Devil's Food Cake [✓]

49 | short-sighted

Jonny asked for my phone calmly and went to the other room.

'What are you doing?' I opened the door tentatively. His back was towards me.

'His name isn't on here.' He swivelled around with such force that I flinched as though I'd been hit.

'Um. Are you going to be angry at him? Because that's not going to placate the situation...' I felt as though I'd morphed into my mother at that moment, except she would have known exactly how to calm my father down.

I was close to crying — I didn't like to see him upset.

He was being so calm that it was unsettling. Like anyone who worked in a customer service position, I'd had a fair few people scream at me for weird reasons like there wasn't enough sprinkles on a cake or they wanted a free cake because someone had knocked the box out of their hand on the street. In those situations I had to focus on the present and not try to do anything to provoke them further, but it was tough.

I was lucky that I had such supportive coworkers who covered for me. Jonny had been such a help on one of those occasions. I remembered the time where I had been knocked off balance by a woman blaming me for a cake that had too much coffee when she had had it explained to her orally and visually that it was CHOCOLATE ESPRESSO CAKE. Still, I couldn't help being upset that I'd upset the customer. Placing an arm around my shoulder, Jonny had reassured me that it was on the customer's head, 'Plus, she's just jealous of your 'Hello Kitty' top'. He'd looked approvingly at the cat beaming across my chest.

'Stop it!' He succeeded in getting me to giggle. He suggested I offer the customer the chocolate cake instead as a replacement. The woman was surprisingly satisfied when I gave it to her.

'How did you know she would like that one?' I'd asked him as we stood by the counter, people watching and generally chatting about nothing in particular as it was a slow period that Sunday afternoon.

'Short-sightedness and selective hearing. She was looking for chocolate all this time.' Jonny glanced at the woman and then looked at me with a smile.

I followed his example and looked at the woman. She had got out her proscription glasses and was currently glaring at the headline on the newspaper.

That was my Eureka moment.

'Oh,' I said simply. There were still things I had yet to learn — especially when it came to how Jonny dealt with The Zachary question.

'What did you list him under?' Jonny demanded, snapping me out of my thoughts.

'Dracula,' I said miserably.

'Yeah, he's a parasite, all right.' Shaking his head, he laughed a bit, as though he couldn't believe he was in this situation. I did feel a lot of sympathy for him. I'd spent a few days blaming myself. I knew what I'd done was wrong. A part of me felt relieved that I'd admitted it to him. I didn't think I could hold it in any longer and he had offered the opportunity, so I'd taken it, prepared to accept the consequences that befell me.

We waited for Zachary to pick up the phone; even though I didn't want Jonny to call him, I realised that he was the type who had to sort out conflict while it was still fresh. Stopping him would have been a completely useless exercise.

'Hello. I heard from my girlfriend — note the word 'girlfriend' — that you attempted to kiss her. That's not exactly 'friendly' behaviour now, is it?'

I placed my palm to my mouth and winced at the mixture of hurt and anger in Jonny's tone.

Humiliation was crawling over me like a million ants; I was in acute pain.

'How can you say 'these things happen'? That is a disgusting justification. Absolutely disgusting!'

Jonny was shaking his head as though he despaired of meeting someone so vile.

Just as I was about to move towards the door, my boyfriend furiously motioned for me to sit back down. I didn't have much of a choice. The tears were pricking at my eyelids. This wasn't supposed to be easy, but I felt as if I were being punished for something that I hadn't initiated. I couldn't really bare Jonny thinking badly off me in that moment, even though his feelings were completely justified.

'Listen here, if you try pulling a similar stunt again, I'm sure she won't be interested, no matter how many times you try to get in her pants.'

I was crying now. The tears were running down my face with alarming consistency.

'Yes, she's here with me now. No, no! YOU CAN'T SPEAK TO HER! YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK TO HER AFTER — HELLO? HELLO?' After a few seconds, Jonny threw his hands up in the air as though he had given up on Zachary.

And it appeared on us.

He approached me and gave me back my phone. When I looked up at him, his eyes were soft and misty. He looked as if he was close to crying.

'I hate that spoilt rich bastard,' he seethed, as he dashed out of the room. A few seconds later, I heard his flat door slam.

Wretched and mortified, it was the loneliest I'd ever felt.

Minutes went by like sand running through an hourglass. My heart felt like it was going to explode in my chest. I heard my notifications ping on my phone and even though I didn't want to even look, I did so. It might have been from my mum or dad, but, to my surprise, it was from Zachary.

Great idea, Candice. Thanks for letting your bf know everything that goes on between us. I'm sure you're feeling like a real goody-two-shoes right now. Pat yourself on the back. —Z

It was my turn to be angered by him — I was tempted to write him an equally catty remark, but I switched my phone off instead and got my bag and denim jacket and left Jonny's apartment, perhaps for the last time.