‘Did you have any inkling at all that things with Thingy-ma-jig were going to go tits up?’ I blurt, unable to keep it in any longer.
She sighs and leans back in her chair, running her hand through her hair in agitation. ‘In retrospect, yeah, I guess I did. But I just kept ignoring my instincts because I didn’t want to think about how I was going to explain to everyone that the wedding was off. I thought it would work itself out, I guess. And it became a matter of personal pride that it went ahead.’
‘So it was more about not being humiliated than actually wanting to be married to him?’
Her shoulder lifts in an awkward shrug. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. We were together for four years so I guess I just thought getting married to him was a done deal. We’ve always been good friends and agreed on pretty much everything, so he seemed like a good choice of partner.’
‘Even though he didn’t really ding your bell sexually?’
She frowns at that. ‘It wasn’t that he didn’t ding it. Things were fine in bed. Not the most exciting sex I’ve ever had, sure, but not terrible. I just decided to prioritise being with a good, steady, reliable partner. He seemed like a better long-term bet than someone who made all my sexual fantasies come true but probably wouldn’t stick around in the tough times.’
‘Except he did neither in the end.’
She rubs her hand over her eyes, then grimaces. ‘You don’t need to remind me. I’m very aware of how naïve I was to trust him so absolutely.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel worse. I guess I’m pissed off on your behalf about the way he treated you.’
I look up from my plate to see there are tears in her eyes, which she’s determinedly blinking back.
‘You okay?’ I ask, worried by the depth of emotion on her face.
She just nods, then puts down her chopsticks and says in a quiet voice, ‘I really thought he adored me. He always acted like he did. But I wonder now if that’s actually all it was: an act.’ Her brow pinches into a tight frown. ‘But I don’t think so. I think he did really love me, just not enough and not in the right way. And yeah, maybe we would have got bored with each other anyway. I suppose being good friends is all well and good, but maybe you need fire and chemistry too to keep things fresh and interesting as time passes. That’s what I’ve been telling myself anyway.’
‘Did you know he was into guys?’ I ask, hoping I’m not crossing a line with that question. It seems like she needs to talk though, so I figure I may as well ask it all now.
She pauses for a moment, as if seriously considering this, before saying, ‘He told me a couple of years into our relationship he’d wondered whether he might be bisexual. Just mentioned it offhandedly one day, then quickly changed the subject, like he was just musing on it, but it didn’t really mean anything. He’d had a pretty strict, religious upbringing and I think his parents put the fear of God into him about how they thought being gay was a sin and basically implied they’d cut him out of the family if he ever ventured anywhere near it. So he’d never explored that part of himself.’
‘So it wasn’t a total shock when you found out about his male colleague?’
‘Not a total shock about that, no. And in a weird way I’m happy for him that he finally felt brave enough to engage with what he obviously really wants and needs. It was the lying and cheating part that hit me right in the guts.’
‘Yeah, I bet. It was a fucked-up thing to do to you. Especially waiting for your wedding day to come clean about it.’
She nods. ‘It was so weird because I was totally calm right after he told me. It was as if someone else had taken over my mind and my body and I was being manipulated like a puppet. I felt almost… excited. Like I was suddenly taking part in an immersive play. I think it must have been the adrenaline that flooded through me. A fight or flight response gone haywire. Then it was like I was outside my own body, watching the whole drama unfold. I went into practical mode and very calmly asked him to tell me all the details. I needed to know every single thing that had happened. How. When. Who knew. It was a coping mechanism I suppose.’
‘Yeah, well, we all respond to stressful situations in different ways,’ I say with sympathy.
The smile she gives me is filled with pain. ‘I’m ashamed to admit it now, but my overriding response was to want to have sex with him. I guess to try and reclaim him or something. Or prove to myself I still had some sort of hold on him. Some control. I feel so humiliated, thinking about it now. He rejected me, obviously, when I tried to kiss him, idiot that I was.’
‘Fuck, that’s fierce. No wonder you’re so cut up about it.’
She lets out a long breath through her nose, her shoulders slumping a little. ‘Walking into the room where the wedding was meant to take place and having to stand there in front of everyone in my obscenely expensive wedding dress and explain it wasn’t going to happen that day, or any day in the future, was the worst, most humbling moment of my life. But I did it. My voice was shaky, but somehow I was able to get the words out without crying. I was practicality personified.’ She flashes me a sad, wry smile.
‘I’m actually proud of myself for doing that. I didn’t break down and beg someone else to do it for me. It was important to me though, to handle it myself. I had to face it head on. Look it in the eye. Take ownership of the whole shitshow in order to be able to carry on. I would have hated to look back and been even more ashamed about falling apart.’
‘Which would have been a reasonable response, considering the trauma of the situation,’ I point out gently.
‘Yeah, I suppose so. I didn’t actually feel the full emotional horror of it all until a day later. But even then, I couldn’t cry. I was just… numb. Then the next day, when I woke up, I felt a bit like I was going mad. I just couldn’t believe it had happened. That something I was so sure of, soconvincedI knew to be true, turned out to be a sham. It made me question every other thing – every other relationship I have. When you feel like you can’t trust your own instincts any more it’s a total head-fuck.’
‘I hear you.’
‘At least he had the balls to stop the wedding before it was a done deal,’ she says quietly now. ‘It would have been hellish to have to go through the ordeal of a divorce instead – especially if we’d ended up having kids together.’
Her voice breaks on the last couple of words and tears spill out of her eyes and run down her face. She swipes them away, clearly embarrassed.
My heart goes out to her, and I reach over and cover her hand with one of mine.
‘Fuck. Sorry, I shouldn’t be talking about this right now. I really don’t want to sit here crying in the middle of a restaurant, ruining your night.’
