late autumn, early winter temperature felt like it was stripping the skin from her face. She loved her city, but it wasn’t so hospitable in November.
It had not been an easy time. Ten weeks since the split, and Laurie felt almost as distraught as she did the day Dan left. Whenever their paths crossed at work, they had to chat vaguely normally so as not to arouse suspicion, because no one had figured it out yet. And as Laurie couldn’t bear the idea of their relationship being picked apart, she hadn’t done anything about it. It wasn’t a sensible thing to be doing, as grown-ups, not now they were living apart: they needed to face it. They’d also managed to keep it a secret from the rest of their Chorlton friendship group by pleading prior commitments to a few events, or in a couple of cases, attending singularly and lying through their teeth. But she couldn’t – wouldn’t – be the one to break the deadlock, as she hoped against hope they’d simply never need to tell everyone about this blip. She hoped the fact Dan didn’t want it known was a sign.
Laurie was no closer to understanding what the hell had happened. What did she do wrong? She couldn’t stop asking that.
Tracing the steps by which Dan fell out of love with her was excruciating and yet she guessed she had to do it, or be fated to repeat it.
Her only conclusion was that a distance must have developed between them, so slowly as to be imperceptible, so small as to be overlooked. And it had gradually lengthened.
Of course, the one person she had told, next to her mum, was Emily, ten days after the fact, who’d unexpectedly burst into tears for her. They’d been sitting in a cheapo basement dim sum bar under harsh strip lighting, a place that was usually quiet midweek. Laurie had asked for a table right at the back so she could heave and whimper without too many curious looks.
After hearing the details of Emily’s most recent work trip, a jaunt to Miami for a tooth-whitening brand with soulless corporate wonks, Laurie steeled herself and cleared her throat.
‘Em, I have something to tell you.’
Emily’s gaze snapped up from raking over the noodles section. Her hand immediately shot out and grabbed Laurie’s wrist tightly. Then her eyes moved to Laurie’s wine and her expression was more quizzical.
‘Oh God! Not that,’ Laurie said. ‘Nope. I’m safe to drink.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Dan and I have split up. He’s left me. Not really sure why.’
Emily didn’t react. She almost shrugged, and did a small double-take. ‘You’re kidding? This is a wind-up. Why would you do that?’
‘No. One hundred per cent true. It’s over. We’re over.’
‘What? You’re serious?’
‘I’m serious. Over. I am single.’
Laurie was trying that phrase out. It sounded a crazy reach, while being hard fact.
‘He’s finished with you?’
‘Yes. He has finished with me. We are separated.’
Laurie noticed that someone ‘finishing’ with someone else was such savage language. They cancelled you. You are over. Your use has been exhausted.
‘Laurie, are you being serious? Not a break? You’ve split up?’
‘Yes.’
Laurie was holding it together better than she expected. Then Emily’s eyes filled up and Laurie said, ‘oh God, don’t cry,’ her voice cracking, as beige lines streaked rivers through Emily’s foundation.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Emily gasped, ‘I— can’t believe it. It can’t be real? He’s having a moment or something.’
That immediate understanding from her closest friend had been the straw to break the stoic camel’s back, and Laurie and Emily had wept together until the waitress slapped two large glasses of wine down on their table, muttering, ‘On the house,’ before hastily beating a retreat. Here’s to sisterhood.
‘Why? Has he had some sort of stroke?’ Emily said, when she got her breath back.
Laurie put both palms up in a ‘fuck knows’ gesture and felt what a comfort her best friend was. She’d been there from the start, since Laurie and Dan’s Fresher’s Week meet-cute. She was completely invested; Laurie didn’t have to explain the preceding eight seasons for her to be blown away at the finale. Finale, or mid-season hiatus?
‘He says he doesn’t feel it, us, anymore. The night we’d been out in The Refuge, afterwards he was waiting up for me, and it came out. He’d been thinking about leaving for a while. Which you know, is fantastic to hear.’ She paused. ‘We’d been talking about coming off the pill.’
Emily winced.
‘Ohhhh so it’s fear of fatherhood? Growing up, responsibility?’
‘I asked that, and also said that we could rethink having kids, but no. He’s decided our life makes him feel like he’s on a fast track to death and has to go rediscover himself.’
‘Could it be a trial separation? Putting you two on pause, while he twats about off the grid in Goa, like he’s Jason Bourne? God, whenever I forget why I hate men, one of them reminds me.’
Laurie laughed hollowly.
‘Nope, I doubt it.’ She couldn’t admit to any lingering hope she felt, it was too tragic. Other parties needed to fully accept it, on her behalf. ‘He’s found a flat. We’re going to work out the money in the next few weeks. Then that’s us done, I guess. He’s offered to trade the car for furniture so there will be no wagon wheel coffee table haggling.’ Laurie’s throat seized up again.
‘I don’t know what to say, Loz. He loves you to bits, I know he does. He worships the ground you walk on, he always has done. This is madness. This is an episode.’
Laurie nodded. ‘Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. The Didn’t See It Coming, At All, factor is fucking with my head really badly.’ She lapsed into silence to staunch the tears.
‘Well, tonight just got even drunker,’ Emily said eventually, catching the waitress’s eye to signal another round.
In the end they’d finished the night in an even grottier bar down the street, two bottles of wine down and one heavy tip for the poor waitress who’d had to clear up their snotty tissues. The memory of the morning after still made Laurie wince today. Anyone who moaned about hangovers in their twenties should be forced to suffer a hangover from your late thirties.
The worst of it was, after the fireworks of Dan’s declaration that he was leaving and that first shock of grief, the awful banality of ‘getting on with it’ was its own horror.
‘Never mind the fact I’ll be expected to do monkey sex in swings, like they have in Nine Inch Nails songs, who will I text boring couple stuff to, ever again? Like what shall we have for tea, pre-pay day? Who will I ask if they want “baked potatoes and picky bits” on a cheap Monday?’ Laurie had demanded of Emily. (‘Lots of people like baked potatoes!’ she had promised.)
It was the end of another night of boozy mourning, and as they waited on the corner for their Ubers to appear, Emily
