Lost Loves
Was she ill? When she spotted her ex, she’d expected a few dull pangs at least. But she felt nothingÉ
She remembered the oil and grease and some very dirty showers
Taking a detour to an out-of-town shopping park had been a bad idea. Sophie spotted Jake, her ex-boyfriend, three aisles down in a supermarket she never normally used. She waited for feelings of pain and regret to well in her chest, for all the ifs, buts and maybes to storm into her mind along with images of the house they’d never lived in and the blonde, cherub-like children they’d never had.
She’d thought from the moment they’d met six years ago he was ‘the one’. They’d bumped into each other at a party. He’d grinned, she’d smiled – and that was that. ‘You’re meant for each other,’ her friends had told her. They’d spent two years together until they’d parted when she was 22.
Now, she bustled past a shelf full of cough syrup trying to avoid him. He looked just the same – spiky hair, tanned skin, the same grungy dress sense.
Her brow creased. She glanced back to the medicines. ‘Am I ill?’ she thought. ‘I expected a few dull pangs at least, but I feel nothing.’
She skirted back around the baked beans and down by the cereal, just so she could give her ex another fly-past.
He’d accused her of being ‘clingy’ when he dumped her. She’d cried every night for a fortnight afterwards. Her eyes had turned so red she’d gone to the doctors for some drops. She’d lost a stone. The skintight jeans she wore hung from her hips. Her pixie haircut and mahogany tan made her look withered and old. She’d felt her mind turning to dust, books felt too heavy to lift, the plots of TV programmes seemed too complicated to unravel.
She’d stare into her mirror, sure her reflection would be missing; sure she was a ghost. All her friends said, “There’s plenty more fish in the sea.”
Now, she shot past tills numbers one and two, her basket swinging. Inside lay fruit and veg and a bag of brown rice. She positioned herself right behind him at checkout number three.
She’d forgotten how tall he was. She remembered the heels she’d worn so she’d appear lofty, too. She saw the single diamond stud in his ear. She’d worn one just the same. She’d worn dog tags round her neck under her clothes like him and dyed her spiky hair his shade of rusty blonde.
‘I worshipped you,’ she thought. ‘I really did feel the two of us becoming one.’
He turned. He smiled, then his face dropped. “Oh, my God, Emma! I didn’t recognise you.” ‘It’s Sophie, actually.’
‘Oh, sorry. That’s right.’ If he’d tripped over her name years ago, she’d have blamed herself. ‘I’m too ugly, too short, too fat. I need to change.’ Now, she straightened her back as his gaze raked over her.
‘So, what are you up to these days?’ he asked her.
‘Child-care. Actually, I part-own a nursery school.’
‘Wow, really?’ He pulled at his logo-embossed T-shirt, then swept a hand through his gelled hair. She’d run her fingers through that sticky mop when she was with him. ‘I’m still working at the garage.’
She remembered the oil and grease and some very dirty showers. She waited for her stomach to roil, her skin to tingle. She stared into his deep blue eyes. How many times had she longed for her own brown eyes to be so blue?
She watched him place his shopping on the conveyor belt. He’d always favoured meat pies and chocolate. She used to scoff down both, even though they made her stomach ache and her skin break out in spots. She used to drink the lager he liked when they went out. To her, it had tasted like a cross between 100-year-old cheddar and some old man’s rancid socks.
Jake grinned round at her once more, his eyes sweeping up then down. ‘Do you still go to the old places? The Mill
Inn? Huggers Night Club?’
She shook her head.
‘Still, we could hook up?’
She shrugged. ‘No, I’ve been there and done all that.’
‘Oh.’ His Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘OK.’
‘It’s true,’ she thought. ‘There’s nothing left between us but reflections of the past. We were mirror-images. Oh, I fought to be his carbon copy. Where did he end and I begin? Where did I disappear to?’
She watched him pay for his shopping. He smiled at her, said goodbye and wandered off. Not one single pang of regret…
She caught sight of herself in the mirrored side of a display of flowers at the other end of the shop. She studied her peachy-pale skin and brown curls. She wore restrained gold earrings and a mulberry-coloured coat over a black skirt.
Finally, her mind caught light like a firework and her heart started to pound. ‘I love who I am these days. I love my style. I have a gleam in my eye and I feel so confident.’
A hand touched her arm.
She glanced round. ‘Oh, there you are, Dan. Did you get what you wanted?’ She smiled at her husband as he held up a carrier bag. He’d done a little shopping of his own.
Never once had she needed to copy his love of the colour olive or wear shoes the way he did – always shades of brown.
They stood so close, yet they looked like what they were – two separate people.
‘I was lucky,’ she thought, as she kissed Dan’s cheek. ‘Being with Jake taught me a lesson about being myself, but I wonder how many other poor souls lose themselves in love… and are never seen again?’