» William Tells
Will Harris fails to play it cool with the ex
On an otherwise anonymous Wednesday, I’m running ten minutes late to meet my friend MT for drinks. Being an enterprising sort of girl, she capitalises on my delay to hook us a big table by the window and an even bigger bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.
MT is what I call a satellite friend; we may not see each other for months, sometimes years, but whenever we swing back into each other’s orbit it’s like nothing has changed. This evening, with about a year of gossip to catch up on, our gravitational pull is strong. She tells me about her new boyfriend, I tell her about my old one, plus all the bad dates I’ve been on since.
“My lovelife has turned into The March Of The Penguins,” I say. “I’m serious. Five foot seven, five foot nine, and still they keep coming. On the bright side, when they stop returning my calls, I just convince myself they can’t reach the buttons on their phone.”
I sweep my arm towards the window. “I mean, there’s nothing out there.”
But there is something out there. Of course there is. At the top of Mount Olympus some dice-happy demigod must have rolled two sixes, because strolling across the road towards us, gym-bag slung casually across one shoulder, is E, my ex.
“I run outside and chase him down the street,
yelling his name like an unhinged Usain Bolt”
When you break up with someone, it’s a fact of life that – barring death or deportation – your paths will eventually cross. Most of us build up fantasies in our heads as to how this will happen; in mine, I would be tanned, fabulous, and in the company of someone six foot two or over. I would also, somehow, know exactly what to say.
What these fantasies don’t take into account is, when you do see an ex for the first time, your brain will immediately switch itself off. I’m sorry, it will say,all of our rational thought processes are busy at this time. Please make a tit of yourself and try again. This is presumably why – upon first sight of E – I jump to my feet, run outside and chase him down the street, yelling his name like an unhinged Usain Bolt. Later on I will tell my friends there was no thought behind it. It was instinct, I will say. It was gravity.
Apparently without hearing me, he swishes into Starbucks and – horror of horrors – the arms of a man I’ve never seen before. My heart stops instantly. Great, I think. No brain and now no heart. Even the Great Oz might struggle
with this one.
“Oh my goodness,” E says, catching sight of me hovering in the doorway. “How are you?”
“I’m good,” I gibber. “I’m really good.” This is clearly a lie. People who are really good do not chase their ex-boyfriends down the street, no matter how good their tan is.
