I had no doubts that this was the right thing to do. There’d be some people – Amelia, for one – who’d probably say it was in fact long overdue. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous when I did one last calculation of the time difference and dialled Jeff’s number. He wasn’t an early riser, or a morning person, so I wasn’t surprised that it took five rings before he picked up.
‘Hello.’ His voice was thick and still blurry with sleep. I should have waited an hour or so until he was properly awake. I was annoyed with myself for my impatience, and he sounded a little annoyed too.
‘Hi, Jeff. Sorry to call so early. Did I wake you?’ I heard the rustle of sheets and knew that I had.
Although my camera was turned on, Jeff had yet to switch his phone to video.
‘Yeah, you did,’ he said, his voice losing its edge as he thought to ask, ‘Is something wrong? Is Amelia okay?’ I made a mental note to remind myself that his first thought had been to ask about her, which was going to make this a whole lot harder to do.
‘Yes, she’s coming out of hospital at the end of the week.’
‘Oh.’ The word came out weighty, as though it was supporting a hundred thoughts. ‘So does that mean you’ll be coming back home then?’
Was there a hint of apprehension in his question? It was so hard to pick up on nuances on a transatlantic call. It was why I’d wanted to do this over video.
‘Not straight away. We’ll need to see how she copes to begin with.’ I pulled the collar of my shirt away from my throat, as though it was suddenly choking me. ‘Look, can you switch your camera on.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. A bunch of us went out last night to a bar and we all got pretty wasted. Believe me, it’s not a pretty sight this morning. And besides, the apartment is a mess.’
He was making this unintentionally hard for me. ‘Jeff, I honestly don’t care. Just turn your camera on. Please.’
Perhaps he heard something in my voice, or perhaps he’d simply run out of excuses. Either way, I heard the sound of him getting to his feet and walking across the hardwood floors of his loft. He moved from the bedroom to the open-plan lounge before eventually switching over to video call.
I hesitated for a moment as the pixels grouped together to reveal the man I’d woken with and fallen asleep beside enough times to still feel sad about what I was about to do.
‘The thing I wanted to say is—’ I began, before a sudden movement behind him cut off my words mid-sentence. Jeff was sitting at his breakfast bar, but another shape had come in and out of frame beyond him. I knew the layout of his place as well as I did my own. The figure had been moving at speed from the bathroom to the bedroom. But not so fast that I hadn’t seen the tanned bare limbs, or the towel wrapped around her body.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, which was a redundant question, because I’d already identified the running figure as Tallulah, the assistant at Jeff’s firm who’d taken him to the wedding in The Hamptons.
‘What?’ asked Jeff, curiously deciding that gaslighting was the way to go. ‘There’s no one here but me.’
I gave a small humourless laugh. I’d been worrying needlessly about this being hard. In the end, Jeff had made it remarkably easy.
‘Jeff, I can still see her trail of wet footprints on the floor.’
His head shot around, looking not at the polished hardwood but at the entrance to his bedroom. Neither of them seemed aware that, backlit by the morning sun, the shadow of a woman’s figure was projecting on to the wall.
When Jeff turned back to the camera, his face was a kaleidoscope of shifting emotions, as though he couldn’t quite decide which one to pick.
‘I’m sorry, Lexi. It’s just that you’ve been gone for so long—’
‘Six weeks, Jeff. It’s been justsix weeks.’
He was obviously still looking to spin things his way, apparently unaware that the only way they were spinning was out of his control. ‘We never said we were exclusive, you and me,’ he mumbled.
Even though this break-up was my decision, that still felt like a punch to the stomach.
‘No, you’re right, we didn’t. I guess we both thought we didn’t have to.’ I gave a small wry laugh. ‘Although perhaps for entirely different reasons.’
‘You’re angry with me.’ At least he had the grace not to put a question mark at the end of that sentence.
‘Actually, no. I’m not, Jeff. Truly I’m not. We had some good times together and I don’t want to ruin the memory of them by turning this into a mud-slinging contest. We weren’t each other’s forever person, and deep down I think we both always knew that. Tallulah’s a far better fit for you than I ever was.’
He winced then, clearly surprised that I knew the name of the woman who’d shared his bed the night before.
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture I’d once found endearing, but today it was just an attractive man, staring guiltily into his phone, wondering how he’d screwed things up so badly.
‘I’ll see you around, Jeff,’ I said, pressing the button to disconnect the call before he could reply.