Last night, she certainly didn’t want to reply immediately, not until she had a chance to think things through properly. Plus she was so agitated it felt as if someone had just turned the heat up by twenty degrees, so Hannah moved into the living room and opened the window, suddenly desperate for some air.
Then heard another follow-up message come in.
Leaving the phone untouched on the countertop so that it would go into sleep mode, and thus Rob would figure that she was no longer online, she slunk down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes, popping one of the goodies originally destined for Ed into her mouth.
She was no longer in the mood for neighbourly relations, or indeed tiptoeing around outside in the hallway, not when her mind was in such turmoil. She could always drop them off in the morning, but in the meantime, no point in letting them go to waste.
The switched-off phone remained silent, but Hannah couldn’t relax, expecting it to buzz again any second. Not being able to check was torture though, so she got up and decided to distract herself by pouring herself a glass of wine. Then retreating to thesofa, she grabbed her laptop and began mindlessly scrolling online in the hope of clearing her head a bit until she could better think straight.
An email alert popped up, but she ignored it, determined not to be drawn into her work inbox and potentially more drama with a client. She had more than enough of that to contend with as it was. But the email alert reminded her that there was actually a way to covertly check Rob’s messages without revealing on his side that she was currently online.
Safe in the knowledge that those damning blinking dots wouldn’t give her away this time, Hannah took a mouthful of wine and then clicked into iMessage, quickly running her gaze over her ex’s latest words, trying to figure out the meaning behind them.
You were always my lucky charm, after all.
OK, so he wanted to get together while he was in town. To what purpose? To apologize, explain himself, try to win her back … or in the hope of a roll in the hay for old times’ sake? She didn’t know how she felt about any of those possibilities but what Hannah did know was that she really did need to speak to Zoe. Her friend would help her make sense out of all this, or more to the point, make sure she saw sense.
Since Hannah was still reluctant to retrieve the phone for fear that Rob would know she’d read his latest missive and was still ruminating over how to respond, she typed out a quick text to her friend via the messaging app instead.
Can you talk?
With iMessage, there was no way to know if Zoe was available, which of course was exactly why Hannah was using it. But whenshe didn’t respond or call back immediately, she figured that her friend had to be in a meeting, in the car, or maybe even on a flight.
Which meant Hannah was stuck. OK, she thought, taking a deep breath and another gulp of wine. Maybe she needed to just put this whole thing to bed here and now by sending her ex a quick, easy-breezy reply, instead of obsessing over it like a teenager.
The obvious was something non-committal like;Sure, check back in with me when you’re in townor some such, but that didn’t feel right.
As if nothing had happened. As if everything she’d been through in the interim meant nothing, and the lengths to which she’d gone to put the necessary distance between them by moving her entire life out of LA were entirely trivialised.
Those older hard-done-by feelings flooded right back, and miffed that she had to deal with all of this again, just when she was feeling that she’d successfully put it behind her, Hannah threw back the last of her wine and began typing a response that didn’t let Rob so easily off the hook.
But while intending to compose a short response of a few choice words that left him equally confused as tohertrue meaning, before she knew it, she’d started pouring it all out; how much she had sacrificed, how his actions had humiliated her and how hurt she’d been, relieved to be able to unburden it all on someone right then since Zoe wasn’t available. And of course, safe in the knowledge that she was never going to send it.
Because while she’d so often been tempted, she would never dream of revealing any of her true feelings to Rob, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much he’d hurt her. Better to let him continue to believe that she was above any such dramatics and that the conclusion of their relationship was a matter of course and a mutual decision.
Make it so.
Hannah harrumphed. Aware that her glass was now empty and, definitely in the mood for another, she stood up and headed for the fridge for a refill, satisfied to have safely got it all off her chest at least.
Despite that, sleep still hadn’t come easily.
And this morning, in the cold light of day and absent the wine buzz, she was again fixated on Rob’s unexpected contact and, more to the point, what Zoe would surely say once she heard about it.
She was still afraid to check the phone for fear that Rob had sent through anything else that might distract her and she needed to get her act together pronto, because she was already running late for her first appointment at a podcast studio downtown with Ward McKenzie.
In the midst of it all, she hadn’t returned his call from yesterday but despite her intention not to get drawn into work stuff last night, she had quickly checked on the Sports Starz piece before going to bed and was satisfied that this more personal piece of coverage had done the job.
And happy to see that they had indeed used the adorable kittens’ picture as an accompaniment, which would surely help win hearts and minds.
And speaking of … that stray had made another appearance last night, though thankfully hadn’t set off any noise or alarms, other than those in Hannah’s own head. She’d got another fright when, after refilling her wine glass, she’d returned to the sofa and spied the cat idly wandering across the coffee table like it owned the place. Must’ve come in through the open window again, but this time Hannah wasn’t taking any chances, or indeed wasn’t in the mood for a visit, so she’d promptly shooed the feline back out the gap and hopefully to wherever it called home.
Now, she struggled to put on her eyeliner correctly and smudged it.
Damn. Doing her best to repair, Hannah then decided she didn’t actually give a hoot about the way she looked this morning and hurried out, hoping she could easily grab a taxi down to Soho. Whereupon she was meeting Ward for a pre-recording with a hockey podcaster, something he had expressed actual enthusiasm about when she’d pitched the idea that day at John Doe’s while his guard seemed to be down. A rare win.
‘Yeah, I prefer radio and podcast stuff,’ he’d told her.
‘Why’s that?’
