The emptiness was overwhelming; I stood there, confused, afraid, hurt. Where had we gone wrong?
I did not know how to feel anymore, somehow things had got out of control and now Chris had walked out on me. In the sixteen years I had known Chris, I had seen him walk out on random people who bothered him, on journalists, on Guy but not on me, never on me.
He will come back, he just needs time.
I knew I had hurt him, but he had hurt me as well, why couldn’t he see that?
I sighed and climbed the stairs dejectedly, now that the adrenaline rush from the argument was over, I felt dizzy, my legs felt heavy and my throat felt as if I had eaten pieces of broken glass.
I shuffled to the bedroom without bothering to turn the lights on and sat heavily on our bed. Memories assaulted me, images of Chris and I cuddling, saying sweet things to each other came into my head, highlighting the huge contrast to the scene that had just taken place in our living room.
I had wanted Chris to know, to realise what he had been doing, but I had never wanted to argue. We had had our disagreements through the years, mostly about work-related issues, or me complaining he left a mess everywhere and him asking me to be spontaneous, less structured. However, we had never really had a row like this one. I glanced around the room, even in the dim light that made its way through the window it was possible to see the objects, the outline of a guitar, a picture that captured a happy moment, our very first platinum album, an old hoodie worn by either of us on a chair, a painting that had captivated us in one of our trips; it was full of our things, our history.
What now?
I lay down and snuggled under the duvet finding little comfort in its warmth. Why had this happened? Why had he done it? Why had he ever had the nerve to deny it? It was so obvious.
I’m an idiot.
He must thought it too since he expected me to believe they had just been performing, and he had admitted fancying her.
My mind was working overdrive, analysing everything again, every tiny bit of conversation. I wasn’t being unreasonable; I had a right to feel this way.
Oh, God. How would I face the guys tomorrow? They had surely noticed. If not, I was sure their wives had seen the ceremony. I imagined them pitying me, or worse, thinking I did not deserve Chris.
“With all the beautiful women swooning for him around the world, he settled for an average chubby bloke, what a waste,” I had heard that phrase from the mouth of some so-called fans while I waited, being completely unrecognised, for our security to let me in the O2 Arena when we played there for our Viva La Vida Tour. I had not been that bothered by it at the time, for Chris and I had been on one of our best moments in our relationship and I hadn’t been the fittest of men but I was not overweight. I had just thought, “Fuck you! Look who’s with him.”
Four years later, that phrase had come back to haunt me and it stung my already bruised self-esteem.
I had not been able to keep him interested in me.
He had indeed searched the attention of a beautiful lady, what we had had apparently not been enough, I had not been enough. He was completely infatuated with her.
Well, that’s no excuse! He’s not single! He shouldn’t have done that!
What if it was true, though? I miserably thought. What if he had lost interest in me? If he…if he did not love me anymore?
My breath hitched in my throat, he had not told me so. “What kind of person do you think I am? I thought you knew me better than that,” he had said. He had denied cheating, but he had not said “Jonny, I would never do that. Don’t you know how much I love you?” He had not told me that he loved me.
