my share of the mortgage, so you don’t need to worry about that. ’
He’d thought about this. He had it all planned – all worked out.
Maybe that was what he’d been telling Ava, although why the end of our relationship would have made her cry I couldn’t begin to guess.
Surely she would have been jumping up and down on the sofa with joy like Tom Cruise in that Oprah interview?
Now it was my turn to cry. Tears were starting to slip down my face, my nose was beginning to run, and I knew I’d soon be properly ugly sobbing.
‘Sam – don’t.’ My words caught in my throat.
He was leaving. The man I’d trusted with all my heart to keep me safe was going to walk out of the place that had become my refuge and leave me there alone with my cat. The thought of him abandoning Milton as well as me made me cry even harder.
‘I have to.’ His voice was heavy. ‘I can’t go on like this.’
‘When… when are you going to go?’
‘Now. I’ll pack some stuff for tonight and come back and get a bit more in a couple of days.’
When you’ve calmed down, he didn’t say. Or when you’re not here.
I couldn’t speak any more. I waited while he went to the bedroom and then the bathroom and heard him zip up his bag. Then he came back, put a gentle hand on my shoulder and said, ‘I’ll call you, okay?’
I couldn’t answer him.
I heard the front door open and close again behind him, and I sobbed and sobbed, my face in my hands.
How had it all gone so wrong? Was it Ava’s fault or Sam’s or entirely my own?
I didn’t know – I couldn’t answer that. I knew I needed to talk to someone, though.
And I knew there was only one person left who I could trust.