“Freya—”
“Please, Matthew, let me finish,” I tell him firmly, refusing to relinquish control, despite how painful it is. “When you push aside all the mess of this breakup, forget all the wedding stuff, the only thing that really mattered to me was one question: Why didn’t you love me anymore?”
He drops his eyes to the floor. I’m crying quite a lot now, so I reach for the tissues that I’d cleverly placed on the coffee table this morning. I dab my face and carefully wipe under my eyes, hoping that waterproof mascara is pulling through for me. From the lack of black smudges on the tissue, I can confirm that it is.
Thank you, Estée Lauder. Always got my back.
“I’ve been so preoccupied by what you told me in that broom cupboard; focusing on the reasons you gave as to why we didn’t mesh well anymore. I think you’ve been trying to make sense of it, too. That’s why you said I was ‘together’ and you weren’t.”
“I didn’t articulate myself very well,” he admits glumly. “And it was the same in France when I thanked you and when I think back on that, I feel like an idiot. The thing is, Freya, I just neverfelt needed by you. You had everything in hand. I felt like a spare part in your life. When we were together, I felt that I wasn’t bringing anything to the table.”
“It wasn’t my responsibility to change that, Matthew. That’s all on you.”
“I know, I know. But that’s the thing that I was getting confused about. It sort of dawned on me that maybe, I wasn’t ready to bring anything to the table yet. I still feel like I have a lot of growing up to do and working out where I want to be… working out who I want to be. But you’re already there, and for years, I just let you carry me along with you. You’re… well, you’re just so…”
“Together,” I finish for him. And I say it proudly.
“Right.” He shrugs. “Meanwhile, my head’s all over the place. I’ve hurt you, I’ve hurt my friends, I’ve hurt everyone. And I still don’t know whether this is right or whether I’ve been unbelievably stupid.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve pondered those questions quite a bit and I understand now that if you really weren’t sure you’d made the right decision, you’d be a mess. We’d be talking. We’d at least be messaging. You’d be back and forth. Your self-preservation, as cruel as it’s been—and I mean that, Matthew, you’ve made a lot of cruel choices—comes from the right place. You know in your heart that you don’t want to marry me; maybe you were avoiding me because you just don’t want to face up to it and finally close the chapter on us either, because that means… that means losing each other. And we were happy a lot, too. That’s what’s so hard. But sometimes love just doesn’t last.”
I conclude there, because I need to blow my nose. It’s not the most sophisticated way to end a very personal and emotional speech, but there you go.
Matthew exhales. “Wow. I… I wasn’t expecting… I didn’t…”
He searches for the words, but can’t seem to find them, so we sit in silence for a bit, mulling over everything I’ve said.
“I’m sorry, Freya,” he says quietly.
And that confirms it.
He could have argued against what I’ve said. He might have insisted he’d been in turmoil, that he thought he needed time and space, but now that he’d had it, now that he’d seen what else was out there, he knew he wanted to be with me; he’d been wrong and I was wrong now, he did still love me and he’d made a mistake, and despite all of this and everything that had happened, he wanted to fight for us.
He isn’t saying that, though. And that’s how I know.
It’s over.
Finally.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeats, a tear rolling down his cheek.
“I know.”
“You didn’t deserve this.”
“It’s not about what I deserve. It’s just how you feel. You followed your heart and that’s got to be the right thing to do.” I give a small shrug. “That’s what Disney movies always imply anyway.”
He can’t help but laugh. “That’s true.”
“I can’t persuade you to love me again and I’m not sure I want you to. We’re both different people now.”
He brings his eyes up to meet mine. “I’m so sorry about ruining the wedding, Freya. I’m so ashamed.”
“Yeah, well, that was particularly brutal. But I think it’s best not to dwell on that. Time to look forward.”
He reaches for the tissues. I slide them along to him.
“And, to be fair, I did get a bit of revenge with the whole wine-throwing thing,” I add, making him laugh.
