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“I’ll live.” It was about the only thing I could guarantee, at the moment.

“Do you want to look for another flatmate?” Sandra asked sincerely and I felt like an ungrateful, spoilt child, for imagining she would be relieved not to have to travel to see me.

“Nobody could rep
lace Marty.”
That much was overwhelmingly true.

“Better than being alone.”

“No.
I
don’t need the money.
I’ll be fine on my own.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t want anybody else.”

“OK.
Oh, I forgot, the reason I was ringing was to in
vite you to ours for Christmas.
The kids can’t wait to see you, and you can stay over – I just redecorated the guest room
, you’ll be our first visitor.”
She was forcing hers
elf to sound bright and breezy. I’d forgotten about Christmas.
It was only two weeks away.

“I don’t know if I’ll be very good company.” My eyes filled with tears, this time for my pare
nts.
This Christmas would be the first one I didn’t spend in this house with them.

“You need to be with family. I won’t take no for an answer.
You know that.”

“Thank you.
It’s going to be really hard.” I stopped speaking, unable to continue.

“I know, i
t’ll be hard for me too.
Come up on Christmas Eve, stay until Bo
xing Day, or whenever you like.
Get the train and your Uncle Ned will collect you from the station.”

“It’s really kind of you.”

“Shhhh.
We’re family.” For the umpteenth time this year, I wi
shed Aunt Sandra lived closer.
I’d have loved to be able to have a cuddle with her, to
feel like a little girl again. She was a wonderful woman.
I realised that, selfishly, I hadn’t asked anything about her and the family.

“Are you guys OK?
The kids en
joying the snow?”

“Oh yeah, they’re thrilled – school’s closed!” Sandra gig
gled, “meanwhile, I’m frazzled.
I don’t know how
the teachers put up with them.
Two hours at home so far, and I’m ready to throttle them! What have you got planned for the day?”

“Nothing.”
No rehearsals or lectures today – nothing to
distract me from my heartache.
Marty and I had planned to spend the day together in the house, playing Scrabbl
e, watching old films, kissing.
It would have been beautiful.

“Gives you a chance to catch up on your laundry and chores though – I have a laundry basket
that requires its own postcode!
Don’t even start me on the ironing, the kids are going to school crumpled tomor
row, I don’t even care anymore.
Who invented this idea that clothes should be flat anyway? Oh, crap
! Claudia, honey, I have to go.
Allison has just fallen over and scraped her knee.”

“Thanks for
calling, and well, everything.
I miss you.” I closed my eyes with the effort of not breaking down again.

“I miss you too, kid.
See you soon and call me if you need me.” She hung up.

I needed her. I needed someone.
No, I just needed Marty.

Chapter 17

I lay in bed for most of the morning, cradling Marty’s book close to me, as
a mother would protect a baby.
I didn’t care that I was
hungry and thirsty.
I didn’t care that M
arty might be watching my pain.
I just didn’t care anymore.

After speaking to my aun
t, I felt more alone than ever.
I’d cried so much that my eyes stung and the skin on
my eyelids felt sore, red raw.
My lips were chapped from me biting them in an effort to withhold my tear
s and from a lack of hydration.
My hair was limp and bedraggled whe
re my tears had washed into it.
I
didn’t care about that either.
I had nobody to look good for now.

Sleep brought a welcome
respite from my despair.
I was thank
ful for the absence of dreams.

When the pain grew too immense to contain, I disappeared into a fantasy in my imagination, pretending Marty was just at work and he would reappear
through the door at any moment.
The ide
a brought a temporary comfort.

By the afternoon, I decided that I’d wallowed in self-pity enough and, for Marty’s sake, I’d get up and make some effort to creat
e a semblance of a normal life.
I decided to run a bath, thinking a shower would not provide a long enough d
istraction from my unhappiness.
Whilst waiting for the bath to fill, I wandered around the room that had belonged to Marty, w
hen he first came to live here.
It was stark, vacant, a c
ruel reminder that he was gone.
A letter had been place
d on the pillow.
I snatched it up.

Dear Claudia,

If you’re reading
this letter, then I have left. This would not be my choice.
Either you have sent me away, or we’ve
been separated by other forces.
I am writing this letter after spending the night in your bed, a
fter admitting my love for you.
I am concerned that, if I do not leave this letter, I will never get a chance to tell you how beautiful it h
as been being in love with you. You are truly unforgettable.
I feel blessed for the time we have already spent to
gether. I will always love you.
If I have
left, I will not be returning.
Ple
ase don’t hide your heart away.
Find a man who can be as lucky as I have, to be honoured with falling in love with you.

