Eight years ago now.
Eight years ago now I was – at least so I thought – in love. Her name was Sarah, she was beautifully awkward and awkwardly beautiful. At least that’s how it felt at the time.
We’d met online and had rich, deep conversations online and in person. The kind that fill one’s head with fire; fire of excitement not rage.
I thought we’d get married. She already was. To someone else. Just weeks after we’d met online. She never mentioned this. I found out from my cousin who bizarrely – it turned out – had gone to her school.
Heartache. At least it felt like it.
Regardless I’d been on other dates, even online ones. A previous online encounter, attempted at least, ended in me spending the morning aimlessly wandering around Blenheim Palace. She’d never been. We decided to be old fashioned, or stupid, and did not exchange telephone numbers. I went to one entrance, she went to another. We both opted to pay after waiting for an hour or so. As we looked for one another she got chatting to the falconry guy. They fell in love. We never met.
Of course with online dating it is usual to be talking to more than one person at once. After Sarah I’d had enough. I said this to my mother who encouraged me to give ‘second best’ a chance. “You’ve not had a serious relationship in a while” she said. She was right. Thus I followed her advice.
Second best was desperate to meet me. She suggested getting a hotel for the night. I knew this was not me but I was hurt and wanted to break free of myself, what my mother calls “the all new over-thinking” me. She blames this on my Theology degree that I was awarded from Oxford University.
I took the train to Banbury and she met me in her car. She was not particularly attractive to me but she had want in her eyes. I needed to be wanted. She drove for a bit, touching my leg with one hand as she glanced at me intermittently. Soon we were pulled over and in some wild passionate embrace. It was awkward in a small car and nothing really happened. When we reached the hotel she was grabbing me and kissing me. I asked her to stop as I was worried what the hotel staff might say. We got a room.
The following day I was stood up for coffee by a close friend in Chipping Norton. Second best called and said a client at the health spa where she worked had recommended an art exhibition at Compton Verney. I’d never been, so again I traveled to Banbury and we went together.
This, of course, was the start of the manipulation. She had no interest in art but she knew I did. I’m not even sure she fancied me but I had my own property and a decent job and she could probably see the tears behind my eyes. No way was I going to turn down her advances. Not in that state of perpetual loneliness.
Before long we were officially dating. Some of my family hated her, some made huge effort to accept what she was.
She started spending more time in my home, one that I shared with my best friend, my sister.
Tensions mounted.
We had an allocated parking space, just one. Second best would scream and shout if ever my sister parked in it. She had dozens of jobs that she kept leaving, sometimes even pretending to go to work but actually spend that time driving around, even meeting other men. I funded her habits all the while becoming more reclusive and feeling helpless. I fought her battles for wages owed from employers she’d abused. Numerous times I was forced to ask her to leave my home. Her abusive attitude toward my sister, her unpredictable outbursts. Hours later when she phoned me in tears I’d let her back. Eventually she did leave, though this she was my sister. She’d had enough.
Like many other friendships, that one will never be what it once was. Other friends were bullied, taunted, stalked, abused. I met one for coffee one lunchtime in town. Second best showed up and attacked us as we walked through a crowded street. Sometimes the police turned up to drop her off. Sometimes the police let me know they’d taken her to her mother’s house.
We didn't really do holidays. It was too risky. At times we were in her car and she’d suddenly decide I deserved to die. She swerves the vehicle to the edges of the road, frightfully over-looking deep-drop woodland. Other times she’d erratically speed up and brake on busy roads. We had three accidents due to this. During one, Oxford’s oldest ironmonger’s (now closed) ploughed in to the back of us on a dual carriageway. On two occasions I leapt from her car onto the grass verge – preferable to remaining in the vehicle with her.
Alone with Second best my world fell apart, she was aggressive, irrational and scary. I was worried to close my eyes in case the ‘mild’ abuse became something more sinister. I valued my life a lot, even if I failed to carry that through every day.
