Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Christmas Eve 8:45 p.m.

‘My bladder is so full of vodka and Diet Coke, but I don’t want to walk past Mitch to get to the toilet,’ I moan to Adam.

‘Well, it’s either walk past him or piss yourself in his vicinity.’

‘Good point, succinctly made.’

‘Just hold your head high and stride past. For all he knows, you are dating me – the hottest man in all of Notting Hill.’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘Handsome, yes. But I wouldn’t say hot.’

‘Ouch.’ Adam frowns. ‘I thought my flirting was very hot.’

‘Fake flirting.’

‘Whatever.’

‘I’m going for a wee now.’

‘So go.’

‘I’m going.’

‘Good.’

‘Good.’

I stand up from the chair, and trying not to sway with tipsiness, I do as Adam says and hold my head up high, walking past Mitch and his new girlfriend. Then, of course, I stumble on the way because I am holding my head up high and not looking where I’m going. I throw Adam a dirty look for the bad advice to which he laughs and gives me two thumbs up.

Once I’m done in the loos, I walk back out through the flock wallpapered corridor towards the pub and there, blocking the doorway, smiling at me as if we’d never been apart, is Mitch.

‘I’d forgotten how beautiful you are,’ he says, in that deep voice that used to drive me crazy, even when he was talking about something dull, like tennis or traffic. And now he tells me I’m beautiful when I have hat hair and a slightly snotty nose and am bundled up in my super puffy shiny black puffa jacket that makes me look a teeny bit like a bag of recycling.

Shit. How the hell am I going to get out of this corridor without falling apart. How, after a year, can he still make me feel this way, make me feel sad that we’re not together. That I wasn’t enough for him?

‘Good morning, Mitch,’ I say very professionally, before realising that it’s the evening and I am a knucklehead.

‘Good morning, dweeby.’

My heart lurches at the use of his daft nickname for me.

I walk towards him, willing my knees not to shake. ‘It was very nice to see you. All the best to you and yours. Goodbye.’ My voice wavers. I try to get through the door but Mitch blocks my way and I sort of bump into him chest to chest.

‘Let me out, Mitch,’ I say, avoiding his eye.

‘I just want to say hello, is all.’ He presses a hand to my cheek and I expect my whole body to come alive at his touch like it always did, but today that doesn’t happen.

‘That your girlfriend out there?’ I ask.

Mitch runs his thumb down towards my chin. ‘Fiancée. Sophie. She’s great. Works next door in the hair salon. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have come to this pub. I’m glad I did now…’

‘Wow. Engaged. Congratulations.’

‘Well, it’s been fourteen months, I owed it to her.’

I takes me a few seconds to realise what he ‘s just said. Mitch seems to realise at the same time. To his credit, he flushes slightly in the cheeks.

‘I meant, um, eight months.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘Uh…’

‘Fourteen months ago, we were together,’ I say, my heart beating hard enough for me to hear it in my head.

Mitch rubs the back of his neck. ‘You and I weren’t, you know totally exclusive.’

‘We never put a name to our relationship but we were sleeping together for over a year! Felt pretty exclusive to me.’

And then something else occurs to me. ‘Wait... Oh my God. You knew!’

‘Knew what?’

‘You knew that making that pact would upset me. Make me end things with you.’

Mitch holds his hands up, feigning ignorance. ‘What pact?’

‘You fucking know what pact. If neither of us have found true love by fifty we’ll get married? You knew I loved you, that I was all in. You’d already met someone else and you were too chicken shit to tell me. You wanted me to end things with you.’

Mitch sighs. He doesn’t bother to deny it. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you,’ he says weakly.

‘So you made me end things, just so you could keep your conscience. Not feel like the bad guy. The cheater. On Christmas Day, no less!’

Mitch is starting to look a little less sure than he was a few moments ago. ‘Listen, I don’t think now is the time to talk about this. Do you still have the same number? It would be a neat idea to get a drink sometime. Let me apologise for being such a jackass. I was different back then. An idiot. Seeing you again now, looking so happy with another man…’

He reaches his hand out again, and this time I sharply bat it away.

‘Oww!’

I stare hard at Mitch’s beautiful face and it occurs to me that he is a dirt bag and a coward. He cheated on me, couldn’t even admit it and now he’s trying to cheat on that innocent woman out there. And yes, his torso and arms and bottom might be very sexy, but his heart is very much lacking. Why did I not realise this? I’ve wasted a year of my life feeling angry at myself for not being enough for him and angry at him for the way he ended it. Truth is, he did me a favour. He’s a moron! He is a total moron! And, oh my goodness, I don’t have to see or think about him ever again.

A wave of relief floods through me and it feels like a lovely hot, refreshing shower on a cold day. At last! I lift my chin.

‘I’m leaving, Mitch. Now get the fuck out of my way.’

‘Phoebe, come on. I was a fool back then.’

‘And an even bigger one now! Move!’

Shaking his head forlornly, Mitch steps aside.

I push open the door to the bar area and before I walk away, I turn back and look him up and down. ‘Mitch Birch is the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.’

I watch his face fall while he considers his stupid name, and feel a bloom of happiness inside my chest. Mitch is a dick. He was always a dick and I was so blinded by emotion that didn’t see it until right now. This feels like closure. It’s a miracle. A Christmas miracle!

Before Mitch can gather a response to my statement, I march back out into the pub and up to his fiancée.

‘Can I help you?’ she asks, tilting her head to one side. I stand there for a second, I’m about to tell her about Mitch coming on to me just now. But it’s Christmas Eve. He already wrecked Christmas for me last year. I don’t want to be the one to wreck it for her. Mitch says she works in the hair salon next door. I’ll go in the New Year and tell her then.

‘I, uh, like your coat,’ I say instead. ‘I just thought I’d tell you.’

She looks down at her perfectly ordinary black woollen coat. ‘Um, thanks!’ she says with a smile. ‘It’s from River Island!’

‘Cool! Bye!’ I spin on my heel and hurry over to Adam, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Ellie and Jim are snogging up against the wall by the bar. Oh jeez. Well there’s a topic of conversation for us to start with when we hang out.

At the table I neck the last of my drink, wiping my mouth with my hand. ‘We have to go now,’ I say. I grab Adam’s wheelchair before he can protest and, zooming through the crowd of revellers, we exit into the dark, snowy night.