she never had before. Where had I been? What time had I finished work? Who was I on the phone to? “She’ll leave me.”
“Is not my problem!” Katya had turned and jabbed a finger at my chest. “Is yours.”
I close down my messages and open Facebook instead, bringing up Mina’s profile. I thought she might block me after she threw me out, but nothing has changed. Her relationship status still says married, and it’s pathetic how tightly I cling on to it as a sign of hope. She’s updated her profile picture. It’s a selfie, unfiltered, taken in the snow somewhere I don’t recognize. She’s wearing a hat with a fur pom-pom, and icy flakes cling to her eyelashes.
I’ve fucked up so badly. I’ve lost the only woman I’ve ever properly loved.
I met Mina after a rugby match, when she barged in front of me at the bar.
“You’re welcome,” I said, in that passive-aggressive, British way that enables you to take it back if you’d missed the excuse me.
She half turned, one hand holding up a tenner to keep her place at the bar. “Sorry, did I just jump the queue?”
There was nothing sorry about her expression, but by then, I didn’t care. Her hair was crazy—wild curls that fell across her face and swirled around her shoulders when she spun around. On her left cheek was a painted England flag, on her right, a French one.
I pointed at them. “Hedging your bets, I see.”
“Half French.”
“Which half?” It wasn’t very original, but she laughed anyway and bought me a drink. We took them outside, walking by tacit agreement away from the throng that had spilled onto the street and around the corner, where we perched on a wall.
“My mother’s French.” Mina took a sip of her pint. “French Algerian, technically—she moved to Toulouse before I was born. My dad’s half French, half English, and we came to England when I was six.” She grinned. “I’m a mongrel.”
When I went to get another round, I was gripped by the fear that she might vanish, and I pushed my way through to the bar, telling myself all was fair in love and war.
“What took you so long?” she said when I got back. The glint in her eye belied her cross expression, and I grinned back.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Mina was training to be a pilot—just a few weeks into a residential course. I’d never met a pilot before, never mind such a young and insanely attractive one, and the rush to my head had nothing to do with the beers I’d consumed.
“It’s really not that glamorous,” she said. “Not yet anyway. We’re in classrooms, like school, and there’s more math than you could possibly imagine.”
“When do you start flying?”
“Next week. Cessna 150s.”
“What are they?”
Mina grinned. “Let’s just say they’re a long way from the Concorde.”
I went home with her. I would have gone anywhere with her. And when I had to leave, she was so insistent that she’d call, that she wanted to see me again, that we had something exciting, something important, that I never asked for her number in exchange for the one I gave her. I never doubted she’d call.
Only she didn’t. And when I finally plucked up the courage to go ’round to her flat, she’d moved out. No note, no text. I’d been ghosted.
“You fucking idiot,” I say out loud.
I had it all. The woman I loved. A family. And I fucked it up. I lost Mina once, and when I got her back, I drove her away, and if I’m not careful, I’m going to lose Sophia too. It’s always been Mina she’s clung to, and now that I’m not living here, it’s a fight just to stay in her life. Attachment disorder takes years to overcome; it’s not enough to be with Sophia on birthdays and special occasions or every other weekend. I need to be here when she scrapes her knee and when she feels scared at night. I need to show her I won’t abandon her.
I swing my legs off the bed. Maybe I can help finish the snowman, and Sophia can put his hat on and wrap a scarf around his neck. Even if she doesn’t want me to help, I can still watch. I can tell her what a good job she did.
I run down the stairs, newly determined to be—what’s that word I see everywhere now? Present. I put my phone in my pocket, pleased with myself. I ignored the texts;