Fairy Tales Are Not Real

It had been seven years. Seven years since he had broke her heart. She thought when her first boyfriend had broken up with her she had experienced the torture that is universal to all humans; heartbreak, but this time had been unbearable, she felt ruined. Over her desk at work she cried for days, clearing her face of tears every time a colleague walked by. Some were kind squeezing her shoulder, others would roll their eyes and shake their heads. Once the initial shock had worn off she would have moments where she thought she was over him, he was a mere memory that she was slowly packing into a box never to be touched again, but then she would see something in the shops or on the street, that made her think of him and she would want nothing more than to text him to tell him. She wondered if he thought of her the way she thought of him, she decided he did not.

She tried to move on. She went on a few dates and when she realised they weren’t the one for her, she slept with them anyway, recalling her university days when friends would break up with boyfriends and someone would chant in their devastated face “The best way to get over someone, is to get under someone else!” She assumed it was a saying for a reason, so why not try it? These encounters; however, did not provide the benefit she desired. They just left her feeling lonely, wanting Steve more than ever. She had cried during sex with one boy, who promptly got out of the bed, pulled his clothes back on and left without saying a word. 

She began dating again, but she couldn’t help, but compare him to Steve. It wasn’t just Jonathans less favourable traits she mirrored, it was everything. Jonathan would text when he knew she had a big meeting with words of encouragement, she would think “Steve wouldn’t do that, see Jonathan is good for you.” 

 Six months after their break up she was walking down a street on her lunch break when she passed a seller giving out free bars of Cadburys new Crunchie, these were Steves favourite, She took one from the seller and smiled sweetly throwing it into her bag. It wasn’t until she was packing it for work the next day when she rediscovered it. It was now a crumbly mess from being squashed under all her belongings, she held it in her hands and took a picture. She tapped her fingers on the kitchen side making a clickty clack sound. She knew what she wanted to do, but she knew that wasn’t the right choice. She sighed, he hadn’t replied to any of her other messages when they had first broken up so why would this one make a difference? She opened watts app and found his name. She still hadn’t deleted his number and she doubted she ever would. She uploaded the picture with the words “Have you tried this?” She then proceeded to ignore her phone, turning it off, reverting to her clock to set an alarm for the morning.

The next day, telling herself she was being pathetic she came back to modern times and switched her phone back on, there waiting in her archived conversations was a “1” clicking on the tab her heart beat in her chest, she was unable to distinguish if the cause of this was excitement or anxiety. There it was, two messages “no, but I am desperate to, you know they are my favourite.” And another sent a few minuets later “How are you?” She smiled to herself as she threw her phone in her bag and left for work. Her stomach flipped on itself as all those feelings came rushing back. 

That single message about a chocolate bar had opened Pandoras box. From that day they had spoken everyday. First it was very surface level, before progressing to talking about sex. She knew she shouldn’t be doing that after all she was seeing Jonathan, but this was Steve, how could she not? Through a game of Truth or Dare that spanned over the course of a week, and some very blunt truths, she discovered that he didn’t want to break up with her, he still had feelings for her, he meant everything he said and that had the situation been different he would have liked for them to still be together. The reality was, they weren’t and they never would be again. Louises friends told her he was just telling her what she wanted to hear, that she would be better off if she blocked him, forgot him and focused on Jonathan, that technically she was cheating, did she want to be a cheater? She ignored their advice and as Louise and Steve rekindled their relationship in a very loose sense of the word it intensified. He called her every evening when they were on their way from home, talking about their days sharing trivial stories about what had passed, things that had annoyed them, both taking the longest route home to savour each others every last word. It was during one of these conversations Steve told Louise he had proposed to Alexa. After this, they told one another they wouldn’t speak again, it wasn’t fair to Alexa or Jonathan, but a week later on her way home her phone had rung, with Steve at the other end. 