Love,

Marty X

I don’t know how many times I
read his letter. I lost count.
I stood there, mesmerised by his wo
rds, for I don’t know how long.
Long enough that when I returned to the bathroom the bath was fill
ed and threatening to overflow.
I hadn’t added cold water, so I would have to wait for the bath to cool
down before I could get in it.
I read and re-read his letter another handful of times, feeling both overjoye
d and dismayed with every word.
He’d known from the start – he’d told me several times – there was no happy ending for us; but I
never wanted to believe that.
Now, it had happened and I had
no idea of how I would survive.
I had to just take every second, every heartbeat, one by one.

I walked back to his room
, and looked out of the window.
Children were playing on the green opposite, making the most of the fading daylight an
d sparkling snow.
I watched them play for a while, throwing snowballs, making snowmen and lying on the ground, waving their ar
ms about, creating snow angels.
If only it were that easy to conjure up an angel, I’
d have one in the room with me.
My heart fe
lt like it was burned.
The damage would never heal; I would carry the scars forever.

I took my bath, spending so long in the tub thinking that the water turned cold and my fingers t
ook on a prune-like appearance.
I cried again, watching my tears make ever-increasing circles as
they rippled on the bath water.
The effect was hypnotic.

I didn’t feel like making an effort to blow-dry my hair but, as I needed to fill up the time until I could sleep again, I took the time to
get the worst of the damp out.
The buzz of the hairdryer’s motor was oddly loud in this silent, heartbroken house.

I knew I should eat.
Part of me wondered if I would manage to make myself faint if I kept my blood sugar low and if I might be able to speak to Marty that way, but I remembered my promise t
o try to carry on with my life.
Knowing my l
uck, I’d run into George again.
I couldn’t understand why he hated me so much when Olivia had b
een so kind and compassionate.

I made myself a sandwich, not
caring enough to cook anything.
I sat at the kitchen table, a scene of so many conversations with M
arty, and missed him immensely.
His empty chair was a stark reminder of happier da
ys that were now gone, forever.
I closed my eyes and pictured him sitting there, with his beautiful smile tha
t made his dimples pronounced.
I imagined his eyes twinkling as he told me he loved me, the courte
ous gesture of kissing my hand.
My heart beat just a little bit stronger, and I knew
I had to stop torturing myself.
He’d gone.

I didn’t have a lot of expe
rience with men.
My first real boyfriend, at the age of sixteen, had
only dated me for a few weeks.
I’d broken up with him after h
e started pestering me for sex.
I’d been strong through the break up, convinced that if he was worth having he’d find a way to fight for me, that if he truly loved m
e he’d wait for me to be ready. He didn’t.
In fact, he started dating another girl and got her pregnant within
a month of breaking up with me.
Since then, I’d lived strongly by the old adage that ‘no man is worth your tears and the o
ne who is won’t make you cry’.

Was this how a girl was meant to feel when s
he broke up with her boyfriend?
Even thinking of Marty as just a boyfriend felt wrong,
he was so much more than that. He was every beat of my heart.
How could I even begin to pick up the pieces of him leaving?

I crawled back to bed, breathing in the fading scent on his pillow, and began another fragmented night of sleep.

I woke up at a stup
idly early hour in the morning.
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep
any longer.
I had a rehearsal scheduled in four hours time, and nothing to do in between, but ge
t myself ready, and miss Marty.
I didn’t feel like the gaping hole he’d left in my life was getting any easier to cope with, but I wasn’t crying all the time. I just felt
numb now.
Lying in bed, missing him, wasn’t helping, so I figured I ma
y as well get up and get ready.
I hoped that the sooner I started the day, the sooner it would be finished, so that I could at least go back to sleep to switch off my feelings.

I put Donna’s CD on, in the kitchen, whi
le I cooked myself a breakfast.
I wasn’t normally a girl who ate big meals in the morning, but as I had nothing else to do, I figured trying to keep my hands busy with a fe
w saucepans of food might help.
I tried to sing along with my character’s songs, but my voice sounded strained from my previous two days of cr
ying and my heart wasn’t in it.
Donna would rip me apart at rehearsal, but what could she do that would be any worse than what I’d been through this week?

I
ate my breakfast, not tasting any of it,
just going through the motions.
I wondered if that would turn out to be a me
taphor for the rest of my life.
Instead of using the dishwasher, I washed my plate and utensi
ls by hand, to waste more time.
I hated that I’d gone from savouring precious borrowed time, to wasting time when
faced with a boring eternity.

With two hours left before my rehearsal, I dec
ided to head to the university.
I planned to grab a latte in the coffee shop, before heading to the theatre, to rehearse p
rior to my cast mates arriving.
At least it would be quiet and I wouldn’t have to interact with anyone.

It was the first time I’d left the
house since Marty’s departure.
The air was cold and the ground was covered with day old snow; it looked beautiful, but
had a frozen, hard edge to it.
My boots created a squeaking so
und as I trudged down the path.
The footprints Marty and I had made on the driveway were now erased by further snowfalls and my single trail today made me feel e
ven more alone.
I tried to shake off the feeling and wa
lked slowly to the university.