I started drinking red wine and sleeping on the floor or sofa. Between jobs, which was most of the time, she accommodated the main bedroom. If I tried to deal with her she self harmed. It wasn’t a mental illness though it was pure manipulation. People told me but I guess I’m a nice guy. An idiot. A nice guy.
I’m at work and the phone rings. She’s taken a load of pills and then Tweeted what she has done. Somehow Twitter knew where I lived and conveniently the door was unlocked when the paramedics arrived. I went to see her in the hospital, visiting my mother first to weep in her arms.
She was elusive in the ward. Nurses stood around us. I felt like a criminal for the very first time.
When I left I went to a locksmith and changed the door lock at home. That night she left the hospital at 2am. She told no-one. I let her in and gave her new keys. Police arrived that night demanding to see her. She crawled out of bed to tell them she was okay. Feeling like a criminal. Again.
Weeks later I asked her to leave due to her attitude. My sister was home and Second best was going crazy. I asked for the keys back and she said she didn’t have them and that they were on the bed. They were not.
I went back outside and lent on her car door. I asked her to lower the window and she did. Then she put her foot on the accelerator and zoomed off. I fell to the concrete ground destroying my face. In good news I was born with cleft lip and palate so the stitches happily matched up with the existing scar. Explaining this at work was difficult. I lied, of course. The hospital had questioned me quite severely about the injuries, but they couldn’t make me talk.
My sister’s car was at the garage, my face covered in blood. My sister called Second best and asked her to come back and take me to the hospital – she refused but came back anyway. Second best sat separately from us at the hospital, and as soon as I was ‘mended’ she left and drove home without us.
When I first met Second best she had thousands of pounds of debt. Her father was severely disabled after a motorbike accident and debt collectors were arriving at her family home. I worked with debtors on her behalf, arranging payback plans and paying them off myself. While I did this she frequently signed up for new credit, unbeknownst to me. A vicious circle.
From our early days she claimed she had been drowned and raped by a former partner. The story never sounded the same twice but somehow it didn’t matter did it? How about when I got home to hear her on the phone with this man, asking him why he refused to take her back?
With the relationship between my sister and me sadly strained my mother suggested her and me join them in Scotland for a week, a bonding exercise. I left Second best, with the kitten she had adopted, in my home.
Hours into the drive she called alleging she’d gone for a walk – she walked nowhere – and had been given another cat in a carrier bag by a vagrant who scurried off before she could refuse it. This cat actually came from a rescue centre. I spent much of my holiday on the phone being eaten by midges and dealing with the police, animal sanctuary and my brother, who I’d had to ask for help. The kitten we owned was refusing to eat and in hiding. Eventually the ‘new’ cat went back to whence he came. Holiday ruined…for everyone.
At my work Xmas meal she stood outside the venue; repeatedly texting and calling to ask why she wasn’t invited. Nothing was sacred anymore. Not even work.
Sleeping alone; staying at work to avoid the house, feeling depleted I had virtually given up on any actual life.
Then…
Then I walked into the road without looking. It’s wasn’t deliberate. I was tired and out of sync with the world around me. A stranger grabbed my arm and held me back. Her name was Layla. Apparently.
Over the next few weeks we met at lunchtimes in the local churchyard. Ate lunch, chatted. She said I seemed trapped. I was.
Our first proper evening spent together we met at The Rusty Bicycle pub in Oxford. She was wearing red, a little flustered from work. I’d been there in good time to avoid such fluster and to deal with my nervous confusion over what I was doing.
The first thing I said when Layla arrived was “Oh is it Comic Relief” instantly followed by “Sorry that was crass”. Somehow it broke the ice sublimely. We spent several hours together; following this with drinks at The Magdalen Arms, a pub near her bus stop. As we waited for her bus, me sat down within the shelter, her stood between my knees… She moved in for a kiss. I held her hips, then buttocks and pulled her closer. Looking into my eyes, “This is rubbish”, she said, I answered “I know”…
For the first time in forever, I really did.