Читать книгу The Park Bench Test - Sarah Lefebve - Страница 17

“Jim’s split up with me,” Emma tells me the next day, when I phone her during my lunch break.

“He doesn’t love me,” she sobs down the phone. “He says he thinks the world of me, that I’m one of the loveliest people he’s ever met, and that he wishes he could fall in love with me. But that he just hasn’t and doesn’t think he ever will.”

Ouch.

“He says it’s not me, it’s him,” she says, her tone revealing exactly what she thinks of this particular explanation. “He says I am fabulous and that any man would be lucky to have me. Just not him, obviously. Oh B, what am I going to do?”

“You’ll meet someone else,” I reassure her. “You always do.”

“But I don’t want anybody else. I want Jim. I love him.”

“Really?” I ask. She said she really liked him but she’s never mentioned love. “Do you really love him, Em?”

“Yes. No. Oh, I don’t know,” she says. “I guess I just hoped he was Mr Right.”

But Emma doesn’t believe in Mr Right…

“But you don’t believe in Mr Right…”

“Maybe I do. Oh I don’t know. I just really liked him, B. He’s lovely. He makes me laugh. He makes me smile. Made me smile. And he was so bloody good in bed,” she adds, an afterthought that is followed by a fresh wave of sobs.

“Anyway, you rang me,” she says, composing herself with a big snort. “Was there a reason or did you just phone for a chat?”

“Alex asked me to marry him,” I tell her. “And I said no,” I add quickly, before she rushes to congratulate me.

Silence. And then…

“Oh my god B. I can’t believe it. And you let me go on and on about Jim!”

“That’s okay. You’re upset. I understand that.”

“But B. Oh my god. Are you okay? I didn’t think you were being serious the other day. I thought it was just a phase. I thought you really loved him.”

“I did love him. I do love him. Just not enough to marry him. Not enough to know I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”

“Well if that’s how you really feel then I guess you’ve done the right thing. But blimey, I still can’t believe you let me go on about Jim for so long.”