face collapses. ‘Right.’ He says it again. ‘Right.’ Another sip of beer as he faces the bittersweet relief of knowing you’re not being paranoid after all.
‘I mean, I’ve mentioned you now.’
‘Because you had to.’
‘It’s not like that. Why are you being weird about it?’
Joshua flinches and the guilt intensifies, the surreal mist getting thicker. I’ve had that hurtful collection of words chucked at me so many times and now I’m the one saying them. I panic. I do not like to hurt people. I start backpedalling. ‘Sorry,’ I reach over my hand and take his. ‘I didn’t mean that.’
‘No, its fine,’ he says, when it isn’t.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.’
His chest inflates as he tries to puff it out. ‘You didn’t.’
‘Right.’
The waiter reappears and jolts us back to societal appropriateness. ‘Ready to order?’
We both want ramen – Josh orders the beef, me the chicken. ‘Want a side of edamame beans?’ I ask as we hand over the menus.
‘Yeah, sure.’
With no laminated A4 to use as conversational shields, we both start plucking ramen accessories out of the tray as a distraction while I wait for Joshua to explain. I snap chopsticks in two, rubbing them together to get rid of any splinters. Joshua grates peanut dust into his hand. The childlikeness of it throbs something in my gut.
I am hurting this man.
This is the first time I can see the hurt from my lies first-hand. He swipes the peanut dust into a napkin and smiles as he looks up at me, and the guilt sinks into my bones. This power doesn’t feel liberating like I thought it would. It feels confusing, like a dull ache, like I’ve let myself down. End this, I think to myself, smiling back. Now is the time to end this.
All I need to do is say it’s not working. Say it’s not me it’s you. Say we’ve just met at the wrong time. Say I’m not over my ex. Say I need to focus on work. Say there just isn’t a spark. Say it say it say it. His heart will be mildly bruised. He may not want to frequent this particular ramen place for a while. It will hurt for a day or two but his heart will receive minimal damage. Say it can’t go on. Say you’ve met someone else. Say you’re emotionally unavailable. Say it say it say it.
But I don’t say anything.
And, once more, Joshua flings himself into the silence. ‘Gretel, I’m not seeing anyone else,’ he says plainly. The man returned. Sitting up in his stool. ‘I know we’ve not had this conversation. I thought it was kind of implied, but now I’m not sure. So we need to talk about it, I think. Are you seeing anyone else?’
I have a split second to grasp Gretel’s answer. ‘No.’
He takes a breath of relief which he tries not to show. ‘Cool. OK. I mean, it would be cool if you were. As I said, we’ve never spoken about it.’
‘I don’t sleep around.’
‘I know, I wasn’t suggesting you do. Sorry, I mean, even if you do, that’s fine. Gah. OK, look …’ Josh picks up my hand and inhales courage from the air around him. ‘What are we, Gretel?’ he asks.
‘What do you mean?’ Though I know what he means, of course I know.
‘I mean, are we together? Not together? Seeing each other?’ He laughs. ‘I’ve been out of the game a long time. I’m not really sure how any of this works.’
End it end it end it my conscious screams, as I watch his hope and his heart being offered out, flecked in peanut dust. This is the line I can’t cross. This is where staying makes me a bad person. Makes this social experiment something with serious collateral damage. Joshua and Gretel can’t be together because she doesn’t exist. The poor guy just asked a phantom to be his girlfriend. He doesn’t know this, however. He’s just thinks Gretel is Gretel. Why wouldn’t he? I must stop this, stop hurting him. But I can’t. And not because I just want revenge. I hate to admit it, but part of me can’t stand the thought of not seeing him again.
‘Joshua, are you asking me to be your girlfriend?’
‘Well, I mean, I’m not sure what the term is when you’re our age. And I know we’ve not known each other a huge amount of time. But I really like you Gretel.’
I clamp down