I manage to look up at him. ‘For fuck’s sake, stop lying.’
He jerks back, his demeanour switching into defensive-mode right away. ‘I’m not!’
‘You are, and it’s boring. Just tell the truth. God.’
‘Look, stop making me into a villain! As I said, I’ve not been totally feeling it, but I thought there was enough there to see where it went. And, well, last night … I’m just not sure I’m the right guy to take on something like that, April, OK? I’m not evil for wanting a normal sex life rather than …’
The word ‘normal’ hits harder than a bullet. It explodes on impact. He doesn’t finish his sentence. He’s made it clear: I’m the problem, not him. He crosses his arms. He can’t physically look at me. Bottom lip stuck out. All ‘look what you made me do’.
I stand. I can’t, I just can’t any more. I will cry I will cry I will cry, but I won’t give Simon the satisfaction of seeing that. ‘Goodbye Simon,’ I say, putting my sandals on with as much dignity as it’s possible to muster.
‘We can still get breakfast,’ he tells the floorboards hollowly.
As I stuff my belongings back into my handbag. I can practically hear him whinging to his mate.
She was acting like I was such a jerk, but I was the one offering to take her out to breakfast! I was the one trying to be mature about the whole thing! Nightmare! She’s just taking whatever happened out on me which is so unfair. I’m not a bad guy. I was just being honest.
Or even worse, he won’t mention me at all. I’m not significant enough.
I bend over, my heart feels like it’s going to tumble out of my mouth. I’m thirsty, and hurting, humiliated, and done.
He doesn’t follow me to the door. He just sits with his face in his hands, concocting a way, I’m sure, to make himself the victim in all this.
‘Have a great life!’ I shout over my shoulder as I leave, wincing as I say it, because it sounds like a line in a really crap movie. I wait for the lift, playing out one last desperate fantasy. Imagining him chasing me out, catching the lift before the doors close, telling me it’s all a big mistake, that he will do anything to have me back. I want him to want me, even though, if I give myself time, I know that I don’t want him. Not really. Not the real him I wasn’t given the time to get to know.
The doors slide open. I step inside. They slide shut, without any chases and dramatic revelations. I pull out my phone, seeing if there’s a message from Simon, telling me to wait.
Instead I have five messages from Megan:
Megan: You’ve not come home. IS TONIGHT THE NIGHT?
Megan: What’s sex like? I’ve forgotten.
Megan: I’ve eaten your leftover lasagne. Sorry, but not really. If you didn’t want me to, you should’ve come home tonight and stopped me. You know what I’m like.
Megan: Yes, I’m totally victim blaming you right now.
Megan: I’ve eaten your Gü pudding too …
Even she isn’t able to make me smile. I blink and blink and blink. The lift doors ding open and I’m spat out onto the dirty, littered streets of London on a Saturday morning. I lean against the wall of Simon’s new-build beside a couple of pigeons pecking at a patch of splattered vomit, and watch the buses lurch past, joggers jog, and cyclists cycle, and wait a moment or two before I reply. These are my last moments of showing the outside world I’m capable of having a relationship. Right now, only Simon and I know we’ve disintegrated. My friends and colleagues still believe that April might have the ability to meet a nice man and get past date five. Their doubts about me are fading. They’re thinking ‘how nice’. As soon as I message Megan to reveal the ending, that veneer will collapse. The narrative will revert back to April trope. I’m going to have to go through the painful and humiliating process of telling everyone I told about Simon that, no, actually, it didn’t work out. I’ll have to endure the re-explaining of what happened, the ‘well he doesn’t deserve you anyway’ lies when, secretly, they’re thinking, ‘hmm, I do wonder if there’s something not quite right about that one’ before they get on with their own business and their own lives and their own relationships that they seem to find so, so much easier than I do.
April: On my way home. It’s over. Before it even began. Not good.
No one asks if I’m all right as I weep silently along the District line, staring out at the blackness. Two tourists, armed with cameras and stinking of sun cream, notice the tears and discuss my predicament in a hushed language I don’t understand. But they decide to do nothing.
The moment I get signal, my phone vibrates with replies.
Megan: Fuck
Megan: I’m so sorry hon.
Megan: I’m here. I’ve just run out to get replacement Gü. Multiple Gü.
Megan: You WILL get through this.
I shakily reply ‘I love u xxx’ and focus on trying to ravel myself back in again. It is just a man. One man. I can handle this. I’ve been here before. Many, many times. I focus on my ribcage expanding and contracting, on my breath coming in and out, even if it is in short, sharp bursts of sadness. The carriage judders to a halt at South Kensington and I’m the first to get out when the doors slam open. I cannot handle the crowds of dawdling tourists, not today. I jump off and run to the steps, elbowing a stressed mother pushing a buggy towards the Natural History Museum exit. She shouts after me, and I find myself muttering ‘fuck off’ as I run past. I don’t even feel guilty. All I can think is that she deserves it, with her three children and her life all together, getting in my way when I’m falling apart and will probably never be able to have what she has – no matter how hard I try. I dodge down the side roads, to the little mews where Megan’s flat hides. I scrabble with my key, the tears really streaming now, and, when I’m through the door, Megan is there. Arms wide open, a chocolate Gü in each hand, looking just as upset as I feel. I fling myself into her and cry myself dry.
Here are the red flags I ignored about Simon because I was so desperate for him to be the end of dating hell: yes, he did always message back but he never called me. Every time we arranged to see each other, I had to fit in around his diary, not the other way around. His parents are still together, but he mentioned during our third date, after three martinis, that ‘I really don’t think they love each other, or ever have’, which is bound to impact his view on healthy relationships. He rarely asked me any questions about myself and looked bored at the answers. He once referred to his ex as ‘a bit crazy’. He sneered when I mentioned my friend Chrissy and her battle with depression, saying it’s ‘a bad habit’. He admitted he only volunteered at the shelter that one time to meet women and thought it was funny.
The main red flag? He said he was looking for a ‘partner in crime’ which everyone knows is shorthand for ‘a woman who isn’t real’.
‘I still don’t understand it,’ I tell Megan, lying on the sofa, exhausted and blotchy.
‘There’s nothing to understand. He’s just a dick.’ She’s curled her feet up under her and the gold from the sun hits her black hair, turning it grey.