My So-Called. A. Michael L.

He took a breath. ‘Things have been different.’

      ‘You said …’ She tried to stop her lip from trembling. ‘You said I wasn’t fat.’

      ‘You weren’t. I preferred you like that.’ He looked at the floor, and then back up again.

      ‘What … you mean you don’t … I’m healthy now. I got fit and healthy and worked hard to be like this!’ Okay, so now she was pissed. She’d spent the last two years working out, and counting calories, and forgoing curries for salads, and finding out that she loved the gym. She loved lifting, loved being strong, and feeling her muscles strain and grow. She loved being stronger than the boys in the gym, loved feeling like her body was actually functioning as it should. And he was … angry at her?

      ‘Yeah, and it’s all you’re fucking about. Salads, and discipline and cardio. You’re at the gym, and you’re lifting weights to bulk out like a bloke. And your tits are too small now.’

      Tig looked at him. Looked at the sad little man he was, with his beer gut from all the Stella and curries. But … but he was hers. She loved the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, and how he knew her favourite TV shows and how she liked her tea. That he would engulf her in a bear hug when she was sad, that they’d been together since they were fifteen and that everything she’d ever known about love she’d known from him.

      ‘So … you want me to stop going to the gym?’

      ‘No. I just … I just don’t think we should do this anymore.’ He shrugged at the ceiling.

      ‘This … this … this WEDDING THAT’S HAPPENING IN FIVE DAYS? Is that the THIS you’re talking about?’ she screamed.

      ‘Yes! I don’t think I love you anymore.’

      ‘You don’t love me and my tits are too small and you liked me better fat?’ She snorted in disbelief. ‘Anything else? My job’s a joke and my degree was shit and you hate my family?’

      ‘Stop being melodramatic, Lily,’ he sighed. ‘It’s not like this is easy for me, either.’

      ‘Are you JOKING?’ She thought her eyes were going to fall out of her skull. ‘Or are you just an IDIOT? What is actually WRONG with you? How the FUCK is this hard for YOU?’

      Darren shuffled, ruffling his hair. ‘Well, it’s not been easy to be around you. You’re the one who’s gone wedding crazy, and really wanted to get married –’

      ‘YOU proposed to ME!’

      ‘Yeah, but it’s … it had to be done, didn’t it? I thought we were going to wait a few years after the engagement –’

      ‘It’s been THREE YEARS, you fuck!’

      ‘Fine! I just don’t fancy you anymore, okay?’ he huffed. ‘You’re obsessed with the gym and fitness and we have nothing in common anymore. I just think we should call it, and move on.’

      Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew, she absolutely knew, that it couldn’t really be about her liking the gym. It couldn’t really be that, just as she’d gone from a size sixteen to a size twelve, her 38EE chest had rounded out to a 34D. She was in proportion. Her back didn’t hurt anymore … surely it couldn’t be that after twelve years, he just … didn’t fancy her? But maybe it was.

      ‘I’m going to lose all the deposits.’ She stared into the distance, thinking about the flowers, and the caterer and the dress in her cupboard with that silly little note attached, with the smiley face, that she replaced every day as she counted down.

      ‘Not really a reason to get married, though, is it?’ Darren tried to smile, like now the worst was over. She watched his face change as she bared her teeth.

      ‘Fine for you to say. It’s all my wages.’ She tilted her head. ‘And how are you going to do this, then? Are you moving? Am I? If you’re going to jilt me the least you can do is let me keep my flat.’

      ‘You can keep the flat. I’ll stay with a friend,’ Darren said quickly.

      ‘A friend.’

      The silence hung in the air, getting thicker and more suffocating until she said in the calmest and softest voice she knew, ‘Darren, if you have been fucking around on me, I swear to God I’ll cut your dick off.’

      ‘I haven’t! I wouldn’t!’

      ‘Well, until ten minutes ago I thought you wouldn’t insult my body and break my heart, but HEY, SHIT HAPPENS!’

      I sound crazy, she thought. I need to stop sounding so fucking crazy. She took a breath.

      ‘Okay. You go stay with your “friend”. I’m not going to be able to afford this place on my own anyway now …’ Weirdly, that was the thing that made her tearful, her chest suddenly contracting. Their flat, her home, the place they’d been for years now. Designed, and painted, and worked hard for. And now she didn’t have a home. And she’d have to live on her own; she’d never done that before. Even at uni, she’d been with Darren. She’d never been planning to ever have to do that … She took a breath, and looked up at him. She was about to break, and like fuck was he going to see it happen. She could already feel everything slipping away, visualising the kids they wouldn’t have, the home they wouldn’t live in, the Sunday morning pancakes that were the only decent thing Darren could cook, and bleaching his hair in the bathroom every few months, and the dress she wouldn’t wear …

      ‘You need to go now. Pack some shit up and leave. We’ll arrange a time for you to get it.’ She sounded a lot more sure than she felt.

      ‘Okay, Lil.’ Darren smiled at her hopefully. ‘I’m really glad you took this so well. You’re obviously on the same page I am. It must have been clear we were drifting apart to you, too, and –’

      ‘Darren?’ Tig took a deep breath. ‘Get your stuff, get out. And then go fuck yourself.’

      Tig physically shook the memory away, standing at the doorway to Entangled. This felt wrong, it felt the most wrong thing in the world to be at her cafe dressed in real-people clothes. Tig at Entangled was a Tig who wore yoga pants and tie-dye and didn’t do much beyond wash her face and bury her head in a notebook. Somehow dressing up made her feel like an imposter, a fraud. Like she was saying she cared about Ollie’s opinion of her. She stood, hand clenched around the door handle, and growled at herself a little. ‘You’ve got this, bitch, open the freaking door,’ she told herself, and miraculously her body listened.

      She marched across the wooden floor, heading for her table, not looking at anyone, purposefully not looking for Ollie.

      ‘Hello, lovely, we missed you today.’ Ruby smiled, rubbing her shoulder. ‘Worried the new guy ran you off.’

      ‘Nope,’ Tig smiled defiantly. ‘This is home. Couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.’

      ‘I’m glad. We miss you when you’re not here.’ Ruby pulled out Tig’s usual chair. ‘I’ll go grab your tea. Have a slice of cake, won’t you?’

      Tig quickly did a calculation of how far she’d cycled, and what she’d had for breakfast, and how much of a sugar comedown she’d be on if she said yes … oh, fuck it. Time to stop being boring. ‘Have you got your Baileys and Guinness cake?’

      ‘Coming right up!’ Ruby squeezed her shoulders once more, and was off.

      Tig took the time to look around Entangled, and all was as it always had been. Bright-coloured paintings on the walls, the box of lego pieces at the back. Whitewashed walls, and mismatched tables – the whole place was bright, and airy, and personal. Tig had wandered in years ago, when she’d seen a poster for life drawing classes, and from then on it had become a haven. The staff had seen her photographs, they’d seen her planning her wedding, they’d seen her fall apart but continue chugging along. She should almost be embarrassed, she supposed, the amount of her life that had been on show in this public place, but, to be honest, Ruby took