Now, five years since that first text they were finally meeting once again. She had escaped for the weekend, telling Jonathan that she was visiting family, and Steve had told Alexa, he was on a stag weekend. They had booked a hotel in the middle of nowhere. He had checked in and told her the room number. As she made her way up to the room, standing in the too bright lift, Louise worried that seeing him in real life would be awkward, that they wouldn’t know what to say to each other, or worse, they would have nothing to say at all.

 Tentatively, she knocked the door, he stood there towering over her, with his floppy grin, that she had fallen in love with. In that moment, as their eyes searched each others, so many words and feelings were exchanged without either of them saying anything. His hand reached up to her face, pausing for a second, she said nothing. His thumb rubbed her cheek, just like he always used to. She stood on her tip toes bringing herself closer to him. Their noses rubbed the way mothers do with their children explaining it is called a butterfly kiss, before their child grins with glee asking them to “Do it again, mummy, please!” His lips brushed hers just briefly, he pulled away slightly, checking in non verbally she was okay with what he was doing. In response, she wrapped her hand around the nape of his neck pulling him to her. The proceeding moments, resulted in clothes being torn off, becoming jumbled together on the floor, while their bodies entwined on the bed. 

After that they talked a lot, about everything and anything. He made her laugh until she cried, begging him to “stop!” because her stomach hurt from all the hysterics as they played Uno sharing a pizza after she had lost yet another round. They danced around the room, her in her bra and pants, they were red and lacy (his favourite colour of underwear, a detail she had remembered) him in his boxers. Usually, she would have been self conscious of her body, worrying about every jiggle, but around Steve, she didn’t worry, nothing mattered when she was around Steve. They sung loudly to cheesy pop songs, not caring for a second if the neighbours heard them. Together they felt at home, they experienced that feeling you have when you are small and you walk in from school and your mum has cooked your favourite for dinner, and she greets you with the warmest hug that never grows old or tiresome. Here, it was just like before, as if nothing had changed, they were still a single entirety, instead of two parts to separate wholes. None of the hurt or the upset existed here, they were happy, but in the background both of them had the same thought that they would not voice to the other, that they didn’t want this time to end, they wished that time didn’t exist, that it didn’t move forwards, and that as it is did their time together inched closer and closer to ending forever. 

On Saturday night or perhaps the early hours of Sunday morning, they lay in bed facing each other, every inch of their bodies touching he whispered “Louise, I am so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you and I know that I did, I never told you, but..” Louise blinked furiously, in a frantic attempt to stop the tears falling from her eyes, she opened her mouth and prayed it wouldn’t be hoarse or croaky giving her emotions away “stop” “Lou.” “No please, don’t do this, it hurts too much, don’t ruin it now.” He squeezed her hand “Lou, no listen because I don’t know how it was for you afterwards, but you meant so much to me, and I never told you, but I loved you, I was scared to tell you because what if you didn’t feel the same way.” Louise sat up now, her sadness now turned to rage, “Then why did you do it then?! Why did you hurt me so much! I told you I would be there for you and I meant it, you don't hurt people you love Steve, that’s not how it works.” He placed his hand on her knee, she flinched. He said nothing for a while, but she filled the silence “And don't tell me you love me now, you have Alexa and I am sure she is perfect.” He sighed, “I do have Alexa, you’re right, and I broke up with you because…” “don't say because you didn’t want to put me through it, I told you I would be there for you no matter what. I didn’t say it to you, but I loved you as well, and that’s why I would have stayed because I loved you, you gave me so much, made me happier, more comfortable than I had been in years and I would have never stopped. When we broke up I thought about you all the time, why do you think I text you about a bloody chocolate bar? I missed you. Regardless, all of that is superfluous, because the reality is if you truly loved me you wouldn’t have proposed to Alexa, fine I am with Jonathan, but we aren’t getting married.” He put his hand back on her knee and this time she didn’t move, they didn’t have much time left. “Lou, I was a dick I know that, and I regret it everyday, and I wanted to text you, but I thought you didn’t want to hear from me, but I thought of you all the time, every time I saw something that was yellow, I wondered how you were, what you were doing, had you moved on, I wanted to hear your laugh just one more time. I proposed to Alexa, because I thought it was right we have been together for five years, it is the next logical step.” She didn’t ask if this was the only reason he asked her, or if there was something else, that love was involved. She surmised herself, thinking that of course after five years of being with someone you would love them. Instead, sighing she said “You know, I still have the post its, every one of them.” “You do?” “They were the only thing I had to remind me that what we had was real, even if they were just words to you.” 

