He cancelled a date, was he over me? He forgot we made plans, did he not care? Was I ever even good enough for him? It was a side of myself I didn’t care to be reminded of.
By the time we got to the end of the nine months, twenty-two days and fourteen hours, my writing didn’t flow quite so freely and I’d eased up considerably on the adjectives. Just the facts, ma’am. I told him about the job offer in DC, he said I should take it, he wanted to go travelling anyway. A clean break is always for the best. No hard feelings, let’s stay in touch, yeah? And then nothing. I’d left this diary behind and given up keeping one altogether. The only record of my time in America was in photo form, tiny digital squares of memories saved on my laptop and not nearly as affecting.
A handful of photographs fell into my lap, blurry, overexposed candids, a million miles away from the pictures we took on our phones. Every photograph I took now was ruthlessly cropped, filtered and edited, and anything less than deeply flattering was immediately discarded into the digital wasteland. These were different. I leafed through them, smiling. It wasn’t that long ago but we all looked so much younger, sharper angles but softer edges. We took disposable cameras everywhere that summer, me, Sumi and Lucy, determined to break free of our phones, an ahead-of-the-curve digital detox. It lasted exactly one month until Sumi balked at the price of film development and I ran the camera we’d taken to Lucy’s hen do through the wash.
There was a rush in these photos you couldn’t get in phone pics, I realized, tracing the curve of my arm in another photo: it was slung carelessly around Patrick’s neck, my head thrown back, him holding a hand out towards the camera to wave the photographer away but still laughing. So much genuine emotion packed into one frame that I suddenly had to wonder if our ancestors had been right all along. Did the flash steal your soul? Did we give a piece of ourselves away with every selfie?
There was one photo in particular, curled at the edges and sticky on the back from a time it had taken pride of place on my wall, one photo that hit me right in the heart. It was me and Patrick at Lucy’s wedding. Lucy had given it to me, rather than keeping it for the album, it felt too personal, too intimate, to share with strangers. The sun was behind us, a bright white light sharply lining our features, and we were holding hands, eyes on each other, as though we were the only two people on earth. Our faces were inches apart, either pre- or post-kiss, I couldn’t recall, but we looked so happy. So, so happy. And three weeks after it was taken, we broke up.
Slipping the photos back in the diary, I threw it as far as I could. About four feet. The shed really wasn’t very big. I pulled the sheets up to my chin and let out a loud huff. Probably not the best idea right before bed, I thought as I threw my hot and bothered body around, my legs tangling themselves up in the bed clothes as I went.
Grunting, I reached for my phone and opened my messages.
There it was, bold as brass, clear as day.
Hello stranger.
I placed the phone back on the nightstand and draped one arm over my face, covering my eyes. Maybe if I lay there long enough, stayed still enough, I would forget about the text and fall asleep.
I lasted ten seconds.
With a loud sigh, I reached for my phone again.
Hello stranger.
It was going to be a long night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Tell me you didn’t text him back.’
‘I did not text him back.’
It was the truth. I had not replied to Patrick’s text. I’d slept for what felt like fifteen minutes, taken two cold showers, listened to the foxes living and loving in my parents’ back garden, eaten half a tub of Nutella straight out the jar, read several chapters of Starting Over, chosen my least-worst New Job outfit from my limited wardrobe and hunted for my ex up and down the internet to no avail but I had not replied to Patrick’s text.
Striding down the street, on my way to my first morning at work, I lifted my chin to feel the sun on my face.