It’s all gone to shit. All of it. My love, my life, my combination skin.
On what would have been our wedding day, I literally only left my childhood bedroom to go to the bathroom and, even then, I pretty much crawled on all fours to get there. At one point, Dad was standing on the landing and he actually had to step aside to let me crawl past him along the carpet to the loo. He stood watching me go, not saying a word.
I imagine, one day, we’ll laugh about that.
When they took the marquee down the next day, I closed all the curtains in the house so I wouldn’t accidentally see it being dismantled. I curled up in my bed with my headphones on, blasting music into my ears to block out the banging and clanging of all traces of the wedding being removed.
On Monday, I mustered the energy to go downstairs for lunch. Adrian and Dad tried their best not to make a big deal of it, but it was obvious that they were freaking out. As I sat at the table, glumly pushing food around my plate, they sat tensely, glancing at each other wide-eyed and attempting unnaturally cheery conversation.
“Aren’t those birds singing today?” noted Adrian, a guy who has never noticed birds tweeting in his life. “Ah, nature.”
“Yes, nature.” Dad nodded, trying his best. “It brings so much.”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
They both turned to look at me. I didn’t say anything, my eyes fixed on my plate, too tired to participate. There was an awkward silence until Adrian couldn’t take it anymore.
“I think I can hear a bumblebee!”
“Extraordinary!”
The conversation continued in this vein until I thanked them for lunch, put my plate in the dishwasher, and headed back upstairs to the safety of my depressing little den. I have managed to conjure better conversational skills since then, but it’s all so tiring. I still feel exhausted.All. The. Time.
I decided I didn’t want to take any time off work. I had booked two weeks off for the honeymoon, but I called my boss, Phil, on Tuesday morning and asked if I could carry on as if nothing had happened. By then, I’d spent three days in my room wallowing, and I needed something to take my mind off the horror that was my life.
“If you’re sure you’re okay to work?” Phil asked, soundingveryuncomfortable.
Phil is an awkward person at the best of times, so the idea of talking to me at such a somber time must have been excruciating for him. At sixty-one, he’s a bit older than the rest of the team, and being naturally shy and quiet, he doesn’t enjoy the socializing side to work, so it’s not like we know each other very well. He’s very much the sort of person who likes to march into his office in the morning, do his job, and leave.
“Of course I’m okay!” I insisted, sitting slouched on my bed in just my underwear, slipper socks, and Matthew’s old Foo Fighters T-shirt, while sticking a twisted bit of tissue up my nostril. When I was crying earlier, I blew my nose so hard it bled. “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“Oh. Well. I… ahem… I was very sorry to hear about… what happened. Very sorry.”
I felt the stab of humiliation, the idea of everyone in the office talking about it. Feeling sorry for me. The idiot who had no idea her relationship was over until the day before her wedding.
I still can’t believe that idiot is me.
“Thanks, Phil, but I’m fine.”
“If you think work could be a good distraction…”
“I do.”
“But you must look after yourself, Freya,” he said in a firm tone, which was really quite sweet of him. “You take things at your own pace.”
“I promise I will.”
Which was a lie, of course. You can’t really do my job at your own pace. I’m a brand manager for Suttworth, the biggest drinks company in the country, and it’s not like people stop selling and drinking alcohol across the UK just because I’m having a life crisis. But I do have a brilliant team who are helping me out, and since I can stay home for now, I don’t have to be presentable, which definitely works in my favor. I had also made sure that things were all sorted and under control before I left the office last week, to much prenuptial fanfare. They decorated my desk in white balloons and silver confetti and cracked open the champagne.
I was the excited bride-to-be off for a few days of wedding prep before jetting off on a honeymoon to Barbados.
Ugh.
Anyway, these walnuts everywhere around my room really don’t help much. Earlier, I tried to eat one by lobbing it at my open mouth half-heartedly and I missed. It hit the corner of my lip and then dropped to the floor. I stared at it and then wailed, “Whyyyyyy?”
It was a low point.
