The Breakup

The breakup took less time than the drive. Which is good I guess. I like driving. Breaking up not so much. Maybe it would be better if I got to do it. But no, he had his list. I vape, my mental health is rocky. Too complicated for him. I've known for a while he wasn't emotionally mature enough for me. I listened to Lana del Rey and Miley Cyrus on the drive home.

Home. Back to Marcella, the world's nosiest housemate. He'd already texted her. He spent the next couple of hours removing me from his digital life. Declined Google Calendar events here. An updated WhatsApp picture there. I'm fine, I told everybody.

And I am. It's like a weight has been lifted I didn't even know I was carrying. No more losing weight for somebody else. No more trying to quit vaping for somebody else. I'll still do these things but now they're for me with nobody else looking on from the sidelines, seeming to applaud my every failure.

It's just a breakup but it feels like a betrayal, like a contract broken. We said we would work on any problems that came up. We said we wouldn't just throw our relationship out like a broken plate but would use the Japanese art of Kintsugi. Mending with gold so it came back stronger. Or at least more beautiful. And beautiful relationships are about reparation, right? Communication, the willingness to mend, to forgive. I guess that didn't apply to us.

What stings is remembering how earnestly he said it, like he was making a vow. The way he'd held my hand and told me he wasn’t afraid of the cracks, that we’d fix them together. I believed him. I let myself believe him. And then the first real fracture appeared and instead of reaching for the gold, he reached for the bin. It turns out he liked the idea of Kintsugi more than the practice of it — the aesthetic, not the effort. The metaphor, not the work.

And I could have put in the work. That stings too. I could have changed. I always intend to. Was it the weight gain? I was two stone heavier than when we met, already then a stone heavier than in my profile pictures. That turned some of the guys off immediately. Was he disgusted by the whale I'd become, as I often was? He'd commented a few times, hurtful things. I asked him to stop. He cried and said he would. And he did. That's the power I used to hold. Now, I've started using the bedside locker as an aid to getting out of bed. This is a new development.

But whatever. Leave him to his incel life living with his mother. That's not fair. His mother is lovely. He deserves worse. I gather ways to ruin him and dismiss them. That's not what this is about. I don't even know that I want him back. I just want to have done the breaking up. He'd given me reason to do, he just got in there before me. I feel cheated out of my own story.

For three days, the weather is good. May passes into June. I stay in bed with the window open, drinking Red Bull to try to motivate myself to get up. It's a very specific mood. I subsist on snacks from my locker: nuts and chocolate. My phone is alive with messages I don't open. I can't even contact my sisters because they recommended an AI counsellor I haven't tried. I tell it I can't get out of bed. It tells me to get some sunlight. I uninstall the app. I sleep on and off, lying on my right side, then the left, then back. My phone dies and I tell the time by the quality of the light.

Everything reminds me of him. The jacket he loved. The bookmark from our trip to Belfast Zoo. Do I have to get rid of all my worldly possessions just to get through an hour without thinking of him? A sudden, freeing image comes to mind. Me in a camper van, parked up by the beach. I consider moving to Wexford, living off the land, growing old alone with my cats.

I text everybody I shouldn't, the exes and the might-have-beens, a desperate attempt to prove to myself I am still desirable. It turns out I am. It also turns out they are exes and might-have-beens for a reason. I text Trent (still a psycho), Darren (still in Japan) and Craig.

I drive on roads so quiet I could be the last person left alive. Craig is still up. He's always up. Night turns into morning and pleasantries are exchanged with his parents, always politely blank about the fact that I show up unannounced at their house sometimes. Day turns into day drinking and then staying another night out of necessity, a glass of vodka and lemon on the bedside table, for emergencies. Craig is thrilled to see me in that that sometimes scares me, that makes me wonder what he does with the rest of his life. His sheets seem like they haven't been washed in a while. Leaving the next morning, in clothes from two days ago, he implores me to stay. I catch a glimpse of myself in his parents' hall mirror. Not likely. Not again.

And then one morning, I wake early. I feel a shift. Something has changed. I go out for breakfast. The light is gently filtered and it's early enough that everywhere is still closed so I head to the 24/7 Spar off Junction 14. I buy sushi and mango-flavoured water. The choices seem endless and it feels nice. He hated fish. I go back to bed with my sushi and read. I do some writing because I haven't updated my journal in almost a week. I weigh myself and find I've lost four pounds without trying. At 11 o'clock, I go for a facial and then to the gym, sweating all the expensive serums off on to the machines.

As Olivia Rodrigo would say, he's now just a stranger I know everything about.