Always the Bridesmaid. Lindsey Kelk

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СКАЧАТЬ he wants to get divorced, though?’ I asked, looking for a silver lining in this epic pile of shit. ‘Maybe he means he wants a break. Or he wants to fix things? This might be his way of getting your attention.’

      ‘He’s got that,’ she replied in a voice so light it felt like her words might float away before I heard them. ‘He’s already moved out. He slept on the settee on Saturday and went to stay at his mum’s on Sunday. He’s not coming back, Maddie. He emailed me today to say he’s got a lawyer and I should do the same.’

      ‘Oh, bloody hell.’ I squeezed her ankle, the most easily accessibly appendage, while she chewed on her bottom lip in an attempt to stop the tears from coming. She’d been gnawing on that thing for so many years I was amazed she hadn’t chewed it right off. ‘Why didn’t you call me before? I could have done—’

      ‘Absolutely nothing?’

      I had never felt so useless in my entire life. I wanted to help but didn’t know how, and when your entire existence is based around being The One Who Helps, that is majorly distressing.

      ‘I started about a million texts, but I couldn’t work out how to say it,’ Sarah said. ‘Plus I had a yoga workshop.’

      I paused, mid-sip. ‘You went to a yoga workshop? The day after your husband told you he wanted a divorce?’

      ‘I’d already paid for it,’ she said, daring me to argue. ‘And what was I supposed to do − sit around and cry all weekend?’

      ‘I don’t know whether to be massively impressed or have you sectioned,’ I said. ‘So that’s it? It’s happening?’

      Sarah tilted back her glass and chugged it down in three big gulps.

      ‘When I try to think about it,’ she said, ‘it’s like my brain shuts down. I can’t even process it. Then I’ll be sat having a wee and I’ll look at my hand and think, do I have to take my wedding ring off? Has he already taken his off? I actually googled how long it would take for the groove to go away.’

      She held up her hand and stretched out her bare fingers. I felt my own face crumple a little bit as her tears started to come in earnest.

      ‘Turns out it takes longer than a week,’ she gasped, clenching her hand into a tight fist. ‘I can’t believe that he’s doing this and he’s happy about it. How can someone who said they loved you every day for a decade suddenly decide they don’t any more? I’m sitting at home every night, sleeping in the spare room because I can’t stand to be in our bed, and he’s happy.’

      ‘Do you think he’s cheating?’ I asked.

      She fidgeted with her top button for a moment and then shook her head.

      ‘No,’ she said with certainty. ‘He said he isn’t.’

      ‘Right,’ I replied.

      ‘Why?’ Suddenly she wasn’t looking nearly as certain. ‘He wouldn’t. Would he? Do you think he is? Have you heard something?’

      ‘Of course not,’ I replied instantly, squeezing her foot to calm her down.

      Another white lie in the name of friendship.

      Of course I thought he was cheating. Why else would he suddenly decide he wanted to abandon his wife and marriage without giving it a second thought? They’d been together since uni, inseparable for a decade, and now he had randomly decided it wasn’t working out? I remembered when Seb left me, wonderful Shona reminding me that most men don’t leave until they’ve got the next thing lined up. I scoffed at the time but of course, it turned out she was right in my case. Not an insight I would share with Sarah at this stage, perhaps.

      ‘I don’t want to get divorced,’ Sarah said, her watery blue eyes meeting my red-rimmed green ones. ‘I don’t want to have to tell people I’m divorced and sit there while they wonder what’s wrong with me or do exactly what you just did and assume he was cheating on me. What’s going to happen to me now?’

      I stared blankly at the TV that I’d muted when I heard the doorbell but not turned off. A cartoon played silently in the background, a happy dysfunctional family, husband, wife, three kids.

      ‘I don’t know,’ I said, not wanting to lie any more than I had to. ‘But I do know we’ll get through it. I don’t know what else to say that won’t sound like a load of annoying clichés.’

      ‘I’m only thirty-one,’ Sarah said, gripping the stem of her glass until her knuckles turned white. ‘I’m not the first person in the world to get divorced, am I? Better now than ten years down the line when we’d have two kids in the mix, isn’t it?’

      ‘Course.’ I wondered how many times she’d told herself that already this week. ‘You’re totally right.’

      ‘All I want is to not feel like this any more,’ she said wearily, putting down her glass and pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. ‘It’s like the worst hangover ever. I feel sick and empty, and every time I forget about it for a moment, it comes back and punches me in the face. And the only person who could make me feel better about it is the person who’s causing it. I hate him so much I can see it, but all I want is for him to come home and tell me he’s changed his mind.’

      That part I recognized. ‘Really? You’d take him back?’

      ‘I don’t even know,’ she laughed, sounding sour. ‘I don’t know what I’d do. How would I ever trust him? I’d always be waiting for him to do it again, wouldn’t I?’

      For want of a better response, I shrugged.

      ‘So what the fuck do I do now?’ Sarah asked, dropping her head against the back of my saggy settee. ‘Am I just supposed to sit here until it stops feeling like someone ripped my insides out with a fish hook?’

      ‘Would it help if I made you a kale smoothie?’ I offered.

      ‘It might,’ she said, pulling my hair. ‘But I think I’d rather have another gin.’

      ‘Good because I don’t have any kale.’ I grabbed the bottle off the coffee table and topped her up. ‘Let me get the tonic out of the fridge.’

      ‘Don’t bother,’ she said, taking a glug then holding up her glass. ‘To fresh starts, Maddie. Cheers.’

      ‘Cheers,’ I echoed, wondering whether or not there ever was such a thing as a fresh start, or whether you just picked up a new set of problems.

      I can’t believe Sarah is getting divorced. It’s bizarre: I’ve known her for two-thirds of my life, and for the first time ever, I have no idea what to say to her.

      Divorce. She’s getting a divorce. I don’t know anyone who got married and isn’t married any more other than Lauren’s parents, and I don’t really know them. It’s so weird. When you’re single you don’t think about that bit, even though in this day and age you’re fully aware of that bit. Getting the ring on your finger is the goal: the white dress, the John Lewis wedding-present list, worry about the rest of it afterwards. Getting married means you’ve won, and I hate thinking like that, I do, but let’s be honest, that’s just how it is. In our super progressive, equal rights, modern society, it’s the one thing no one wants to say СКАЧАТЬ