Hate to Love You(101)

Besides, I’d heard that Greg’s wife was divorcing him and there’s nothing worse than working with two men whose marriages you’ve destroyed, is there? So what did I do?

I wallowed in misery.

Once again, telling the truth had cost me everything. But hey, wasn’t I supposed to feel “freed” by my confession? I should be able to look in the mirror, comforted by the happy knowledge that I’d done the right thing.

But what if I didn’t want to look in the mirror? What if when I looked at myself it hurt too goddamn much? And what if I wanted to look at James but he would never let me see him again? What then?

Fu—

Hell if I knew.

The heaviness of guilt had been trumped by the finality of loss. James seemed able to wipe me out of his life easily but I couldn’t do the same. When my schedule allowed I skulked outside Ryan’s school for glimpses of him, hoping that James and not the nanny would pick him up and I could get my fix from a distance.

No such luck.



The problem with having friends is that they can gang up on you and haul your depressed arse out of the house whether you want to go out or not. Marcia, Tarzan and I had gone salsa dancing at my favourite club but I’d left them there, unable to enjoy it.#p#分页标题#e#



I’d had the uncanny feeling I was being watched. The back of my neck tingled and my senses heightened. Several times it felt as if someone were in the shadows, observing me, but when I looked there was nobody there. Paranoid after my time in jail, I left the club early. My heart hadn’t been in it anyway and I decided not to go dancing again.

Autumn was in the air and I wrapped up to take long walks. Marcia called it my walk-and-wallow habit. It was my new addiction, although I didn’t usually head to Matham Manor on a Sunday morning.

I let myself out of Marcia’s flat and got to Hampstead Heath by ten-thirty. I finished the walk part and headed towards the bench I normally occupied for the wallow bit. It had a good view of Matham Manor through the trees.

On weekdays I sat daydreaming that James saw me, came out with Ryan and told me I was forgiven. On Saturdays I watched a bunch of tossers get shouted into fitness by military types. Usually there were two or three groups of adults, all wearing coloured bibs that designated them to a particular “sergeant.” They got insulted, yelled at and told to “drop and give me forty.”

It was hilarious.

The woman I made bench friends with said it was called “boot camp” and would whip your arse into shape in no time. Money was tight and so was my arse so I declined the offer of a trial session. I’d started out eating kebabs while I watched them suffer but eventually the dirty looks I got made me switch to bananas.

Being a Sunday, there weren’t any overweight wannabe army cadets around. Instead there was a charity event. Lots of fit, muscular men battling it out around a specially designed obstacle course, in pairs. After they’d negotiated the obstacles they did a boot camp session, a contest to see who could do fifty push-ups and then lift a fifty-kilo bar ten times the quickest. It looked painful.

A crowd of people cheered them on, encouraging them when they faltered. Shouts of “You can do it!” or “Move it!” rang across the heath. I paid the one-pound fee to enter the viewing area and join the cheering onlookers, choosing a competitor to support for every contest. There’s nothing like a good shout at the top of your lungs even if you can’t shout about what you want.

I’d just finished watching my fifth race when I saw James join the group of contestants. It was then that I realised my heart hadn’t been beating for almost six weeks. At the sight of him, it jump-started into frantic pumping, reminding me of what it felt like to be alive. I sighed, half in despair, half in irritation. I’d been doing so well lately, pushing thoughts of him away from me as soon as I woke up.

Why did he have to ruin it?

It was time to leave before James saw me. I had books to stare at, TV channels to flick and, well, I shouldn’t be wasting my time watching a man who despised me run around in the mud. I got closer and hid myself among the crowd, breathing deeply and gulping in my fill of competitor sixty-two. He was in black shorts and a white tank, stretching and limbering up next to his rival.

Oh crap, James was competing against that? Don’t get me wrong, James was fit. Muscular arms and pecs, thighs that made me want to test his endurance more than any obstacle course could. But number forty-five looked like Conan the Barbarian minus the hair. James and Conan entered the obstacle course and I inched closer. The crowd shouted encouragement, myself along with them.