‘Please, I thought a woody wine was fruity.’
‘Yeah, we’ll move on from that.’ He laughs, full of humour this time, and I can’t help myself but join in.
‘Mamma Mia’ comes on next, and Ollie sings along. I’m flying high with the joy of singing this soundtrack with him again.
‘Did you find it easy to move on from me?’ The question kills his buzz as his shoulders slump.
‘Shit, Will.’ His perfectly trimmed eyebrows rise, but I wait for an answer. He cricks his neck. ‘What do you want me to say?’
‘The truth, I guess.’
‘Well, let me ask you the same thing.’
‘Oh, please don’t.’
‘No, you don’t get to get out of that.’ Ollie lifts one hand from the wheel, wagging a finger at me. I can almost imagine him doing it to a bunch of undergrad students. ‘Were you devastated?’
I laugh. ‘Course I was, Ollie. You left me.’
Ollie’s hand drops, resting on his bare knee. ‘When you put it like that…’
‘Oh, it’s fine, Ol. I get why you did it.’
‘You do?’
Do I? I suppose now I do. I suppose I’ve always known, even though I can lie to myself to think otherwise. ‘We wanted different things. You were bored of me. Yada, yada, yada.’
‘I was never bored of you.’
‘Really?’
‘Will, don’t you know how much I wanted things to work out?’ He sighs. ‘When you said no to the first time, yeah, I was sad, but I also thought, well, we were young, there’s time. The second time, though… I knew what I wanted, and you knew what you wanted, and when that is different things…’
‘Right, sure.’
We sit in silence for a moment, as familiar streets zoom by. I glance at the time, seeing that the evening is still young, yet all I crave is crashing into bed.
Ollie’s fingers tap the wheel as he drives. ‘I called in sick to work.’
‘What?’
‘When we broke up. I took two weeks off and cocooned in my bed and cried.’
Wow. I stare at the passing landscape, teeth on edge.
‘When I finally got the courage to go back to work, I grunted my way through it. Will, I didn’t get over you for weeks. Months, maybe.’
My mouth runs dry and it feels as though a stone is lodged in my throat. But I croak, ‘And did you ever think about… about reaching out?’
‘Why do you think I focused on trying to remain your friend?’ Ollie asks, and he sounds wounded. ‘Like, I tried so hard, butyou didn’t give much back. Eventually I thought I should just give you space.’
‘Right.’
‘It’s what I thought you wanted.’
‘I suppose I did.’
‘Exactly.’
