He Loves Me

Angie tucks her feet underneath her on the couch and swishes her second glass of wine. It has been a long week and she wants nothing more than to finally have a moment of peace and relaxation.

Her phone buzzes on the table. The lit up screen informs her it’s a text from Jessica.

Angie’s mind drifts back to the first time she met Jessica. They lived in neighboring dorms their first year at university but didn’t actually bond until half term when they were the only ones left in the whole block of dorms.

Jessica had spotted her across the yard as Angie was walking over to the laundry building to take advantage of the empty campus to catch up on her chores.

“Hey there! I’m Jessica; I don’t believe we’ve met. Anyway, why don’t you come round to mine tonight and we’ll do a marathon of Taskmaster, it’s a riot!”

“What’s Taskmaster?” Angie had asked. That was the first thing she’d said to Jessica and, in a way, it defined their whole friendship throughout university. Jessica had always been the funny one, the one who knew the zeitgeist of everyone around them and could easily fit in anywhere. Angie had never been blessed with such skills but Jessica had not only let her tag along, she’d pulled Angie into the middle of everything, turned her into a somebody, at least at their uni.

For the next three years, they were an inseparable pair at the heart of the university’s social scene.

The phone buzzes again. Another text from Jessica.

Angie takes a long sip of her wine, the fruitiness hitting the back of her throat then giving way to the sharp note of alcohol that swirled her mind into a fog of past and present.

A couple of years after they graduated, they were both working in the city, sharing a flat. Jessica had been notably more social on the dating side than Angie and was often gone late into the night. But Angie never met the men.

Until Jerry.

It was a rainy Tuesday after work when Angie got a text to come meet Jessica at the local, she had something to show her.

When Angie arrived, Jessica was seated at a table near the back with a man’s arm around her shoulder. He was leaning against the wall, an easy smile on his lineless, tan face which looked even darker against the yellow blond of his hair. Jessica wore a big grin and a sheer tank top, despite the weather.

“Over here!” Jessica had called across the crowded restaurant, the excitement in her voice drawing the attention of many customers. But Jessica didn’t care. She never cared about what other people thought of her. Angie had always envied that in her friend.

Before Angie had even reached the table, Jessica was out of her seat, the air around her pulsing with excitement.

“This is Jerry, my boyfriend,” she’d said, then jumped back into her seat to snuggle up against him.

At first, he seemed like a fine young man, a bit quiet but who wouldn’t be when your new girlfriend is gabbing with her friend at a million miles per hour? But then Jessica had gone to the bathroom. Once she was out of sight, Jerry had leaned in, conspiratorial-like. Angie leaned in, too.

“Does she ever shut up? God, she drives me nuts! The woman never stops talking!” He then sat back and let out a hearty laugh as if it was funny that he found his girlfriend annoying.

“She’s just excited,” Angie had said, uncomfortable with his first words to her being harsh about her friend.

“If it was just excitement, she’d shut every once in a while. I swear, I’m gonna have to start duct taping her mouth shut to have a bit of peace and quiet.”

That night when Jessica got home, Angie told her what he had said.

Jessica, to her surprise, laughed. “Oh he’s just joking. He says that kind of thing all the time.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“About Jerry? Come on, he’s a love.”

The phone buzzes again. Another text from Jessica.

Angie pours herself a fresh glass of wine.

It was about a month after Angie had first met Jerry. Jessica came home late, like 2am late and was trying to be sneaky, but Angie had been up watching Downton Abbey so heard her come in. She had poked her head out of her room and saw Jessica trying to navigate the flat in the dark.

Angie had flipped on a light and that’s when she saw it: a black eye.

“Jessica, what happened?” Angie had rushed over to her to help and put some ice on it.

“Oh nothing. You know me. I was just being clumsy and tripped and fell.”

Angie knew Jessica very well and had never seen her trip. “Fell on what? A bollard?”

“Yes, exactly. Jerry and I were walking home from the restaurant when I tripped on a bit of torn up pavement and landed on a bollard. Jerry said I should stay over so he can help me ice it – he’s so kind like that – but he works early so I thought I’d come back here. Besides I have more makeup here to cover it for work, ha ha!” That was what she’d said. She hadn’t laughed. She had said “ha…ha” like a text to voice reader.

“Did Jerry do this?” Angie had asked quietly.

“Of course not! He was trying to keep me from falling. It wasn’t his fault I fell onto the bollard. He was trying to stop me from falling. He loves me.” She had finished.

The phone buzzed again. This time it kept buzzing. An incoming call, still from Jessica.

Angie stared at the screen until the ringing ended then she sipped her wine.

It wasn’t a week later before the day Angie had gotten home from work early to find Jessica packing up her things into boxes.

“Angie!” she’d cried, running over and throwing her arms around her friend.

“What’s happening?” Angie had asked.

In response, Jessica had lifted up her hand to show off a stunning diamond ring on her ring finger.

“Jerry’s proposed! Of course I said ‘yes’! And since he owns his home, I’m going to move in with him. I’m so excited!”

Jessica had then jumped around the flat in excitement, launching into a fairytale about how perfect her life with Jerry would be once they were married, how much he loves her and makes her feel like a princess, and how much fun life will be.

The phone buzzes again.The screen once again lights up with Jessica’s smiling face. The photo taken that first year of uni.

Angie never had found someone to replace Jessica so she’d simply moved out at the end of the lease into a smaller flat on her own. But she’d given a key to Jessica in case she ever needed it.

Not long after, she had needed it.

It had been “a long week for Jerry”, she’d said. He “hadn’t meant to hurt me but I just need a place to stay while he calms down and has some time without me nagging him.”

Angie had cleaned the wounds and put ice on the head bump. “This isn’t the first time, you know…”

“I’m not leaving him. He’s just having a hard time at work. He loves me…I’m just hard to be around sometimes.”

“Funny how I never had a problem living with you without hurting you.”

“It’s just different. But he loves me and I love him. We’re just getting used to each other, that’s all.”

Once more the phone lights up, vibrating the table.

Of course it hadn’t gotten any better.

The next time it had been a broken arm.

The time after that a concussion.

“But he loves me,” was the never-ending mantra spilling out of Jessica’s mouth like sewage from a drain pipe.

The phone buzzes again. This time, Angie picks it up and unlocks her phone, pulling up the missed messages. Tolstoy would envy how much Jessica had written. Angie doesn’t read it, she just scrolls through it all, her thumb skimming across the ocean of text until she reaches the final message: “He loves me, really.”

Angie clicks on Jessica’s contact listing in her phone and hits “block number”. She finishes the bottle of wine, the numbing effect of the alcohol doing little to quell the sense that she’s just left her friend for dead.