Love Is a State of Mind: Nobody's Life is Perfect Read Online Free

kind of response from me – but what can you say to someone who says, I’ve fallen in love with someone else ?  It’s so honest, so straightforward … so truthful … so final.  That’s why I walked away.  What could I say?
    He came back, six hours later.  God knows where he’d gone in the interval.  He didn’t smell of alcohol, so he hadn’t gone to the pub to drown his sorrows.  Maybe he went straight round to Suzie’s and said, ‘ Well, I’ve done it.  I’ve told her.  Can I come round tonight?  I don’t think I’ll be very welcome at home, any more .’
    Anyway, he came quietly back through the door.  I was in the kitchen, staring unseeingly at the television.  Some hilarious programme was on, where they show clips of people falling over on dance-floors or hurtling down hills on bikes and crashing into trees, or water-skiers, out of control – it can really make me laugh sometimes.
    When I heard the front door open, my heart began to race.  I didn’t know what I was going to say to him, but I knew I had to say something .
    I couldn’t just let him walk away from our marriage, could I?
    I didn’t move.  He wandered into the kitchen without saying anything and stood by the sink, looking out into the garden.  The silence between us was like a presence in the room; it prowled around like a black cat, twisting itself around the table legs.
    I’m not going to be the one to break the silence, I thought to myself.
    “What do you want me to do?” he said, slowly turning to face me.
    Well, I thought, that’s a strange question … what could I say? 
    “Do you still love me?” I said, not knowing why I said it; it came from nowhere.
    “Of course I do – you’re the mother of my children – I’ll always love you.  But … this is different … this is …” He ran his fingers through his still abundant hair.  “This is … completely different.”
    “How?  Tell me …”
    “It’s like ... we’re soul mates.  She understands me.  She ‘gets’ me.” 
    With wonderful comic timing, there was a burst of canned laughter from the television set.
    “What … I don’t ‘get’ you?  After all these years?”
    “I don’t know, it’s like I’ve met the other half of me .  When I’m with her, I feel completely happy.” He was now facing me and came towards me and stood to the side of the TV, trying to make me see him.
    This was getting worse.  He was explaining, but with every sentence he was making me feel more … worthless.
    “Well, it sounds wonderful,” I said, “for YOU.  It sounds like love’s young dream, like Brief Fucking Encounter, like Brad and Fucking Angelina.  But for ME, it’s truly, fucking shit … TRULY, FUCKING SHIT,” I found myself shouting.  I was also, without realising it, now standing and poking him in the chest, with every foul word that was coming out of my mouth. 
    His face had a sort of shocked expression, as if he’d just been told he’d got terminal cancer.  He was trying to step backward and I was following him now, pushing him hard in the stomach, with the heel of my hand.
    “How do you think it feels?  How do you think it feels … to have YOU telling ME how FUCKING wonderful you feel with HER?” I yelled, now leaning in on him, my face right in his, spitting in his face, my veins standing out, unattractively, in my neck.  Not the most endearing picture of me to take away with him.  Not the best way to hold onto him, for sure. 
    But what did it matter?  He’d made up his mind, anyway, and I’d lost all control.  I’d been pretty restrained at the rec and now in the privacy of my own home, I had the right to shout at him, didn’t I?  I wasn’t going to give in gracefully and say, Well, go and have a wonderful life with Suzie fucking Barton, was I?  He was going to find out just how much he’d hurt me.
    It left me wrung out, like an old J cloth.  I was totally raving mad for thirty minutes but … I’ve never been