Hi! Thank you for reading! It's nearly Christmas! I hope everyone is safe and well!
Christmas Eve 8:45 p.m.
"My bladder is so full of vodka and Diet Coke, but I don't want to walk past Robert to get to the bathroom," I moan to Tobias.
"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 Chicago, Illinois."
I raise an eyebrow. "Handsome, yes. But I wouldn't say hot."
"Ouch." Tobias frowns. "I thought my flirting was very hot."
"Fake flirting."
"Whatever."
"I'm going for a pee now."
"So, go."
"I'm going."
"Good."
"Good."
I stand up from the chair and, trying not to sway with tipsiness, I do as Tobias said. I hold my head up high and walk past Robert 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 Tobias a dirty look for the bad advice, to which he laughs and gives me two thumbs up.
Once I'm done in the restroom, I walk back out through the wallpapered corridor towards the main pub and there, blocking the doorway, smiling at me as if we'd never been apart, is Robert.
"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 puffer 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 and crushed that I wasn't enough for him?
"Good morning, Robert," I say very professionally, before realizing that it's the evening and I am a knucklehead.
"Good morning, Bee."
My heart lurches at the use of his stupid 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 Robert blocks my way and I sort of bump into him, chest to chest.
"Let me out, Robert," 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.
Robert 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 realize what he's just said. Robert seems to realize 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.
Robert 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."
Robert 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!"
Robert 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 clean. To not feel like the bad guy. The cheater. On Christmas Day, no less!"
Robert 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 apologize 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 slap it away.
"Oww!"
I stare hard at Robert's beautiful face and it occurs to me that he is a dirtbag 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 realize 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 favor. 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, Robert. Now get the fuck out of my way."
"Tris, come on. I was a fool back then."
"And an even bigger one now! Move!"
Shaking his head forlornly, Robert steps aside.
I push open the door to the pub area, but before I walk away, I turn back and look him up and down.
I watch his face fall while he considers his stupid mistake and feel a bloom of happiness inside my chest. Robert is a dick. He was always a dick, and I was so blinded by emotion that I didn't see it until right now. This feels like closure. It's a miracle. A Christmas miracle!
Before Robert 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 Robert 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. Robert 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 Forever 21."
"Cool! Bye!" I spin on my heel and hurry over to Tobias, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Christina is making out with someone 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 gulp down the last of my drink, wiping my mouth with my hand. "We have to go now," I say. I grab Tobias' wheelchair before he can protest and, zooming through the crowd of revellers, we exit into the dark, snowy night.