After You

Chapter Thirty-five - Wasting my Young Years

"What are you doing? Waiting for Prince Charming to sweep you off your feet, 2.4 kids and all?
This is your life, Merry. How do you want to spend it?
With the man you love, or waiting for something you might never find?"
- Rhys

It was day five without seeing Jude. We'd exchanged a few text messages; awkwardly formal and tentative. He obviously didn't know where he stood with me, and in truth, I didn't either. I loved him, but was that enough to give up on everything else I'd hoped for in life? Was Jude Jackson, the occasional visit from his sons, and my career, going to be enough for me? I'd loved you utterly. You were everything I'd ever wanted in a man, but even with you, children had been important to me. We'd been happy on our own; we worked, we had the club, but once I'd secured the promotion to Events Manager at the hotel, and the novelty of being the decision maker had worn off, I'd realised that I needed more.

More than glancing kisses in the hallway when one of us was on the way out. More than just nights out with friends, or the occasional dinner date. What did we talk about when we sat in those candle-lit restaurants together? Work. The Club. Our friends. Our favourite TV shows. Those were the same conversations we had at home. We might have been wearing nicer clothes, sat at a different table, eating fancier food, but we still talked about the same things, day in, day out. I'd still felt the need for some form of progression; to work towards something, so that in five or ten years' time, we wouldn't still be doing the exact same things; wouldn't still be having the exact same conversations.

I'd wanted children. I'd liked the idea of the rollercoaster ride; the inevitability of everything in our lives changing. I'd needed the promise of children, despite loving you more than I'd ever loved anyone in my life. How could I compromise and ignore my maternal instincts for Jude, when I hadn't been able to do it for you? And he'd said no to marriage; that hurt me. It annoyed me. I understood his reticence to have more children. There was his age to consider, his boys, our finances (because we'd need a three bed place, at least). But marriage? If you loved someone, why not get married?

I felt as though it should have mattered to him, because he knew it mattered to me. I felt as though I deserved something from him if he was expecting me to slot myself into his ready-made life. That he refused to even consider it, made me feel as though I'd always be playing second fiddle to his sons. If what I wanted - whether it be children, a holiday, or to stay living in north London - didn't suit his kids, he'd say "no". Perhaps that meant he was a good father? Perhaps that was how a man was supposed to behave when he had children? I didn't know, but what I did know was that a future with Jude Jackson - for all that I loved him - would involve compromises I'd never have wanted or needed to make for you.

My indecision about our relationship meant that I fobbed Jude off with vague text messages, and taking the hint, he gave me space so that I could spend the week feeling sorry for myself. My mood was bleak, and I'd been stressed and short tempered with everyone at work for days. Poor Ellie - always sweet and bubbly - had tried to lift my spirits with salacious hotel gossip, but it didn't work, because Jude and I had reached an impasse. How could I be happy giving up on all the life plans I'd made for myself in my early twenties? How could things which has been so important to me little more than a year ago - being a wife and mother - now be so easily cast aside?

I was faced with a conundrum which only a best friend could help to solve, but Tabby was on the other side of the world and even though she was only a Skype call away, she'd blacklisted Jude the moment he'd dumped me to go back to his wife. She's never have been objective.