The Singalong Society for Singletons. Katey Lovell

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СКАЧАТЬ with him, he’d said, his puppy-dog eyes full of expectation.

      I was so shocked I couldn’t even formulate a simple sentence.

      ‘When?’ I managed eventually.

      He’d proudly told me January 4th and that it was a year-long contract. He’d been specially selected by the Big Boss when the person they’d lined up for the role backed out due to ill health. That was why it was such short notice, he explained. Justin had been put forward as the best possible replacement, the opportunity a reward for the long hours he’d been putting in recently. It was too good an offer to pass up, he’d said, something he had to do now whilst he was young, before he was tied down by responsibilities and a family.

      I’d wanted to scream at that bit. He had a family here who loved him, his younger brother Benji worshipped the ground he walked on and aspired to be just like him. He had parents who doted on him and bought him everything he wanted, from designer clothes to a brand new car.

      And me. He had me.

      But Justin was radiant with excitement, unleashing all the joy he’d obviously forced himself to suppress earlier in the evening. He hadn’t said a word about America as he’d slurped on the spag bol I’d thrown together as a quick tea to line our stomachs, nor as he’d tapped his fingers against the pint glass in the pub. He’d kept schtum in the theatre too, letting me believe everything was fine, when all the time he’d been holding a bomb.

      He rabbited on about head office and career progression, his tunnel vision blinding him to everything else. I’d never felt more irrelevant. I wasn’t even a Christmas cracker-sized spanner in the works. His mind was made up and that was that.

      ‘I can’t just drop everything,’ I said, feeling a smidgeon of annoyance that he expected me to. I had my job at the school, for starters, I couldn’t let them down by buggering off to the other side of the world. And then there were my dance classes, the ones I attended every Thursday night without fail. The six of us in the class had been dancing together since we were tots. They were my extended family, my safety net. I didn’t want to leave them behind, but I didn’t want to be without Justin either.

      ‘It’s a great opportunity,’ he’d repeated, the light in his eyes not dimming despite my lack of enthusiasm. ‘For me and for you.’

      His hand had rested on mine and I’d flinched. I didn’t pull away, even though the last thing I wanted right then was for him to touch me. I just didn’t have the energy to move.

      ‘Imagine it, Mon. Me and you in the big city, living the American dream.’ His eyes were alight with a passion he normally reserved for Saturdays when the Blades were playing at home. I knew, then, that he was going to go regardless. His mind was made up. Nothing I could say would change a thing.

      ‘I can’t go,’ I said. ‘And I don’t want to. It’s not my dream. Anyway, there’s no way I could get on a plane and go all that way. Have you forgotten the melt down I had on the way back from Corfu?’

      I could tell by his expression that he had, but I hadn’t. We’d suffered terrible turbulence and the pilot’s attempts at keeping his updates humorous and light hadn’t reassured me in the slightest. I’d ended up bent double, hunched in the brace position ‘just in case’, despite Justin’s instructions to breathe in and out of the sick bag to regulate my panicked gasps. It’s safe to say me and aeroplanes don’t mix.

      ‘I’m sorry, Justin. But if you go to Chicago, you’ll be going alone.’

      He’d looked guilty then. He was going to America with or without me.

      As we sat on the cold stone borders that flanked the segments of grass in the gardens, I couldn’t believe I’d ever thought this would be the most romantic night of my life. A bitter, biting wind whipped through the open space, an invisible slap in the face to accompany the sucker punch my gut had just taken.

      Worst of all, everyone around us had been full of festive spirit, carrying on as though nothing had changed, whilst for me everything was about to change irrevocably. I wanted to shout, to kick up a stink right there in the middle of town, but my body didn’t feel like my own. It was a terrible dream and I watched on helplessly as it played out around me.

      ‘I’d hoped you’d come with me. I thought it’d be an adventure for us both.’

      I shook my head. ‘I just can’t.’

      He’d looked crestfallen, the joy he’d had earlier evaporating out of him into the dark winter night. ‘It’s not the end for us though, is it? Loads of couples make long distance work. And the world’s a smaller place these days, that’s what they say…’ It was as though he was trying to convince himself.

      ‘I suppose there’s always Skype…’ I said half-heartedly.

      I couldn’t imagine not being able to physically feel him. We’d always been one of those touchy-feely couples, the kind that makes everyone feel a bit uncomfortable. Our constant public displays of affection were legendary, but you can’t touch someone through a computer screen. You can’t hold them or kiss them or make wild, passionate love to them. There’d be no substitute for having Justin here with me.

      ‘We can make this work,’ he’d said, his voice full of a false yet hopeful confidence. ‘If anyone can, we can.’

      But even then, I wasn’t sure.

      *

      He’d left, just as he’d planned to, on the day we’d started back at school after Christmas break. I’d been assisting the more able children, helping them write sentences about the gifts Santa had left under their tree while he was on a cross-country train over the Pennines to Manchester Airport, ready to start a whole new life on a whole other landmass.

      That was the weirdest part of it all. I was still in Sheffield, with the same job and the same friends and the same bedroom in the same house; but with an empty chest of drawers sitting hollow in the corner instead of filled with a selection of Lynx aftershaves he’d been bought for his birthday by some well-meaning aunt and every Sheffield United kit from the last ten years.

      I’m sure that outwardly I looked much the same as ever – a twenty-five-year-old woman of average height and naturally athletic build with a fluffy mass of unruly dark blonde curls – but inside I felt as empty as those drawers. I’d hoped that by forcing myself to raise a smile I’d fool people into believing I was fine. But I wasn’t fine, deep down. Deep down I was breaking.

      *

      I still have a photo of me and Justin together on my dressing table, in a heart-shaped wooden frame. It was taken at a charity ball the summer before he went away. In it I’m staring up at Justin, who’s stood almost a whole foot taller than me and my face looks like it might split right in two because I’m grinning that hard.

      I can’t remember the last time I smiled like that. As much as I try to show the world I’m the same positive, smiley Mon I’ve always been, it’s not my face splitting in two any more. It’s my heart.

       Chapter One

      Friday 9^th September

      *Frozen СКАЧАТЬ