Headphones in and with her phone and keys stashed in a pocket, Rachel set off. Jo Whiley’s voice instructed her to walk briskly for five minutes to warm up, then to alternate running and walking in short bursts. This, it turned out, was far tougher than it sounded.
There were several moments when Rachel feared she might vomit; still others when she contemplated giving up, going back to the flat and making a mound of peanut butter on toast. But despite the screaming of her lungs and the pounding of her heart, she kept going.
As she completed her final sprint, she felt incredible –invincible– even though her chest was on fire and her legs were leaden lumps. Perhaps all those people who ranted about endorphins and exercise had a point.
Rachel walked home a sweaty mess, feeling proud and strong and fervently wishing she could bottle the sensation. It might come in handy at work next week, she thought – or, at the very least, during her next conversation with her parents.
9
‘So come on, then – spill. Who dumped who?’
Rachel spluttered on a mouthful of cappuccino and swallowed it, too fast, in a bid to avoid spraying.
She didn’t know why she was surprised at Greg’s abruptness. When she’d walked into work this morning with a worse-than-usual case of the Monday blues, he’d been standing by her desk – loitering with intent. Before she’d even removed her coat, let alone docked her laptop, he’d steered her out of the building by the elbow and then round the corner into Java Jo’s.
Now, as the burn in her oesophagus subsided, Rachel considered how best to answer Greg’s question. She could try to reject the premise of it – claim outrage and rant that there was no reason for him to suppose she and Jack had ever been an item.
She cast this option aside immediately. While she was used to playing her cards close to her chest, she wasn’t a good enough liar to convince anyone with such a blatant fib – especially not someone who knew her as well as Greg did.
She sighed and resigned herself to giving him a slimmed-down version of events.
‘I dumped him,’ she said, trying to come off as indifferent and realising too late that she sounded more strained and sullen.
‘Because …?’ Greg demanded. ‘I’m sensing this wasn’t a “part ways but treasure the wonderful times you had together” break-up. The atmosphere between you last week was so tense I could have sliced it with a cricket stump.’
Rachel looked up in alarm. ‘Was it?’
‘Yes,’ Greg said, incredulous. ‘When I left you on the train together I felt like a UN peacekeeper abandoning a war zone. I was worried one of you might not make it back to Islington alive.’
‘Fuck,’ Rachel muttered. Her game face obviously needed work.
Greg eyed her beadily, though not without concern. His mouth was set in a flat, straight line and his eyes – usually bright and playful – were soft with sympathy.
‘I finished with him because I found out he’d slept with someone else,’ Rachel said. Greg whistled in dismay and shook his head, but she carried on before he could comment. ‘I saw them together, I should add – he didn’t tell me himself.’
‘Ugh,’ Greg moaned. ‘That is ROUGH. When was this?’
‘Right at the end of our final year at university – just as we’d started to make plans for staying together once we left.’
‘Ouch. No wonder you weren’t pleased to see him. When you’re hurt like that, it stays with you.’
Rachel felt a rush of affection for Greg – gratitude that he wasn’t trying to minimise the pain she’d felt simply because it wasn’t recent.
‘It does,’ Rachel said, suddenly aware that unburdening herself to someone new felt good. ‘I mean, I’ve moved on – I’m over it. It’s not as if I’ve been living like a nun for the past ten years. But what happened was pretty difficult to forgive and forget. I spotted him with his tongue down another woman’s throat on the morning of our graduation. I should have marched over and slapped him, but I didn’t. I panicked. I ran away. Then, about two hours later, we had to stand in line together to collect our degree certificates. Our families were supposed to have a posh lunch afterwards, for heaven’s sake. It was unbearable.’
Greg’s mouth had dropped open, but no words were coming out.
‘I had to make up an excuse for my parents – explain why they weren’t going to meet the boyfriend I’d spent months telling them about,’ Rachel explained. ‘It meant a lot to them, being there, and if I’d broken down I’d have ruined it … As soon as it was all over, I found Jack and finished with him. Then I moved down here. I hadn’t planned to, but my best friend asked if I wanted to come with her and it seemed like a smart way out. I didn’t want to be anywhere nearhimso I couldn’t stay up north, like I’d thought I would … And I couldn’t face going back to my parents’ house either.’
Stop, now, she told herself,before you say too much.
‘Ray, this really is the WORST,’ Greg said. ‘What happened on Friday after I was gone? Please tell me you kicked him in the nuts for old times’ sake.’
‘Well, we had words,’ she said with a hollow laugh. ‘I told him I wasn’t happy he’d blabbed that we knew each other. He apologised – for that and for everything else. Said he was ashamed of himself, insisted he’d changed, et cetera, et cetera.’
Rachel appreciated Greg’s derisive snort at this.
‘You’d have kept all this to yourself, then, if you’d had the choice?’ he asked. He sounded almost hurt.