Early Christmas morning. He lies awake. Imagining he hears sleigh bells outside, can see the snow on the ground. Thinking of Christmases past, the presents he never received.
Jo never gave him a present. He'd wondered for a while if that was why she'd dumped him when she had. One week before Christmas. A long time ago now, it seems. Was it last year, or the year before? So much in his head. So much work, so many tortured and difficult lives. So much of an effort not letting everyone in on the secret.
She didn't dump him to avoid buying a present though. That would have been too stupid. She had plenty of money. She dumped him because she was getting plenty of sex elsewhere.
He'd loved her, he'd cared for her. He'd bought her presents, lots of presents. Took a silver necklace along to their first date, let her know right from the start that she was on to a winner. He listened, he always listened. Let her do what she wanted. Let her breathe. Gave her space. He massaged her head when she had a headache, bought her dinner when she was hungry; he sent her flowers every day. Every day.
She had thrown that back at him the last time they talked. As if it wasn't a good thing. She was fucking other guys while he was sending her flowers, yet he was the bad guy? She was fucking other guys while he was waiting outside her house with a box of chocolates, yet he was the bad guy? She was fucking other guys while he was leaving ten romantic messages on her phone every night, yet he was the bad guy?
At first he'd wondered if he'd been the problem, if he'd been the one to blame. Yet that was absurd. The notion was absurd. He had given her everything. Everything. He had given her wild flowers every day. Every fucking day. And she'd fucked her way through entire rugby teams worth of men.
He'd been heroic in his romance, while she'd been a slut. She was a slut, one of the sluts, one of those fucking sluts who went to bedrooms at parties and took on as many guys as they could get hold of. Yet he'd been the bad guy.
She was at parties, stripped naked — if she even bothered taking the time to remove her clothes — lying on a bed, eating men. Fucking one, while sucking another one off, her hands wanking another couple at the same time. That's who she was. A complete fucking slut, fucking and fucking, pricks all over her, covered in semen, swallowing semen, squeezing her cunt lips on endless cocks.
'How does that make me… the fucking… bad guy?'
The words are spoken at an empty room.
She'd moved away. Moved house. He hadn't seen her in so long. Was it a year or two years? The time seemed so long. It dragged. He thought about her every day, yet there was no possibility of ever seeing her again. Unless she decided to come back.
Would she come back? It seemed incredible to him that she had not already regretted leaving. All those men, but what did they ever give her? Sometimes he wondered if something had happened to her. Maybe that was it. Maybe it was the things he'd said when she'd ended the relationship. She had never admitted the other men, but he could tell that he was right when he'd accused her. No one looks that guilty unless there's something for them to be guilty about.
Three o'clock in the morning, the non-stop clock ticking in his brain. Christmas Day. She should be lying beside him; instead, she was probably still at some hangover of a Christmas Eve party, still fucking blokes, still fucking. Still fucking.
He'd find her soon enough. These other women, the ones who looked like Jo, but who weren't Jo, they were all the same. They weren't Jo. Sometimes they might as well be her. They weren't Jo.
One minute past three in the morning. The non-stop clock ticking in his brain. He'd find another Jo. He'd find another one.
Fucking Jo. Fucking Jo. Fucking all those other men, yet he was the bad guy.
Fucking Jo.
'I wasn't co-fucking dependant…'
Fucking Jo.