It was decided that after this weekend they would never see or speak to each other again, and this time they had to follow through, no changing their minds, taking their words back in a week. He would marry Alexa, and she would continue her life with Jonathan. Their feelings for one another, love or not, didn’t matter, it was irrelevant, and how were they supposed to move on if they continued this charade, it would make it impossible. 

When Louise woke up her eyes were already swimming, she escaped to the bathroom, standing in the shower she let the tears stream from her eyes, he couldn’t see her here, he didn’t need to see that she was already breaking all over again. Eventually though, as they packed their belongings in silence, she gave up sniffing as she wrapped the wire around her hair straighteners, wiping her eyes throwing her mascara into the make- up bag. He didn’t know how to make it better, he had so much he wanted to say, so instead he wrapped her up in numerous hugs, never mind for her benefit, but for his own, not wanting the last to be the final embrace. 

They handed the key in at reception. In the car park they stood by his car, just holding each other, neither of them wanting to be the first to let go. He breathed in her smell, the scent of the hotel shampoo, the lavender of her body lotion, she kept her head rested in the crook of his chest where it nestled perfectly as if it had been made for that exact purpose. Louise let a breath out, a long exhausted exhale. They clung to each other as if their lives depended on it. In a way it did, once one of them let go, that was it, their time together was over, not just the last twenty-four hours, but everything they had, all the things they had shared. As both of them stood there silently they thought of all the reasons it wouldn’t work, he lived in Edinburgh (which she hated) and she lived in a sleepy town on the boarder of Wales, and the most pivotal piece of information that Steve was engaged, even if he called it off and she broke up with Jonathan there was no evidence to prove it would work. They had to do this to end this even if every inch of their bodies was screaming at them to do the opposite. Louise was crying audibly now, back in the hotel, her sadness had only been visible if he’d looked at her bloodshot eyes, but here, he could hear her, feel her tears dripping onto his T-shirt as he felt the weight of her body against him, he stroked her hair, the way people stroke babies heads to lull them to sleep. If perhaps, they stayed this way time wouldn’t move on and they could stay this like this forever, frozen in time the same as mammoths that were frozen in action in the ice- age. Such a sudden event would be tragic in some peoples eyes, but in theirs it would be perfection. 

He walked her to her car, which was next to his, he watched as she set her Sat-Nav up and found some music, he smiled to himself as she clicked on a Taylor Swift playlist, he disliked this artist, but knew it was her favourite, he felt slightly less glum imagining her singing along, pelting the words at full blast as she trundled down the motorway, he hoped at the very least this would distract her, keep her busy, he hated to think of her being upset. “Get out.” He said, her seatbelt was fastened and her ignition on, but she climbed back out anyway. He held her at arms length, trying his hardest to show that he wasn’t sad as well, attempting to be a stereotypical strong male figure, but his wall was crumbling by the second, and when he spoke his words came out as stutters. “I love Alexa..” His lip trembled “but I love you too, that’s the truth, I think a part of me always will, and this right now is going to be hard, incredibly so, but soon we are both going to be okay, and then one day we are going to happy and this won’t hurt anymore.” She nodded, knowing that he was right “okay, and then happy.” She repeated the words in her mouth feeling as if she was vocalising them for the first time in her life. He pulled her close, just one last time, before letting her go. 

She followed him out of the carpark, she wished she didn’t know him and that he was simply a stranger ahead of her, it would make the next few minuets far less painful. When you follow someone in a car and they go off in another direction you never think of them again, but the car in front didn’t belong to a stranger it belonged to Steve. She watched as his left indicator lit up, before he turned out of the car park, she clicked hers to the right driving in the opposite direction separating them not only for this journey, but for the rest of their lives.