Shivering with hurt and shock, and seized by a strange urge to laugh hysterically at how crazy this all was, she glared at him. James hung his head but said nothing, silenced by Rosie’s unflinching – and entirely accurate – assessment of his intentions.
‘So, where are you going to stay?’ she asked, nodding in the direction of his bag.
‘With a friend from the gym. Nobody you know. Just for a week or two, probably, while I sort myself out.’
This brief mention of practicalities seemed to pull James from a stupor. He stood up, then shuffled awkwardly from foot to foot like he was waiting for permission to leave. How very like him, Rosie thought: even now, he needed her to be the one who took action – dealt the final blow.
‘Nobody I know,’ she parroted. ‘I’m not sure I even knowyouanymore, James. How could you do this? I mean, who are you?’
‘I’m still me,’ he said, in a quiet voice that, to Rosie’s ears, sounded far sorrier for itself than it had any right to.
‘You’re not,’ she informed him. ‘Yes, the James I knew always tried to avoid confrontation, but this … it’s pathetic. Cowardly. More than that, it’s cruel. I’d never have believed you capable of it.’
Still he stood there, staring at his feet like a naughty child facing dismissal from the head teacher’s office. Rosie noticed he was already wearing trainers, ready to make his getaway.
As he glanced at the fitness watch on his wrist, Rosie couldn’t resist spitting: ‘Waiting for something, are you? Got somewhere urgent to be?’ Her voice was so hard it sounded strange to her own ears. James flushed scarlet.
‘I … oh god, I don’t know,’ James answered. ‘Er … I suppose there were things I wanted –needed– to tell you. I didn’t want to end it like this.’
Something like pride flamed inside Rosie then: a powerful, self-preserving urge to take back some agency in a situation that had totally blindsided her. She wiped her face free of tears with her fingertips and willed herself not to cry anymore.
‘I’m sure there’s nothing you need to say that isn’t written in your letter,’ she quipped. He flinched at her sarcasm.
‘Seriously, don’t let me keep you,’ she went on. She gestured for him to follow her towards the flat door.
‘Don’t forget your bag.’ She pointed at it, all too aware that it would be standard James behaviour to leave it behind, then have to come back for it later.
She marched up the corridor and he moped after her so pathetically that an unversed onlooker might have believed Rosie had dumped him, rather than the other way around.
As Rosie reached for the latch on the door so she could open it and hustle him out, the buzzer sounded. There was someone at the main entrance of the building, wanting to be let in.
‘Who on earth is that?’ Rosie demanded.
James bit his bottom lip, but said nothing.
She picked up the old plastic intercom and said, ‘Yes?’
‘It’s Ali here. I have your pizza,’ explained the person on the other end of the line.
‘My what?’
‘Yourpizza,’ Ali repeated, audibly annoyed by her slowness. ‘Sides, too. And dips.’
‘Fine,’ Rosie said, and pressed the button that would open the outside door for him. Then she turned and fixed a steely glare on James.
‘Please correct me if I’ve got any of this wrong. You came home early from work so you could playKill the Nazi Zombies—’
‘Call of Duty,’ James put in, without thinking. Rosie stared daggers at him and he said, ‘Sorry,’ under his breath.
‘You wanted to playKill the Nazi Zombiesfor a bit,’ Rosie ploughed on, ‘because you knew you wouldn’t fit your PlayStation into the overnight bag you’ve packed SO YOU CAN LEAVE ME. You’re sadder about saying a short-term goodbye to your games console than you are about the end of our relationship – which you intended to finish byleaving me a letter, like we’re in Year Nine and you’ve decided you don’t want to snog me behind the bike sheds anymore.’
James looked at her almost imploringly. He didn’t want to be the bad guy, Rosie realised – or at least, notthisbad a guy.
Too fucking late, she thought.
There was a knock at the door.
Rosie opened it and Ali, their Domino’s delivery driver, handed her a large box upon which several smaller ones were stacked. She took them from him, checked they’d been paid for and thanked him.