“What were you thinking about? You’ve been frowning as if the hydrangea has offended you.”
“Have I?”
That’s bad because I’d been thinking about Osian’s latest email.
I keep thinking I see you. In the village, among the public traipsing around Kendric House. Every time I see someone with shiny dark hair, I think it’s you.
Last night in bed, I heard movement in your apartment next door. I thought you were back. I was so happy I ran to knock on your door. I have never in my life – and I mean never – felt as happy as when I thought you’d come back. And I’ve never felt so crushed as when a stranger opened your door.
Turns out they were honeymooners renting the apartment for a long weekend.
Why did you go?
I know. I do understand why. But that doesn’t stop me raging about it.
We were happy for a while, weren’t we? Before we both threw that happiness away with both hands. We had a wonderful thing; why did we have to ruin it by asking for more? I kick myself every day for inviting you for dinner that last night. Why didn’t I leave well enough alone?
Why did you refuse my friendship?
I can’t help raging at you for not being different. For not being who I asked you to be. For not letting yourself live a lie. Damn you. Damn, damn, damn you. This hurts so much.
I shake my head to get rid of the thoughts.
“Oh,” Sue whispers as she lays a hand on my shoulder. “It’s that fella, isn’t it?”
“He keeps emailing. I try not to read them anymore but I can’t help myself.”
She takes another trowel and starts mixing the rest of the compost bags. We work silently for a few minutes. When we’redone and go to wash our hands in the square sink by the back door, she says, “Have you tried blocking him?”
“I tried. I can’t.”
She finishes washing her hands and dries them on a black towel hanging on a nail behind the door. Dark towels are best because they never show the dirt.
“The way I see it,” she says. “You left because you didn’t want to spend your life waiting for him. So don’t spend your new life waiting for his emails.”
Her words are the wake-up call I needed. Something I’ve suspected all along, but hearing her say it forces me out of denial la-la land. Over the last two weeks I’ve allowed myself to slip into this pretend relationship. He’s not even talking to me; he thinks I’ve filtered his emails. This is his private diary; he’d never write any of it if he thought I was reading them.
Block him!
Block him right now!
It will only take a few clicks.
Why does it still hurt so much?
Didn’t they say it takes half the time you were with someone until you get over them? I was with Osian – if you can even call itwithOsian – three-and-a-half months. It’s nearly five months since I left. Why am I still not over him?
My fingers move like blocks of wood on my laptop. I must have typed the wrong letters a million times before I manage to set up the filter to hide his emails and keep them out of my inbox into a password-protected file. An auto-generated passwordwhich I can’t remember and need to go into a different folder to retrieve.
My phone is clean of all traces of Osian now.
That night, I hug my pillow and cry while I think of him. Because like him, I too keep thinking I see him. Down the high street. On trains. Even once as I was driving on the motorway.
And this email filter – a final barrier between me and his words – feels like the real break up.
I stick to my resolution and don’t check the filtered file or read any more emails. So the news three weeks later catches me by complete surprise.
Chapter Fifty-one
