‘Why are you here?’ I asked, unable to hide my annoyance, my voice surprisingly cold.
‘To make things right.’
‘Why didn’t you come yesterday?’
‘I was confused. I wasn’t thinking straight,’ he conceded.
‘And now you are?’
He looked up at me with a sorrowful expression. ‘I sat at home for a few hours thinking about it all – not only what I did, but about what I said to you afterwards. I drove over as soon as I’d talked some sense into myself. I’ve been here all night.’
‘So I see.’
‘I know I fucked up,’ he said exasperatedly, starting to get up off the bed. ‘I know I’ve been a complete dick, but we can get through this, Maddy. I know we –’
‘What if I don’t want to?’ I interrupted.
The colour drained from his face as it dawned on him that the situation wasn’t as simple as he’d thought – he couldn’t just waltz in and expect all to be forgiven.
‘What do you mean? Mad, he said –’
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I said quickly, ducking away from him as he came closer, swiftly closing the bathroom door behind me before he had a chance to reach for me.
‘I was wrong. I’m so sorry,’ he said through the door. ‘Please forgive me.’
I stood and listened to him as he started to quietly sob. I hadn’t heard Robert cry in years – not since he fell and he broke his leg, but even then he managed to maintain a certain amount of composure. A gentle bang as his head rested on the door and the sound of his hands brushing against the frame broke my heart further as I pictured him standing just inches away from me, caressing the wood as he tried to get to me, to bring me back to him. Ignorant to the fact that not only had he chucked my heart away, but that someone else had been there, ready to catch it when he had.
The awful thing was that although he was feeling sorry for his crime, I wasn’t for mine – and that devastated me. Yes, he’d done wrong, but at least he was facing up to it. Thanks to Ben, I totally understood how quickly and easily something like cheating could happen. Yes, what I had done was far worse because I had an absolute lack of remorse. At least Robert had the human decency to show guilt.
‘Please, Maddy. You have to forgive me …’
I was forced into feeling ashamed as I stood in my bathroom and listened to my woeful boyfriend. When I couldn’t bear to hear any more I stripped off and got in the shower. Battling with my thoughts as I placed my head under its piping-hot water, sinking down to sit in the shower tray as the liquid continued to run over my body. Doubt seeped in as I became more and more unsure of what it was that I wanted – or, more importantly, who.
I wondered whether I should have come clean with Robert, and begged for forgiveness, just like he was doing, in the hope that we’d be able to start again and move forward. He did tell me that he thought we should go on a break; that he didn’t know if he wanted to be with me any more. Would it really be that awful to say that I’d messed up too? Realistically I knew it was more than that. I also knew that if I did come clean, I wouldn’t be able to tell him it was with Ben – that fact would destroy Robert, Ben and me as a unit, ruining years of friendship and any chance of us getting back together. But then, I didn’t even know if getting back with Robert was what I wanted. After being so brutally dropped I wasn’t sure if I could just forgive and forget. Perhaps, as we’d grown up, we’d drifted apart. We’d been in different cities for the past three years, living completely separate lives … perhaps it would have come to a natural end at some point anyway. Although, something I couldn’t quickly forget was that Robert, first and foremost, was one of my best friends. I’d no doubt that cutting him out of my life would be more painful that I cared to imagine.
My night with Ben continued to linger in my mind, making it impossible to just forget it had happened. If I stayed with Robert, would I able to blot out what I’d felt with him? I wasn’t sure I could do that to Ben and his kind and loving heart. He’d put his feelings out there and opened up after years of keeping them a secret – I couldn’t face the thought of rejecting him, after all, that fear was what had caused him to hide his love away.
I wondered whether Ben was worth the sacrifice – it would change everything, not just who I dated. It would affect our friendship group, our families – I was aware it would have a massive impact on them too.
My head had become cloudy and confused. Plagued by a million scenarios, concerns and questions, it struggled to make sense of anything.