Letter

I was utterly focused and strangely energized as I got out of bed immediately and reached for my dressing gown and laptop. Seated at the kitchen bench and ignoring the cold I sat down to write. I would make her sorry for crushing my happiness. I would make him sorry for disrespecting me. I would make him sorry.

Natasha had given me the idea when she went on and on down the phone, telling me she’d been having sex with Alex. I knew that the truth would cut her far more deeply than any of her lies could hurt me.

I laid out every torturous detail of my interactions with Alex from the time we first met, so that the email would scream truth in every line. In half an hour I would send that email to them both and blast apart that relationship forever. And if my email did not make them sorry enough I would send it to people connected to them. I did not even hesitate for Ben's sake; that little boy I had never met but somehow loved. They’ll all be better off in the long-term, I thought.

Half an hour passed though and my bomb was still in the very early stages of preparation. I decided to continue writing until I had something worth sending.

The more time I spent writing, the calmer I became. Time, and something of a revival of the great affection I felt for Alex, cleared my head. Hours, and two and a half pages had passed, and yet I had only just reached our first kiss for I was writing in such detail. There were so many things I needed to do though before a weekend rehearsal was to begin at one o’clock. I would have to send the letter in it’s current state.

Sanity prevailed and I decided to give Alex one last chance. After all, taking away his girlfriend, house, son and potentially job all in one whack was hardly a small matter. It would genuinely be his last chance though.

Recognising now that calling his mobile was useless, and beyond caring whether I spoke to Natasha, I called his home phone. Alex answered.

“Oh Lily, I’m so glad you called.”

“What do you mean you’re so glad I called? Why didn’t you answer this morning?”

“Natasha's got my phone and she’s gone out. I’ve been in bed all morning; I’ve got tonsillitis. Listen buddy I’m sorry about last night.”

“But did you get my voicemails? I tried to call you.”

“Oh shit, you sent Natasha a voicemail? What did you say?”

“No I sent you a voicemail! I thought it was you texting me! I got a text from you this morning saying, ‘I love her’!”

“Oh buddy I’ve been in bed all morning, Natasha must’ve sent it.”

“And then I tried to call you and I left you a voicemail that was like three minutes long. I don’t know what I said, I don’t know, I just wanted you to talk to me. Oh shit, Alex, it’s bad.”

Alex was sorry for last night; he’d been so tired, he explained, and he’d been coming down with tonsillitis. As soon as he’d got home he’d crashed.

“But you replied to my text message last night.”

“What? No, I crashed. That must have been Natasha too.”

“Did you at least see the text messages Natasha and I sent to each other? I forwarded them to you.”

“No, I didn’t look at them.”

Alex did not want to hear them, but I forced him to listen to Natasha's messages down the phone.

Alex was sorry, but he couldn’t bear to live without Ben. He would live with Natasha. He couldn’t survive even one night away from Ben, he said.

“But will you pretend to have a relationship with Natasha now?”, I asked.

There was a pause.

“I’d rather not discuss that with you.”

The vice around my heart tightened.

We talked for as many minutes as I could possibly spare. He told me he could never call me from his own phone again because Natasha would only let him back home on the condition that he would never see me again. She would check the phone bill and knew both of my phone numbers by heart. She had told him to suspend his gym membership so that he would never see me there. Alex warned me that if he ever called me from his own phone again it was because Natasha was listening. He would call me Lillian to tip me off. If he sent me a text he would begin it with a question mark so that I would know it was from him.

I wanted to know when we could next see each other but he couldn’t answer. He suggested that we could still go away for weekends sometimes and that next year he would organize a boys’ trip to New Zealand so that he could come and see me. I told him that I deserved more, and we left the conversation with what I thought was a mutual understanding that we had reached the end of the road.