Aside from that one brief moment of normality when we sorted out some clothes to lend Isla’s boyfriend and he was goofing around, our interactions have been civil at best.
We tried to talk about it again last night, but it just turned into another screaming row. He slept on the sofa. I didn’t try to be quiet when I got up for work this morning. He slammed the bedroom door when he shut himself in there.
Right now, however, we’re both in the kitchen, and I hate that he can’t actually leave, the way he said he should yesterday.
“Will you move, please?” I grind out.
Zach’s standing in front of the fridge, with that forlorn look on his face again.
God, I hate that face. I wish he’d quit it already.
Zach isn’t a very tall guy, but he’s lean and lanky, so it gives the impression that he’s taller than he is. I bought him that shirt: the red and charcoal flannel that’s half-tucked into his skinny jeans. His blue eyes crinkle behind his thick-rimmed glasses, but he steps back from the fridge so I can open it up and get the milk out.
I might be mad at him, but I am determined not to be petty.
He can call me bitch all he likes, but he can’t call me petty.
Not when I’m making him a cup of tea as I make myself one.
I am the least petty of ex-girlfriends. (Ex? Ish?) Close enough, at this point, to be honest. I haven’t dared ask to find out if we are broken up, and Zach seems to be avoiding bringing up our argument again, too, especially after our attempt to clear the air last night.
I want to ignore him. I really, really do. I want to act like he’s not here and like this whole melancholy thing isn’t bothering me and like that long, heavy sigh means nothing to me, but . . .
Well, you can’t just erase the last four years that easily.
“What’s the matter now?” I ask him.
“What about my dad and stepmum’s party?” he asks me, turning to look at me with a pout. A single, deep line creases his forehead.
My eyes slide from him to the embellished gold-on-cream invitation, with its cornflower blue floral border, that’s been pinned to our fridge for months.
I feel a pang of sadness in my gut.
Their anniversary. A big party, with all their friends and family, at some cute rural hotel, to celebrate their ten years of wonderful marriage. I must’ve looked at that invitation a hundred times in the last few days, in the past few months, even, but I’m so used to seeing it there I barely notice it anymore.
This is the first time it truly hits me: it’s not just Zach I’m breaking up with, it’s his whole family too. His wonderful, sweet mother, who always tells me how lovely and slim I look (even though I’ve put on more than fourteen pounds since I first got together with Zach, and wasn’t all that slim to begin with) and makes us such lovely home-cooked meals whenever we visit. His madcap dad with his shed full of tinkery inventions and his stepmum, who works for Mac Cosmetics and always lets me use her staff discount, and tells me how she wishes she had my bone structure or my curly hair. His younger sister, with her . . . well, apart from being the most mature twenty-two-year-old I’ve ever met, his younger sister’s pretty ordinary, but she’s so easy to get along with.
And then, of course, there’s his older brother Matty and his husband Alex, who treated me like I was one of the family from day one, their instant friendly banter a welcome relief from the polite parental inquisitions. They’re the nicest, sweetest people I know. Alex has even come to concerts with me and my dad a couple of times, like he’s part of our family. And Matty is easily one of the funniest, friendliest guys I’ve ever met. (Something Zach has always been jealous of, a reaction which I’ve always found quite cute.) It makes my chest feel tight, the idea of cutting them all out of my life. Of throwing Zach out of the apartment, and all of them along with him.
But his family isn’t enough to make up for everything that’s happened these last few days.
“What about the anniversary party?” I snap at him instead, scowling. “Do you really think I care about that right now? Zach, it’s like—it’s like you’re not listening to me. God. Of all the things we . . . That party is the last thing on my mind.”
“I’m just saying,” he mumbles.
“Yeah? Yeah, well maybe there were a lot of things you should have been just saying for the last four years.”
“Rena—”
“Save it,” I bark at him, the nickname he’s so fond of grating on me. I finish the tea, all but hurling the spoon toward the sink when I’m done, ignoring his wince at the noisy clatter of metal on metal, and storm back into my squished corner of the living room/dining room to go back to work. I seriously doubt I’ll be able to focus on work anyway. The only thing I’ve been able to think about this week is Zach, Zach, Zach.
Not even a phone call earlier today from one of the women on my team laying into me for using last year’s data in a report by mistake is enough to distract me.
(And it really should be, because she berates me for a solid thirty-eight minutes over my slipup, which made her look like an idiot in a meeting with senior managers where she had to present the report. I don’t even have the energy to point out that she had two days to look at my work and let me know, and probably shouldn’t have just winged it.) Zach potters around quietly, doing some housework. He moves quickly, silently, efficiently, dusting and polishing, sweeping the floor. He seems to be making every effort not to disrupt me, which I know I should appreciate, but really, it just makes my blood boil.
I don’t think I’m an irrational person. Far from it. But I know I’m being irrational for resenting how much effort he’s putting in to not making this worse, and I can’t do anything about it.
*
“It’s because he doesn’t get it,” I moan down the phone to my friend Vicki, looking desperately to the heavens.
While Zach takes a shower, I’ve shut myself out on the balcony to talk to my best friend. We don’t work together anymore, but that never stopped us being friends. And God, I’ve been dying to talk to her, not just swap messages over WhatsApp about it all.
“I kind of don’t blame him,” she tells me, somewhat reluctantly.
What a traitor. “I mean, listen, sweetie, I get it, I do, but . . . You’ve met Zach. He’s not exactly . . . ” She searches for a word, and apparently doesn’t come up with one inoffensive enough. Instead she says, “I mean, the boy could not be more laid back if he tried. He probably didn’t see this coming in a million years.”
I groan, exasperated, and lean over the balcony railing. The evening is cold and the air is thick and gray with drizzle. I’m mostly protected by the balcony above ours, but the rain that falls softly on my bare arms feels refreshing.
There’s a couple walking their dog out on the main road, and I’m horribly jealous of them, for so many reasons. Not least because Zach is horrified at the idea that I want a cat, and that really should’ve been an indication of bigger problems from the start.
“It’s infuriating,” I try to explain, turning my back to them. “Either I’m a total bitch going off on one, or he’s just moping around the apartment like a kicked puppy and being so fucking nice like I’ll just change my mind and everything will magically be solved.”