‘The landlord felt it was the right thing to do,’ she said, trying to stop a smug smile from creeping onto her face. James still had no idea Aled owned the building, and keeping the information back felt like a small but significant victory.
‘And what about Tom Jones? Your lad from the valleys?’ he said, jerking a thumb in the direction of Aled’s bedroom door. ‘What’s he doing here while you’re half-naked? Isn’t there some coal that needs to be dug up in his homeland?’
Rosie was suddenly incensed. Nothing James said or did should have surprised her at this point, but resorting to cheap, insulting stereotypes felt beneath even him.
‘He lives here,’ she said, simply– allowing the statement to reverberate in the tense silence that followed it, then land with maximum impact.
James boggled at her, lost for words.
‘I don’t know why you’re so shocked – or even interested, really,’ Rosie said. ‘You must have known that, unless I was prepared to pack up and livechezColin and Julie, I’d need to find a flatmate. Or did none of that occur to you when you were working on the lovely letter you wrote me?’
‘You’re living withthatguy? The bike fascist? Oh my god, are yousleepingwith him?’
Rosie’s temper threatened to erupt, and she took a steadying breath. ‘What business of yours would it be if I was?’ she asked. ‘It’s not as though you’re living like a monk in the aftermath of our break-up, is it?’
James looked down at his feet, flinching away from her gaze. Following his eyes, Rosie saw that he was wearing a pair of unutterably ugly trainers. They were bright white with prominent black branding and looked incredibly uncomfortable: his recent ‘style over substance’ approach to life epitomised by overpriced footwear.
‘What was it you wanted to say, James? Why did you come here today? Because I’d really like to get on.’ She gestured at her state of undress.
‘I wanted to … I don’t know … reach out and try to fashion some sort offriendshipwith you,’ James said, his voice quavering in a way that Rosie couldn’t help but feel was studied. Deliberate. ‘It just feelswrongnot having any contact at all,’ he went on. ‘Surely you can understand that, after all the years we were in one another’s lives? I wouldn’t have turned up on your doorstep like this if you’d returned any of my texts.’
‘I didn’t get your texts,’ Rosie said, not wanting to be cruel but unwilling to take part in what he evidently hoped would become a pity party.
‘You blocked me?’ James asked, his mouth dropping open.
‘I did,’ Rosie admitted. ‘I don’t have to talk to you anymore, James. I don’t have to let you back into my life because you suddenly want to be back in mine. You made the decision to dump me in the least respectful way possible – and to lie about why. After ten years together you let me find out by accident that you were seeing someone else – living with her, I guess.’
James stared down at his hideous trainers again.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rosie said, feeling a prickle of sympathy for him that she immediately stamped on. ‘But you hurt me. I haven’t forgiven you yet, and I can’t be sure I ever will. Right now, I don’t want to be your friend.’
‘Wow,’ James said, his voice hardening. ‘That’s harsh, given that it seems to have taken you only a week or two to start shagging the handsome hermit from the second floor.’
‘It really isn’t harsh, James,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘It’s not like I’ve gone out of my way to contact you and declare I don’t want you in my life.Youcame to seeme,’ she continued, ‘uninvited. And it seems that what you’re really bothered about is the fact I’m not some quivering wreck – which is no doubt what you were expecting. Would you have felt better if you’d found me sobbing, snotty and mainlining Ben & Jerry’s in my joggers?’
‘Ofcoursenot!’ he yelped, with practised emphasis. James’s words insisted he didn’t want her to be miserable – but his eyes said he’d have much preferred it to finding her unclothed and cohabiting with someone much better-looking than himself.
‘I think you should go now,’ Rosie said, keen to get rid of him before he could wind her up any more. Thus far, she’d resisted yelling or screaming at him – but her resolve would snap if this conversation went on much longer.
‘Why? So you can get back to business with lover boy? Or should I sayboyo?’
‘What I might do, and who I might do it with, is no longer anything to do with you,’ Rosie hissed, her patience wafer-thin. She stood up and pointed towards the flat door, hoping he would take the hint and leave.
She couldn’t bring herself to refute James’s accusations; on principle, it shouldn’t matter to him if she and Aled had struck up a relationship, but there was a bit of her that relished his obvious dislike of the idea. A still deeper part of her – one that was far less sanguine – knew that telling the truth would hurt. There was only friendship between Rosie and her flatmate, and she knew she would put that in jeopardy if she allowed her already sizeable crush to spiral out of control.
‘Fine,’ James said, heaving himself up off Springsteen’s favoured armchair to rock back and forth on the soles of his horrid sneakers. ‘I came here today to extend the hand of friendship – to try and salvage something from the years we spent together. I can see I was wasting my time.’
Rosie saw red. How dare he try and cast himself as the magnanimous ex, only here for the sake of ensuring the lover he’d cast aside hadn’t gone mad with grief?
‘D’you know what?’ Rosie asked as she opened the door to wave him through. ‘I think you came to see me today for your own ego. You wanted to reassure yourself that I was unhappy without you – that I was just waiting to be picked back up like some discarded toy, in case dumping me doesn’t work out so well for you.’
James made an exaggerated frown face – schooled his features so they were the very picture of righteous outrage – but Rosie knew him too well to miss the shock that had passed over them a moment before. She’d hit the nail squarely on the head.
‘Instead,’ she said, ‘you’ve found me getting on with my life. Unfortunately for you, I’m not wallowing in self-pity or composing sad ballads about how much I miss you. I’m actually OK.’
‘I … I’m glad you’re OK,’ James murmured. ‘Truly. I just …I never imagined things would go this way.’
This was the first fully honest thing he’d said since turning up, and Rosie had the grace to agree. Then, in an echo of their first parting, she said simply: ‘Goodbye, James,’ and shut the door behind him.