If I Never Met You. Mhairi McFarlane

Over. I am single.’

      Laurie was trying that phrase out. It sounded a crazy reach, while being hard fact.

      ‘He’s finished with you?’

      ‘Yes. He has finished with me. We are separated.’

      Laurie noticed that someone ‘finishing’ with someone else was such savage language. They cancelled you. You are over. Your use has been exhausted.

      ‘Laurie, are you being serious? Not a break? You’ve split up?’

      ‘Yes.’

      Laurie was holding it together better than she expected. Then Emily’s eyes filled up and Laurie said, ‘oh God, don’t cry,’ her voice cracking, as beige lines streaked rivers through Emily’s foundation.

      ‘Sorry, sorry,’ Emily gasped, ‘I— can’t believe it. It can’t be real? He’s having a moment or something.’

      That immediate understanding from her closest friend had been the straw to break the stoic camel’s back, and Laurie and Emily had wept together until the waitress slapped two large glasses of wine down on their table, muttering, ‘On the house,’ before hastily beating a retreat. Here’s to sisterhood.

      ‘Why? Has he had some sort of stroke?’ Emily said, when she got her breath back.

      Laurie put both palms up in a ‘fuck knows’ gesture and felt what a comfort her best friend was. She’d been there from the start, since Laurie and Dan’s Fresher’s Week meet-cute. She was completely invested; Laurie didn’t have to explain the preceding eight seasons for her to be blown away at the finale. Finale, or mid-season hiatus?

      ‘He says he doesn’t feel it, us, anymore. The night we’d been out in The Refuge, afterwards he was waiting up for me, and it came out. He’d been thinking about leaving for a while. Which you know, is fantastic to hear.’ She paused. ‘We’d been talking about coming off the pill.’

      Emily winced.

      ‘Ohhhh so it’s fear of fatherhood? Growing up, responsibility?’

      ‘I asked that, and also said that we could rethink having kids, but no. He’s decided our life makes him feel like he’s on a fast track to death and has to go rediscover himself.’

      ‘Could it be a trial separation? Putting you two on pause, while he twats about off the grid in Goa, like he’s Jason Bourne? God, whenever I forget why I hate men, one of them reminds me.’

      Laurie laughed hollowly.

      ‘Nope, I doubt it.’ She couldn’t admit to any lingering hope she felt, it was too tragic. Other parties needed to fully accept it, on her behalf. ‘He’s found a flat. We’re going to work out the money in the next few weeks. Then that’s us done, I guess. He’s offered to trade the car for furniture so there will be no wagon wheel coffee table haggling.’ Laurie’s throat seized up again.

      ‘I don’t know what to say, Loz. He loves you to bits, I know he does. He worships the ground you walk on, he always has done. This is madness. This is an episode.’

      Laurie nodded. ‘Yeah. It doesn’t make sense. The Didn’t See It Coming, At All, factor is fucking with my head really badly.’ She lapsed into silence to staunch the tears.

      ‘Well, tonight just got even drunker,’ Emily said eventually, catching the waitress’s eye to signal another round.

      In the end they’d finished the night in an even grottier bar down the street, two bottles of wine down and one heavy tip for the poor waitress who’d had to clear up their snotty tissues. The memory of the morning after still made Laurie wince today. Anyone who moaned about hangovers in their twenties should be forced to suffer a hangover from your late thirties.

      The worst of it was, after the fireworks of Dan’s declaration that he was leaving and that first shock of grief, the awful banality of ‘getting on with it’ was its own horror.

      ‘Never mind the fact I’ll be expected to do monkey sex in swings, like they have in Nine Inch Nails songs, who will I text boring couple stuff to, ever again? Like what shall we have for tea, pre-pay day? Who will I ask if they want “baked potatoes and picky bits” on a cheap Monday?’ Laurie had demanded of Emily. (‘Lots of people like baked potatoes!’ she had promised.)

      It was the end of another night of boozy mourning, and as they waited on the corner for their Ubers to appear, Emily had nudged Laurie (probably slightly harder than intended).

      ‘Laurie, you know you’re going to get the Sad Dads sliding into your DMs any day now.’

      Laurie barked a laugh. ‘Doubt it. Don’t assume that how men are with you, is how they are with me.’

      ‘Seriously, they’re shameless. Absolutely no idea of respectful pause, straight in there: hey I hear you’re back on the market, allow me to place the initial bid. I’ve heard this lament from the girls at work so many times. They all think they’re catches and they’re often still with their wives. They think you’ll be desperately grateful for any cheer up cock they can offer.’ Emily cupped her hands into a bowl shape: ‘Please, sir, can I have some more?’

      When they’d finished sniggering, Laurie had said, ‘I don’t get that sort of attention. The attention you do.’

      She felt so wholly unprepared to be back out there. As Emily pointed out, she’d never really been there.

      ‘Because a huge part of getting that sort of attention is signalling you’re up for that sort of attention.’

      ‘Hah. I can’t even think about it. I can’t imagine ever being any good for anyone ever again. I think Dan’s ruined me.’

      ‘OK, but don’t rule out the healing power of a purely physical fling. Sometimes, you don’t need face-holding I Love You intense meaningful sex. What you need is some hench dipshit with superior body strength to pin your wrists above your head and pound you with a virile meanness.’

      Laurie groaned while Emily grinned triumphantly.

      ‘Did you briefly forget your pain?’

      ‘Absolutely,’ Laurie said, leaning her head on Emily’s tiny shoulder. She had the proportions of a malnourished Hardy heroine on a windswept moor. She was definitely a heroine though, never a victim.

      This call from Dan was officially the first time he’d reached out to her to ‘talk’ in ten weeks though. Could it be … could he be …? No, squelch that thought.

      ‘Yeah. What, to pick stuff up? You still have your key?’ she said to Dan, hedging her bets, though she knew ‘picking up some stuff’ was a text, not a phone call.

      ‘No, I’m coming round to see you.’

      ‘What for?’

      ‘I need to talk to you.’

      Laurie breathed in and breathed out. Right. She’d known this would happen. Almost from the first moment Dan had said he was going. Yet it coming true so soon still took her aback.

      ‘What about?’

      ‘I think it’s best said face to face. Is seven alright?’

      Laurie’s heartbeat sped up, because she could hear the strain behind the casual delivery. Dan was scared. She felt oddly scared herself. What did she have to be frightened about? It was for her to weigh her answer.

      She already knew what her answer would be. So did he.

      They would have to creak through the formalities of his grovelling apologies, his prepared explanations for how he could’ve got it so catastrophically wrong, his vigorous heartfelt promises that he’d never mess her around again. The pledge to live in the dog house at first, to do better, to try harder. (That’s a point, there’d never be a better time to get that Lurcher she’d unsuccessfully campaigned for.) Tentatively working out how penitent