A minute, it lasts. Before the truth builds itself around me. The truth that I’ve ruined it with this man, and he has ruined it with me. What sort of person is capable of falling asleep when the woman whose body you were just inside of is clearly very upset? In one final attempt to wake him and see if he can be the man I want and need him to be, I snuffle. To no avail. He stays solidly unconscious. And that’s when my anger at him flips into anger at myself in my predictable trauma response. The shame and self-blame bombard themselves through my body, filling me with loathing.
I’ve fucked it up, I’ve fucked it up, I’ve fucked it up.
Like I always fuck it up, like I always fuck it up, like I always fuck it up.
Because I’m too fucked up, too fucked up, too fucked up.
The tears gain momentum. My chest starts heaving with the effort of controlling the sobs. The saltwater soaks my hair, drips off the edges of my face. Eventually, the sobs are too huge to contain. I tiptoe politely to Simon’s en suite so I can get on with the serious business of totally falling apart. At first, I try clinging to the toilet to cry, but he’s left skid marks all over the rim and just the sight makes me gag. I put the loo seat down and huddle on the bath mat.
He didn’t even clean the skid marks off the loo before I came round. That is how little you mean to men who mean things to you. You’re not worth the effort of scraping shit off a toilet for.
I end up foetal, forehead on the floor, my lungs heaving as I free-fall into despair. At some point, I hear Simon’s flatmate let himself in. I bite my lip and whimper silently as I listen to his getting-ready-for-bed noises. I hear him make something in their kitchen, the sound of the TV coming on low, some late-night comedy show with canned laughter, the scrape of food being eaten off a plate. I imagine how Simon will tell this faceless man what happened. I picture his shock. The words he will use. ‘A bit too damaged, unfortunately’. ‘Better off without that.’ ‘Oh well, plenty more fish in the sea.’ The sound of a light being switched off. The kitchen extractor fan runs itself to a stop. The flat falls quiet again.
I’m aware of how very alone I feel.
All my loneliest moments in life involve a man asleep when he knows it’s likely I’m crying.
I have only two options: a) to be the weirdo who disappeared in the night, or b) to be the weirdo who is still there in the morning. I pick b), as a stupid part of me is still determined to make this work somehow. I cannot handle the humiliation of being so very wrong about him. We may very well wake up sober, and be able to talk about it. I surely didn’t imagine the closeness between us? We don’t even have to go into it, I don’t even particularly want to go into it, but just talking, like we were so good at earlier this evening, could get us on the right path again.
At around 3 a.m. I crawl back into Simon’s bed and attempt to lose consciousness. I play back my favourite memories of what we’ve shared so far. Our first date, our first kiss, his smell, his …
I wake with a start.
My head throbs from too much wine and too much crying. My mouth festers with dryness. Simon is awake, sitting upright in bed. I swear he grimaces when he realises I’ve stirred. Any hope I harboured dies with the grimace. My gut kicks into the familiar feeling of impending break-up – the slurry in my stomach, the wobble of my top lip, the resigned inevitability of it.
‘Morning,’ I say.
‘Morning.’
‘Did you sleep OK?’
‘Yes, you?’
I nod my lie and notice him not leaning down to kiss me.
‘Do you want breakfast?’ he asks. ‘There’s this place around the corner. They do good avo on toast. You like that, don’t you?’
He wants to end this over breakfast so he feels less like a bad guy. I cannot do this. I cannot have someone say kind things to me again over sourdough when they are also telling me they never want to see me again. No amount of avo on toast can take the sting out of rejection.
‘It’s OK.’ I put my hand up. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘It will be nice.’
I shake my head. ‘Simon, can we just talk about what happened last night already? You don’t have to buy my breakfast.’
Even in my anguish, there’s a part of me that enjoys watching a man’s inner turmoil when it becomes obvious he’s going to have to talk about his emotions. Simon’s eyes widen, like he’s a vegetarian that’s accidentally bitten into a meat pasty. I leave him in the silence he needs and brace myself for impact.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he says, finally, without making eye contact. ‘I’m still not sure what happened.’
‘Well, you didn’t ask me what happened, did you?’ I point out. ‘You didn’t talk to me about it at all. You just went to sleep.’
He takes the hit, hesitates, and then recovers. ‘Yes, sorry about that. I was just shocked, and you see, I’m so stressed with work. I could’ve handled it better, I admit.’
I wait for the ‘but’. I arrange my face into battle mode.
‘But …’
Here it comes.
‘The thing is, I’m not really looking for anything serious at the moment. And—’
I cut him off. ‘Don’t lie.’
‘What?’
‘You are. Just not with me. At least own it, Simon.’
He runs his hand through his hair, and that’s the moment I notice his receding hairline. The widening space above his forehead. He’s got a year or two, max, before those two patches merge and then he’ll have to start shaving it off. ‘I don’t understand why you’re being like this.’
‘I just think we’re both old enough for the truth.’ I sigh and shake my head.
‘We’re not exactly old …’
‘We’re in our thirties.’
‘That’s not old.’ He looks genuinely offended that I’ve suggested such a notion. I shake my head again and wish there was a betting website where I could put my life savings on the odds that he’s referred to himself as Peter Pan, proudly, in the last year.
‘Look, anyway, let’s just get on with it.’ It’s rather incredible that I’m not crying. In fact, I sound quite chill and disconnected and sassy and all the things I’m sure would’ve kept this relationship going if I’d been able to summon them last night instead of being triggered. Simon seems equally as thrown at my character transformation. Doubt settles in just above his eyebrows. He’s going to follow through though because he’s still not making eye contact.
‘I really like you,’ he starts. It’s how this always starts. ‘You’re pretty and you’re smart and you’re funny and you’re kind.’ I nod. All of those things are true. They don’t seem to make me lovable though – too unchill and broken for that. I wait again for the second ‘but’. The ‘but’ that’s been the butt of all my misery my entire adult life. ‘But, to tell you the truth, I’ve not been feeling it …’ he trails off.
I close my eyes. I count to three. I take deep breaths. I let the rejection, once again, soak through me.
He can’t handle the pain he’s caused me. Simon thinks he is a nice guy. Maybe he even is, to women who aren’t me. He’s started scrambling around for modifiers to make himself feel better. ‘You’re great, you’re so great. Last night was just … well … Again, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me.’