When one of my flat mates, Josie, asks if I'm coming out tonight and I shake my head, I notice the look of pity in her eyes. It's the same one everyone's been giving me in the past two weeks.
I don't blame them, really. I've not sat around the cramped kitchen table with them to eat our nutritious student meals of Pot Noodles, beans on toast or McDonalds like usual. Instead, I take my food to my room. I'm less of a flatmate, more of a lodger.
When I Skyped my Mum a few days ago, the concern in her voice was clear as she asked if I'm still keeping up with my work. She doesn't have to worry; it's all I do recently. I immerse myself in books and essays and research. It's tedious sometimes, but far better than the alternative.
I try my hardest not to look at the empty patches on the pin board on my wall - the spaces which used to hold blurry Polaroids of our grinning faces; souvenirs from dates; notes scribbled in your messy handwriting. Initially, I threw them in my waste paper bin. But Josie spotted them and got them out, saying she'd keep them in her room in case I want them sometime.
When she'd shut my door I screamed into my pillow until my throat was raw.
The empty spaces on the pin board seem to loom over me as I sit down at my desk. I tear a sheet of paper from a notebook and grab a pen.
I'm not sure how to open the letter - dear? hi? There's no protocol on how to regard your ex-boyfriend. Ex. Funny how just two letters can make me feel sick as I swallow around the lump in my throat. Eventually, I decide that we're beyond the point of needing an introduction and just cut straight to the point.
I still love you.
I don't care about distance or schedules or practicalities. I still love you. Shouldn't that be enough?
Also, fuck you. Fuck you for not fighting for us, fuck you for making me feel like this.
I don't know how to be your ex-girlfriend. That's not how we work.
I meant it every time I said I loved you; always have, always will.
It goes on, an incoherent jumble of thoughts and feelings poured out onto the page until I can't write anymore.
