The Reunion

around her waist, she would see a tattoo. A small dark Arabic character, an ill-advised purchase on a holiday to Marrakech. Not Conor’s pale, untouched flesh. She didn’t want to look. She scarcely allowed herself to breathe. She opened her eyes. Her robe was on the floor. She pushed Dan’s arm away, slipped out of bed, grabbed the robe and pulled it around her shoulders. She left the room as quickly and quietly as she could, closing the door behind her, not once looking back.
    She ran upstairs and into the bathroom, locking the door behind her, and sat down on the loo. She wanted to cry, she wanted to be sick, she wanted to hurt herself, to cut herself with something, to feel something other than this disgust with herself, this awful shame. The tears didn’t come, the nausea didn’t subside, but she didn’t actually throw up. She just sat there, holding herself, digging her fingernails into the tops of her arms until she drew blood.
    When she’d gone downstairs last night, what she was doing hadn’t seemed so wrong. She knew she was being reckless, but somehow she’d managed to convince herself that it wasn’t so terrible, one night spent with a friend to whom she had this powerful, undeniable attraction, a man who in different circumstances might have been so much more to her. She’d persuaded herself that in some way she owed it to herself, this moment of recklessness: it would set her mind at rest, she wouldn’t worry so much that she was missing out. She persuaded herself that in the end it would strengthen her relationship with Conor.
    Thinking about that almost made her gag – she’d somehow managed to tell herself that Conor would be better off as a result of this betrayal. She was stupid and hateful. She’d ruined everything. How could she look at Conor again knowing what she’d done last night? How could she touch him, how could she sleep with him without him feeling it, without tasting treachery in every kiss. She dug her fingernails in harder, squeezed her eyes shut until, finally, tears came, sobs sticking in her throat, choking her.
    There was a gentle tap at the door.
    ‘Jen?’
    ‘Please go away.’
    ‘It’s OK. It’ll be OK. I’m sorry, Jen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…’
    ‘Just leave me alone, Dan, please.’ He was in their room. The man she’d slept with last night was at that very moment standing outside the door, in
their
bedroom. ‘Go away!’
    She listened to his footsteps retreat and felt even worse. How could she let him apologise to her? It was all her fault. How could she shout at him, tell him to go away when he tried to offer her kindness? She got up and splashed water on her face, trying not to focus on how bloody awful she looked, her face red and blotchy from crying, shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep, her lips still stained dark red from last night’s wine. She brushed her teeth and ran a comb through her hair. She took a deep breath and unlocked the door.
    Downstairs, Dan was in the kitchen, spooning coffee into the cafetière. When he heard her behind him, he turned and wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the temple.
    ‘It’s OK, Jen.’
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s not OK. It’ll never be OK.’ She was stiff as a board, her hands by her side, balled into fists. She wished that she couldn’t feel the muscles in his arms, she wished she couldn’t smell him, feel the warmth of his skin. She had the strongest memory of the night before, how it had felt to be with him, how good it had felt, how much better than anything she’d ever felt before. Her stomach flipped, she could feel her colour, her temperature rising.
    ‘You have to go,’ she said softly. ‘Please. I’m sorry, but you have to go. I don’t… I can’t even talk about it. I can’t be here with you, I can’t. I can’t.’
    ‘Can I have a cup of coffee first?’ he asked.
    They stood side by side in the kitchenette, sipping their coffee. His hand was on the counter, next to hers, they were almost touching. If she stretched out her little finger, she could loop it over his. The silence grew, it expanded until it filled the room, filled the flat, the silence was everything.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jen said, when she couldn’t bear it a second longer. ‘That was horrible of me, my reaction. It’s not… you know. It’s not that I regret it. I mean, I do regret it, but not because it wasn’t, you know, good or anything. It was good. I