Page 25 of Behind Frenemy Lines

There had been a shift in power between us, I realised.

I’d spent the final year of our relationship feeling cast aside, unimportant.

And I’d invested so much energy into persuading myself it was fine.

My feelings were my own concern, I’d told myself, not Tom’s.

I shouldn’t trouble him with them. I needed to focus on supporting him.

Now, for the first time ever, I didn’t want anything from Tom.

Not his attention or affection, not even an apology.

What would “sorry” do? I’d been with him from age twenty to thirty-three.

I hadn’t been perfect, but I’d tried my best for him.

I’d done all I could to build a good life for us, together.

And he hadn’t even had the decency to be honest with me.

Learning what I had today had freed me from any longing I’d felt for what we used to have. I didn’t need anything from him anymore.

I could have walked away. But I found I had things to say to Tom. We were off by ourselves, and it was unlikely anyone would overhear us over the music.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I said.

“Kriya,” said Tom.

“Sorry I ran out earlier,” I said. “I needed a moment. Alexis told me how you guys got together, and I worked out what the timeline meant. I guess it was easier to dump me over text than to do it while we were living together and I was paying the rent.”

Tom winced. “That’s not fair.”

“Is it not?” I said, genuinely curious. “Which part of it was unfair?”

He hunched. Everything about Tom was so familiar, still—the timbre of his voice, the way he ducked his head, the hair curling at the back of his neck. After so many years together, his every gesture was imprinted on me. And yet I was looking at someone I had never truly known.

“Why didn’t you just break up with me when you left?” I said. “Or even better, before you started chatting to Alexis? Dragging it out didn’t do anyone any favours.”

Tom grimaced. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I don’t know if you remember, but it wasn’t a good time for me, Kriya. I’m not proud of what I did—”

“Well, that’s something.”

Tom looked irritated. “Do you have to? I’m trying to apologise.”

“Are you seriously telling me off for being angry?”

“No, I’m just…” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Perhaps the apology should have felt like a victory, or vindication, or something. But I’d been right. It didn’t feel like much of anything.

As I looked at him, round-shouldered and glum, my heart wrenched.

Tom’s unhappiness had always elicited a complex knot of guilt and responsibility in me.

I’d felt I had to fix it—that if he wasn’t happy, that was somehow due to my failings.

As though, if I’d been happier with my direction in life, or been more present, or different in some way, that would have changed things for him.

He wouldn’t have been so frustrated. He would have loved his job, and living in London, and all the things about our life that had pissed him off while we were together.

But none of that had been anything I could have fixed. The grief weighing me down was less for him than for the Kriya of the past—who’d tried so hard, and loved him so much. That was all over. It felt like I should have more to show for it than I did.

“I did my best for you,” I said. “I invested so much in our relationship. Everything I had.”

Tom shrugged his shoulders, as if he were trying to throw off the burden of what I’d said.

“But that’s what made it so hard,” he said. “It always felt like I had to be grateful. I couldn’t tell you I wasn’t happy. You were always so busy and stressed about work. And then Lexi came along…”

“And you tripped and fell into her DMs,” I suggested.

Tom elected not to take notice of this. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was confused, and then I got the new job, and—everything was moving so fast. It’s not that I didn’t care about you.”

“OK, Tom.” I felt worn out and sad, suddenly done with this conversation. It wasn’t going to take us anywhere new. I didn’t have a relationship with him anymore.

“I don’t need to hear it,” I said. And then I saw Charles.

He was standing at the entrance, looking around the room. Our eyes met. His forehead smoothed out. I smiled.

Tom glanced over his shoulder, to see what I was looking at. “You’re here with someone?”

I wondered what Alexis had told him about what I was doing here with Charles, if anything. I’d told her we were just friends, but I imagined she’d had other things to discuss with Tom. And of course, he’d seen me embracing poor Charles.

“It’s not really any of your business, is it?” I said.

“OK. I set myself up for that,” said Tom. “I hope he does right by you, that’s all.”

“All right, Tom,” I said tolerantly.

Charles was looking at his phone. He lowered it as I came over, but not before I’d caught sight of the screen.

“Are you checking your emails?” I said incredulously.

I did a Sunday night scroll of my inbox ahead of getting back to work on Monday morning, but this was a little extreme.

So far as I knew, Charles wasn’t working on anything urgent enough that he’d have to have his work phone on him the weekend of his cousin’s wedding where he was best man.

Charles looked shamefaced. “Bad habit.” He put the phone away. “Are you all right to leave?”

“Ready when you are.” I looked back at the room.

Loretta had ditched Alexis: She was with Hayley, taking pictures with a group of costumed guests.

It would have been polite to go say a proper goodbye, but it seemed a shame to interrupt them when they were having fun.

Besides, I’d already had my moment with Loretta.

“Have you settled the problem with Loretta’s parents’ room? ”

“The hotel’s giving them a voucher for afternoon tea. Seems to have done the trick,” said Charles. “Who were you talking to?”

I blinked. “That was Tom. My ex.”

“Oh. I’m not great at faces. Today’s been good for that,” said Charles reflectively. “Everyone’s a different shape, because of the cosplay. Everything OK?”

“Yeah.” But I could feel Charles’s eyes on me. He wouldn’t probe if I didn’t want to talk about it, but I felt I owed him a little more than that.

“I feel like I sallied forth to slay a dragon and it turned out to be a lizard,” I said. I thought of the geckos of my childhood that used to skitter out of dark corners of the house at moments best calculated to terrify the humans in occupation. “And then he escaped and left his tail behind.”

“I can’t say I understood any of that,” said Charles, after a moment. “But I gather you had the best of it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I did.”