It's Not You It's Me. Allison Rushby

      He swung his legs over the side of the bed so that his back was to me. ‘No, I mean it. It is me.’ There was a lengthy pause. ‘I just can’t.’

      ‘Yeah. Right. With me, you mean. What you mean is, it’s me. Not you. Me. Me!’ The fact that he couldn’t just admit the truth drove me past crazy.

      ‘I…’ He ran his hands through his hair again. Hard. I flinched, wondering how much hair he’d just pulled out. ‘Just can’t. Not now. Not with you.’

      I sat there, winded by those final three words. Final in every sense. Not with you. So it was me. And there it was, out in the open. Strangely enough, it didn’t make me feel any better. ‘But all those girls…’ I thought to myself, then realised the words had actually come out of my mouth. I shut it tight, but couldn’t shut out my remembering their oh-so-similar morning smiles. Their different faces. Names. Amanda. Rachel. Kirsty. Sophie. Rebecca. Theresa. What was so different about them? I became acutely aware of the bed beneath me. The bed in which, not so long ago, they’d all…

      Ugh.

      Something inside me started to bubble after this. I sat there for a bit longer as it churned away in my stomach. And then I worked out what it was. It was anger. It was easier to be angry than to feel embarrassed—less painful. Soon enough, it worked its way out. ‘Well, I’m sorry I’m not good enough,’ I spat, hitting the mattress with one hand.

      He turned again. ‘Charlie, don’t be stupid.’

      ‘Stupid? What’s so stupid about it? One minute you’re sleeping with every girl in sight and the next minute you’re throwing me off. What am I supposed to think?’

      Jas stood up. ‘Wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.’

      ‘What’s there to explain?’ I was acting like an idiot and I knew it, but I felt that if I stopped fighting, even for a moment, I’d just break down and cry—and I couldn’t, wouldn’t, do that. Not here, anyway.

      I got up off the bed and snorted inelegantly. ‘I guess I’m just not blonde enough for you.’ Jas had started to say something, but I held my hand out to stop him. ‘Don’t say it. Just don’t talk to me. I don’t want to hear it.’ My voice was getting louder and louder by the minute. I turned and left the room, slamming the door behind me.

      Chapter Four

      I don’t think I slept at all that night.

      It didn’t seem to matter what I tried to think about, that one moment in time kept running itself through my head again and again. The awful moment when I knew it had all gone wrong. The moment when the, um…tower crumbled and fell, for want of a better way of putting it.

      What I didn’t understand, though, was that I’d been sure he was interested. At the start, that is. After all, he was the one who’d pulled in—he’d kept kissing me. So why pull away later instead of as soon as he’d got a chance? It just didn’t make any sense. And the more I thought about it, the more convoluted the whole thing got. So convoluted that it gave me a headache, and at five a.m. I had to get up and take some paracetamol. Which must have worked, because the headache was gone when I woke up again at eleven-thirty.

      I lay there for fifteen minutes or so, just listening, to see if I could hear Jas in the apartment, hoping that he wouldn’t be around so I could get up and go down the hall safely to the bathroom. I didn’t hear anything. And when my bladder couldn’t stand the stress one minute longer I got up. As I went down the hallway I had a quick scan around. He wasn’t there.

      But things had changed.

      After my trip to the bathroom I took a closer look. Most of Jas’s stuff that had been packed away earlier in the week was gone. I went down the hallway to his bedroom and opened the door. All that was left was his bed and some clothes. I closed the door smartly—the last thing in the world I wanted to see right now was that bed—and made my way to the living room.

      There was a note beside the phone.

      Charlie

      As you’ve probably already noticed, I’ve moved most of my stuff out. I’ll come back and pick the rest up around one. Not sure if you’ll be there or not, but you know you can always get me on my mobile if you want to talk. Either way, I’ll give you a call at your mum’s in the next few weeks. I don’t want this to be the end of us.

      J.

      I don’t want this to be the end of us. I re-read it, holding the note in my right hand.

      Ha! Us!

      What ‘us’? There was no ‘us’. There was only me, lusting after Jas, and Jas who wasn’t returning the favour. Unrequited love. There’s nothing quite so embarrassing. I did the cringing thing again, thinking about it.

      And what made me feel even worse was that I’d seen a friend go through it once. Unrequited love, that is. I’d watched her make a fool of herself for months on end over some guy. Seeing everyone else watch the proceedings like a spectator sport had been equally as bad as the point when the guy had finally turned her down and she was heartbroken.

      Exactly how Jas must have been feeling about me. Utterly embarrassed for me. Udderly, I thought, as I remembered the lovesick cow once more.

      I checked the clock on the wall. Just past midday. I had to get out of the apartment. And fast.

      I had the quickest shower of my life, dressed in anything I could find and ran to the bus stop. I didn’t care where I went, didn’t care what I did, just so long as I wasn’t there when Jas came back. I didn’t want to be around to see that embarrassment of his when he came through the front door.

      I went to the movies and saw something. I can’t remember what it was, just that it was bad and something I never would have seen if I’d had any real choice about it—which I didn’t. The fact was, it was on, it was a two-hour time-filler, and that was all I cared about. After that I bought a shirt I didn’t like nor want, and definitely couldn’t afford, then picked up some groceries that I didn’t need. At five p.m. the shops closed, and as I couldn’t bear to see another film I wasn’t remotely interested in I caught the bus home.

      Jas wasn’t there, and everything—every last possession that was his—was gone.

      I went into his room and just stood there. I couldn’t even smell him. It was as if he’d never been there at all. As if he’d never existed. I walked around the room slowly, running one hand against the wall, taking everything in. I stopped when I came to something rough.

      Oh, nice.

      The bed-head. Jas’s metal bed-head had made a mark on the wall. No prizes for guessing how that had happened. And who it hadn’t been with.

      I turned and left the room, wondering why I’d gone in there in the first place. It had been a stupid thing to allow myself to do. I had to keep busy, to try and forget about what had happened.

      I made my way to the kitchen, stopping by the phone on the way to turn the answering machine off. And then, when I had, I thought better of it and switched it back on again to screen any calls.

      In the kitchen, I was surprised to find another note from Jas. Well, not another note. The same note as before, with a sentence or two scribbled onto the bottom. He’d added:

      Hoped you’d be here so we could talk. Will call.

      J.

      He did call. Several times, in fact. But I didn’t call back. And funnily enough it wasn’t me, but my aunt Kath who saw him next, three months later. We were both staying at my mum’s, looking after her while she was unwell. Watching a rare spot of TV one evening, she suddenly hollered, ‘Charlie—Charlie, come here, quick.’

      I rushed into the living room. ‘What?’

      She just pointed at the TV ‘Isn’t that, um, what’s-his-face? Your flatmate? The guy you were living with?’