Day One: We Need to Talk
About five minutes after I finish my final schoolwork, he says it: We need to talk.
I look at him in shock. I'm no fun anymore, apparently, and he wants out. No fun anymore? I've just finished my MA! He looks at his feet and I realise that's half the problem: he's been waiting for me to finish this MA forever, waiting and waiting for the right time, never wanting to upset me in the middle of it all. How could I not have noticed? I guess I was obsessed with my school-work — obsessed with myself — I mean, I knew he hadn't been sleeping well recently, but... this? He nods; he never sleeps well when he's upset. But I thought he'd been stressing about work; not fretting over ending two-and-a-half years of relationship.
I spend the whole night awake. It's funny that he "never sleeps well when he's upset", because that night, for the first time in a long time, he sleeps like a rock over on the other side of the bed.
Day Two: No Fun Anymore
The next morning I feel sick with dread, my stomach full of bugs. How long is this going to last? Let's give it til the end of the summer, I say. Now that I've finished my exams and stuff I'll probably be more... fun?
He looks at me with eyes that say: If that's what you want, Annie, then that's what we'll do, because I'd do anything right now to make this whole thing less painful for you. But you know it just means we'll have to go through it all again in August, right?
Right. I know it's over — I'm not stupid — but I don't care. I want to drag it out, anyway, make this whole thing as difficult as possible, and so we agree to spend the weekend together. That night I am the most fun person in the whole of fucking Dublin. I am crazy! I am crazy fun! I meet up with my classmates to celebrate the end of term: I drink neat vodka, I head-bang across the dancefloor, and I laugh a little longer and a little louder than is really necessary. By the time he turns up I am the most fun person you ever met in your life. I am a manic dog. It is horrible and awful and depressing.
Day Three: I Will Never be a Google Wife
We pretend to be normal and go to a barbecue in the suburbs, where the women talk about children and the men talk about robots. And not even interesting robots, with arms and legs and stuff, but the kind of robots that do things only geeks understand. The suburbs have always felt like a weird mix of claustrophobia and agoraphobia, and I spend the afternoon trying to keep my head from imploding. I will never be a Google Wife, I think, feeling strangely relieved for the first time in days.
Day Four: I Move Out
My friends Jenna and Manus (or "Jannus" as I like to call them when I'm not snotting all over my jumper) come to help me move my stuff out. Jenna is annoyingly tea-total, so helping me move is the least she can do. Is this all you've got? she asks, eyeing my bike and my one tiny backpack. I know! I wail. I'm like the littlest hobo!
As we leave Dublin, on the way to my new "home" in County Wicklow, I talk of revenge and wonder how quickly I'll be able to sleep with someone else. Rebound already? asks Manus. Don't you feel like wallowing in it a bit first?
Day Five: I Wallow In It
I'm miserable that he isn't miserable anymore: he's happier than he has been in weeks. God, this is almost as bad as my first break-up, only now I feel old, on top of everything else. My clothes are horrible and I've forgotten how to flirt. It irritates me that he'll probably sleep with someone else before I do. I take all the pictures I ever took of him off of Facebook.
Day Six: What About the Babies?
I was supposed to be having babies with him eventually. In my secret long-term plan I was going to give birth to his sprogs (twins, for economical reasons) and then give them to his mother to look after while I strolled around the world making movies, knowing they'd be there for me should I ever feel like coming home. Although, when I'd told Jenna this some months ago, I also voiced a concern that his mom was perhaps too nice, and maybe my kids wouldn't grow up to be "edgy" enough. But Jenna reassured me that if I abandoned my babies to flit around the globe they'd turn out more than edgy enough. And then she suggested that perhaps having children with his mom wasn't the best idea I've ever had, anyway.
Day Seven: I Come to My Senses
I know, in my heart of hearts, that he was never The One. We lacked a fundamental connection that I'd been sweeping under the carpet since day one. Whenever I'd looked to the distant future, leaning out of the kitchen window with my binoculars, I saw a guy making puppets, or a film, or interesting robots with arms and legs. Someone who doesn't understand html — doesn't even know what it stands for — and doesn't need to parade me around in a tiny dress on a Saturday night to find me amusing.
It dawns on me that we had absolutely nothing in common — nothing! — and while we could brush that off for a while and hope for the best, there's only so long you can go before the other one realises hey, hang on a minute, you're no fun.
Day Eight: My Bloody, Wounded Heart
None of these realisations change the fact that I have been DUMPED. Why couldn't I have done it first? Why oh why oh why? I can't bear the pain of rejection, that I am not good enough, that nobody wants me. I can't bear it. He was supposed to be the one nuts about me — I was always more dismissive, no? It doesn't seem that long ago that I was breaking up with him — we're too different, I'd shrugged — and he was the one walking around with a bloody, wounded heart — oh happy days!
I always knew it would come to an end, I wail to my friend Cathy, who works for The Samaritans and never judges me. But I always thought it would be on my own terms! Arrfgh, I have been DUMPED and REJECTED and I can't BEAR it.
Day Nine: I Start to Get My Sense of Humour Back
Have I lost my sense of humour since being with him? I quickly check through my blonk for chronological evidence. YES! It's true, all my funniest posts are pre-boyfriend. It's just that he's so earnest, and I had to keep my best jokes to myself in case I offended him. God. I vow to make fun of the next disadvantaged person I see. And by "disadvantaged" I mean the kind of people who think stupid haircuts make them more interesting, not, like, disabled people or anything. Though obviously at this stage everybody's fair game, I think to myself glumly.
Day Ten: I Go Surfing
Come to Cork, says Eavan. Come and stay in my new house by the sea and we'll go surfing. I've got no furniture yet but I'll buy an airbed, I promise.
I quite like the thought of running away to Cork to stay in an empty house. We can camp out in the living room drinking rum in the candlelight like we used to do in Iceland. I like the thought of staying in an empty house, I sniffle, pathetically. It'll be empty like my soul!
And then I start to giggle a bit at my own joke, even though it wasn't particularly funny, and I know that everything is going to be okay.
