And what? Cry down the phone to him?
No, thank you.
If there was one thing she’d learnt over the past few months, it was how to calm herself down. To soothe her own pain. To be her own support system. Maybe that was what happened when you had your heart broken, she thought, as she made her way down the street in the opposite direction to the kind stranger … it grew back harder and more protected than before.
*
When Eleanor woke the next morning, she was expecting her phone to be full of apology texts and missed calls from Fin. As she reached over to check, she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that the only notification she had was a text from Ben.
He’s stubborn. You know he’s stubborn.
‘He’s an idiot,’ she muttered, tossing her phone aside and hauling herself out of bed. ‘That’s what he is.’
He was drunk. He didn’t mean what he said.
Eleanor closed her eyes and replayed the argument in her head; the vicious exchange of words, the shouting, the cruel laughter. It was too much to bear. Drunk or not, Fin did not deserve one more minute of her time.
By Monday afternoon the silence felt excruciating. She’d almost given herself whiplash the number of times she kept glancing over at her phone screen, in the vague hope of seeing Fin’s name pop up.
What if something has happened to him?
What if he’s hurt?
‘It’s not your job to look after him any more,’ she told herself through gritted teeth, trying her best to concentrateon the screen in front of her, whilst images from the past flashed through her mind. That time she found him in his room … so beaten and bruised.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s an adult now. He’s fine.’
‘Everything OK over there, Eleanor?’ Doreen’s concerned voice called out. ‘You look a little …’ She paused and cocked her head to the side, the bouffant of scarlet hair remaining perfectly in place. ‘Out of sorts.’
Eleanor plastered a smile on to her face. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just can’t get the wording right for this presentation, that’s all,’ she bumbled awkwardly.
‘I see,’ Doreen replied, not looking the least bit convinced by Eleanor’s assurances.
Get it together. If he wants to speak to you, he’ll call. Otherwise let it go.
A sudden twinge of sadness pulled at Eleanor’s heart. Could she really imagine a life without Fin now? After everything that had happened, would it really be so easy to let him leave again?
You might not have a choice …
But on Tuesday morning, Eleanor had got her wish. She woke to six missed calls and three voicemails from Fin. It was a relief to know he was alive and there was a part of her that wanted to pick up the phone and call him back immediately, but something stopped her.
Let him stew, the perverse voice in her head jeered.
Make him wait just a little bit longer …
Eleanor’s anxiety was at an all-time high the entire day. She could barely keep it together to go to work let alone socialize, and she had been very tempted to cancel her art class. But as much as she tried to convince herself otherwise,she knew she couldn’t cancel. Her soul needed to paint, to create, to dump all of her angst on to something outside her own heart. But she wasn’t in the mood to talk, and she most certainly wasn’t in the mood for Reggie and his sarcasm. She’d made sure to get there early and chose a seat on the opposite side of the room.
‘Playing hard to get, are we?’ a gruff voice whispered in her ear.
Eleanor cursed herself for jumping, but she’d been staring so hard at her still very blank canvas that Reggie’s appearance had taken her by surprise.
‘No,’ she mumbled, feeling her face flush. ‘This was the first empty seat I saw when I came in.’
‘Huh,’ Reggie commented. ‘I guess it is pretty rammed today.’
Eleanor reddened even more as she looked around at all the vacant chairs.
‘Mind if I join you over on this side?’ he asked, already seating himself next to her. ‘Might be good to get a different perspective on things.’
