New Year Fiction: I love you, Robbie

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This is an unfinished short story I started one January. I'm publishing it as a draft just to remind us at this time of year that not all New Years' Resolutions should be kept. 

Or should they?

And just for some New Year fun, tell me how you think the story should end. 

I love you, Robbie

DRAFT

by Gabrielle Jackson

London, January 2010. 

Have you ever stuck your foot under a tap and not known whether it was hot or cold? It usually happens when you’re cold and you jump into a bath and you feel a really strong sensation but you don’t know if it hurts – if it’s hot and therefore dangerous – or if it’s just an initial shock owing to the change in temperature and it’s actually good. Really good, even.

Well, that’s how I felt about Robbie. I didn’t know if I loved him or hated him. And the more I analysed it and tried to think about it, the more I didn’t know. So I decided to tell him that I loved him. I made the decision at 05.29am on 2 January. It felt momentous and important and the right thing to do. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all, but after that I went off like a baby. That’s how I knew it was definitely the right thing to do.

Later, when I found a note scribbled in pink lipliner on the back of an HSBC envelope, presumably dug out of my wastepaper basket, that read, “I love you, Robbie”, I figured it was supposed to serve as both a reminder and practice, but I didn’t need it. I’d remembered before I even found that note and I took it as just another sign I was making the right decision.

So, at a few minutes to midnight (I’d made a vow to myself I would take action that day) on 2 January, I emailed Robbie and asked if he’d like to meet up for a coffee or a drink. I suggested a place I’d been meaning to go to. He opted for the coffee (trying not to drink in January, whatever!) and agreed the time and place.

“Hey, how’s it hanging,” he said.

A little alarm went off. Who says that? But it was a little alarm, a kind of ker-ching! rather than full-on sirens, so I decided to ignore it. I had made up my mind to tell him I loved him and I couldn’t stop it even though he was still wearing his jeans too low, like he was a member of One Direction or something.

            “You’re too old to wear your jeans like that,” was my response.

            So we were off to a good start then. It didn’t make sense that I would love this person and yet it so made sense. It only made sense. Nothing else made sense except us being together.

“There are seventeen-year-old kids running around on the X Factor who dress like you. You’re thirty…”

“Thirty-two.”

“You’re thirty-two and you’re a professional and you still dress like that.”

“Is that why you wanted to meet?” he asked, in a tone of mild forebearance.

“No.”

“Then what?”

“Shall we go in?”

“Good idea.”

We walked into A Little of What You Fancy and sat down. At least there was a table free. I guess nobody wants to go out at this time of year. January is not a good month for going out. It’s not a good month for reunions either, is it? It is not a good time for making decisions; there is no clarity as we all trudge through the month, eyes half open, suffering from our holiday hangovers. It’s why nobody ever keeps their New Year’s Resolutions – because they’re made at the worst possible time of year, when we’re least able to think clearly. I have always tried to make half-year resolutions myself. I don’t keep them either, but that’s more to do with my personality than my clarity of mind. This all just occurred to me as I picked up the menu.

The alarm bell finally turned into a siren. My great clarity of mind – that the water was tepid and I loved Robbie – was a trick of the season; a bad hangover decision.

“So why did you want to meet?” he asked, as I stared at the menu blankly.

“Oh, I just wanted to tell you my news. I think I’m going to get engaged.”

“Oh my God, I can’t believe it. So am I.”

What? What had I just said? And more importantly, what had he said? I had no idea where that lie came from. How did I go from ‘I love you’ to ‘I’m engaged to somebody else’? It was January’s fault. I hate January. I ordered a large glass of red wine as I pondered how I’d get through this. I am a terrible liar. I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do.

But Robbie, he was calm, the most animated, in fact, he’d been so far. No wonder he was ordering coffee; he was engaged – no need to drown out the misery of January and a new year spent alone with large quantities of wine and/or gin.THANK GOD I'd had to foresight to choose a place that sold both coffee and wine.

‘So who’s the lucky guy?’ he smiled, and it seemed genuine.

‘Oh, I don’t want to talk about it now.’

‘You don’t want to talk about your fiancé?’

‘Oh, it’s not that,’ I stumbled through, ‘it’s just that I came here to catch up with you, not talk about that.’

‘You said you wanted to tell me your news.’

‘And now I’ve told you, tell me about you. I want things to be alright between us, you know?’

Ah, that was a nice touch. The wine was helping. Perhaps I could drag myself out of this for now and decide how to undo the lie later. In February, or March maybe.

‘Yeah, fair enough. I’m glad you asked me here actually. It….’

There was a pretty long silence. I think he was waiting for me to finish his sentence. I used to finish his sentences all the time, and even though he said he hated it, I knew he liked it, or at least expected it and came to rely on it. But today, I couldn’t. The pit in my stomach was too deep; it hurt too much. With every passing minute the reality of his words ‘So am I!’ sunk a little deeper into that pit. He was engaged! I wanted to tell him I loved him and he wanted to tell me he loved somebody else.

‘It depresses me,’ he had continued and I tried as hard as I could to listen to him while also trying to get the waiter’s attention. Finally a young woman came to our table.

‘May I have a bottle of that wine I was just drinking please?’

‘Shall I bring another glass then?’ she looked at Robbie, who was shaking his head.

‘Yes please,’ I said a little too loudly, and she walked off slightly confused.

‘I told you I wasn’t drinking,’ Robbie said.

‘OK, fine, don’t drink it. The glass won’t hurt you. I just didn’t want her to know I was going to drink it all on my own.’

‘Why are you drinking it all on your own?’

‘Because I feel like it, and it’s cold out and it warms me up and it tastes nice. Are they enough reasons?’

 Oh no, no, no, don’t go down that path, I said to myself. Be nice. You came here to be nice. You came here because you actually love this man and you can’t even be nice to him.

            ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You were saying something depresses you.’

            ‘You,’ he said, and he looked into my eyes with what I’d always mistaken for love. ‘It depresses me when you’re not in my life. I miss you. I want to be friends.’

I left A Little of What You Fancy some hours later and didn’t look back as Robbie watched me wander down the Kingsland Road. I could feel I had red wine stuck to my lips and my teeth were probably brown and I tried to scrub them clean with my tongue. I don’t think that’s ever a very effective solution, but part of me felt there was no point trying to look nice anyway. Robbie was getting married and it wasn’t to me. Robbie, who I had confessed my love to on the back of an envelope in pink lipliner. Maybe if I’d said it before, or more often, maybe if I’d been clearer, it would not be this way.

            I walked into the Tesco Metro that I hated and stared in the refrigerated section for something I could eat that would make me feel better. I hesitated over a packet of Scotch eggs and wondered who invented the rule that Scotch eggs may only be consumed at picnics. It seems stupid but even still, I couldn’t go through with it so I picked up a frozen lasagne instead. Then I spotted some bacon and thought I could make myself some pasta with it, and then I ran into a man and realised I was a bit drunk and probably shouldn’t rely on my cooking skills. So I kept the lasagne and bought myself another bottle of wine to go with it.

            I left Tesco and continued down Kingsland Road towards home. The moon was broken and I thought it looked how my heart felt. It was two days after a full moon. I don’t know what you call the moon when it’s not quite full but it looks like it’s broken, like a little piece has just been chipped off the side, but I looked at it and said, 'I know how you feel.'

            It had always been complicated between Robbie and me. I now had to face the fact that it was probably because I loved him and he wanted to be friends. It had always been that way, really, if I’m honest with myself. 

So...what happens next? Tell me below.