‘Tis the Season to be Single: A feel-good festive romantic comedy for 2018 that will make you laugh-out-loud!. Laura Ziepe
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that if she just had an engagement ring, everything would perfect.
‘I’ve made you a cup of tea,’ she said, placing the mug in front of him and sitting opposite. ‘Can you tell me what’s up now, please? You’re starting to scare me,’ she confessed, feeling awkward in front of him for the first time since they’d met.
Mark’s breathing was shallow and audible as he fidgeted in his seat and stared at his hands uncomfortably. Two red blotches suddenly appeared on his pale neck. He closed his eyes momentarily.
‘Look, there’s no easy way for me to say this, Rachel, but I’m moving out. I can’t be with you anymore,’ he stated, matter-of-factly.
Rachel felt as though she’d been winded, her mouth popping open in shock. She was completely speechless, the room spinning round as she stared at him in disbelief.
‘I’m so sorry to do this to you, I really am, but I can’t live a lie any longer and pretend that everything is okay, when it isn’t. You’re such an amazing person, Rach, you really are. Someone is going to be so lucky to have you one day,’ he said in pitying tones, ‘but I don’t love you the way I should anymore. You deserve better than me.’
A sense of deep foreboding washed over Rachel like a powerful waterfall. He couldn’t be serious? But as she gazed at Mark, praying he was just trying to wind her up, her eyes swept over his guilty, tormented expression, hunched shoulders and unsteady hands, and she knew that her life was about to change forever. This was definitely no joke, and Rachel felt physically sick, her mouth too dry to speak. She blinked several times and squinted her eyes at him. ‘But why? What’s changed?’ she managed to ask, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘I thought things were fine. I thought we were happy, Mark. I even, stupidly, thought we would get engaged soon,’ Rachel whispered breathlessly. ‘I imagined we’d be getting married next year and that maybe we could have a nice Christmas wedding like we’d discussed or…’
‘Rach, please don’t,’ he interjected, looking as though it was painful for him to talk, his eyes trailing to the window like he couldn’t bear to look at her. ‘It’s nothing you’ve done. You’ve been great, you are great in fact. It’s me.’ He winced. ‘Oh God, I don’t want to be the guy that gives you the cliché “it’s not you it’s me”.’
‘Then don’t be,’ Rachel retorted, her voice now razor sharp and unrecognisable. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it might explode at any second.
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he whimpered. ‘I don’t deserve you, like I said. You deserve so much better than me.’
Even breaking up with her, Mark was being nice about it. He was so well spoken and polite that for some reason it made it more of a slap in the face because she couldn’t hate him. How on earth was this happening? How had it come to this? Rachel hadn’t gone after a bad boy, trying to tame him unsuccessfully. Rachel had chosen Mark. Mark with the kind, gentle features and smiley face who was friendly to everybody. The type of man to help an old lady crossing the road or to buy the homeless man on the street a cup of coffee. She’d settled for the good guy; the one who wasn’t supposed to break your heart after three years together. The one who was supposed to be proposing!
‘What’s changed?’ Rachel asked in a demanding voice. She needed an explanation. Rachel wasn’t giving up without a fight. They had so many plans for the future. Rachel had been looking forward to hosting Christmas for Mark’s entire family, like she’d done every year since they’d met. She’d been looking forward to playing board games with his sister, Lottie, who was just as competitive as Rachel, handing her presents out, which she’d put a lot of thought into, and pulling Christmas crackers at the table, with Mark’s father making them read the terrible jokes inside one by one. She had even been looking forward to Mark’s mother getting drunk, mumbling all her words and not making any sense by 9 p.m. Was she really going to be losing everyone in one fell swoop? It was devastating. Brutal.
Mark looked at her then, as though she was a poor little dog he was about to put down. ‘I have. Things have just changed. I love you, Rach, you know I do. But I think it’s more like a friend.’
It would have hurt less if he’d stabbed her and suddenly Rachel felt angry.
‘Right, well that’s just great then,’ she said, pushing her chair back to stand up, which made a loud scraping sound. ‘I’ll just get my things and go. There’s nothing I can do if you’re telling me that you only love me as a friend,’ she said, hating the fact that her face was scrunching up and her eyes were filling with tears.
‘Please, don’t, Rach. I already feel terrible enough,’ Mark replied, putting his head in his hands.
‘What do you want me to say, Mark? I love you, and not just as a friend. I thought we were going to be together forever, and now suddenly out of the blue you come home and tell me you no longer love me!’ Tears cascaded down her cheeks. ‘I feel like such an idiot.’
‘You’re not an idiot. I’m the idiot. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore,’ he sighed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands.
‘You’re breaking up with me,’ Rachel stated, brushing her tears away roughly. ‘I’ll leave and make things easier for you,’ she told him, making her way into their bedroom to pack a bag.
‘No, I’ll leave,’ Mark said, jumping up to follow her, ‘I should be the one to go.’
‘No, you won’t,’ Rachel snapped at him. ‘You won’t be the one who gets to break up with me and then walk away. I don’t want to be here alone, in our flat. There are too many memories. It’s all yours.’
‘You don’t have to go right now,’ he mumbled guiltily, his eyes downcast. The dark shadows under his eyes and his blotchy skin gave the impression that the situation was making him ill. Well, good. Rachel hoped he was suffering just as much as she was.
‘What shall I do then, Mark? Sleep next to you in bed knowing that you don’t love me? Sleep on the sofa knowing that you’re next door where I usually sleep? I can’t believe you’re doing this, Mark. Just before Christmas too.’
‘There was never a right time. After Christmas it’s your birthday, then Valentine’s Day, then our anniversary. When would the right time be, Rach? I could sleep on the sofa,’ she heard him say, before she slammed the door to cry alone.
Rachel sobbed, trying to hold it together until she left. She was utterly heartbroken, but she didn’t want Mark to see how distraught she truly was. She felt humiliated and foolish. Mark seemed a complete stranger and not the man she’d laid beside for the past three years. Where had all this come from and how had Rachel not seen it coming? If he no longer loved her, there was really no going back now, was there? There was simply nothing she could do about it.
‘Where are you going to go?’ Mark asked her, his voice laced with sympathy and sadness as she opened the bedroom door with a suitcase.
‘I don’t know,’ Rachel responded honestly. ‘Home I guess. Not that it should concern you now.’
‘Yes, I suppose home to your parents is best. Rachel, I’m so sorry,’ he said pathetically, looking as though he didn’t know what to do with himself.
Rachel sniffed loudly, still unable to believe they were breaking up. ‘So am I, Mark. So am I.’
She closed the front door behind her, not looking back at him, and made her way to her car before her face crumpled and she cried her heart out.
Fifteen minutes later and Rachel was still crying. She was dreading going home to her parents and explaining what had happened. Her parents would be so disappointed; she could just see her mother’s sorrowful expression wondering how Mark had done this to her daughter. Her mother and father adored Mark. They were always telling her what a lovely young man he was and that she couldn’t have picked better.
I definitely could have picked better, Mum, the bastard has left me, she thought wryly as she stopped at the traffic