Where?

Where were you last night I asked him, trying to keep my voice light and calm and as if I were only slightly interested rather than desperate to know his every movement.  I watched his face for any flicker of fabrication, a twitch of the eyelid, a quiver of the lip as the words were created and spilled forth of some casual evening spent with friends.

I knew though that my tone would change from this light-hearted interest to a more demanding ‘need to know every detail’.  Where?  How long?  Who else was there?  It was inevitable, even if I carried on with what I was doing, barely stopping for a moment.  I hated this need to know, certainly didn’t want it to show.

I thought back to when we first met, carefree and happy for things to remain casual.  How easy it had seemed.  The problems began, I guess, when he suggested moving in and on a whim, clearly not thinking things through, I was swept away on the idea of his company on a more regular basis.  Whatever it was, I let him fill my house with his possessions, his friends, his needs, his habits and all to the eventual detriment of my own.

For a while things were fine, we went out, or we stayed in, but always together.  Then gradually, he began to pull away; late home from work, bumped into someone and gone for a drink.   These things shouldn’t have mattered, but somehow they did.   Not that I considered myself a jealous person, but the resentment building up because of the change and of my perceiving this change as an abuse of my hospitality, all added up to make me start to feel a little put out to start with, which then changed to anger and suspicion.    Of course this made him less likely to want to be here and so it went on.

Until tonight.  He’d made some excuse about why he was going to be late.  I can’t even remember what it was now, but it was enough to make me see red.  I had a few hours to stew over it, weighed up the pros and cons of his being there and decided that if his answers to my questions weren’t convincing, that I would ask him to leave.  His lies were never that good, which I found insulting to my intelligence if I’m honest.   If you’re going to play the game, at least make it a good match.

I listened to the barely concealed deceit and the calm that I had worked so hard all evening to control suddenly left me and I banged my hand on the kitchen worktop that I had been aimlessly wiping down, shocking him into silence.   “Enough” was how I started.    I can’t exactly recall the words, insults even, that were exchanged after that.   The mutual hatred was there plain enough.  The horrible realisation that we’d both made a terrible mistake that we probably both felt we were doomed to live with, was suddenly so apparent.  I don’t know how long we both paced the room, pouring out accusation and self-defence, in equal measure.  But no matter now, it was over.  We both knew it.  Suddenly it was silent, a huge palpable presence there between us and he turned and left the room.   I pressed my head against the cold wall, trying to keep the inevitable tears from falling, at least until he’d finished packing and left.  And he did leave.  Within 15 minutes he had closed the front door behind him, leaving his key on the side and leaving me to pick myself up and move on.