“May I?” Matthew pointed to a chair.
“I suppose.” Flick took the seat opposite.
“You look well.”
As she continued to watch him, she couldn’t believe that after everything he’d done he’d choose a statement so banal as his opening gambit. She might not have accepted it, but he could have at least begun with an apology. Then again, wherever he’d been the last months he clearly hadn’t been losing sleep, because although she wished he didn’t, Flick had to admit he looked well too. She knew it was intentional, that he’d purposefully made the effort, as if looking good might increase his chances of getting whatever it was he wanted. Saying that, she scoffed, his image had always been important to him. In all the years Flick had known him, he’d spent more time in the bathroom getting ready for a night out than she’d ever done.
Flick felt a mix of confusion, frustration and, just like her mum, anger, as he easily glanced around the room. This was not how she’d envisaged their next meeting. She’d wanted to see him on her terms and in her own time. She felt hijacked into a discussion she wasn’t mentally prepared for. He’d caught her off guard. Flick realised this was something else he’d always done – put his own needs first. He probably hadn’t bothered to consider how turning up like this would affect her.
She knew she only had herself to blame. She should never have told her colleagues back at the café in the UK exactly where she was. All Matthew had to do was turn on his boyish charm and they’d have readily given up her location; although to be fair, she hadn’t exactly asked them to keep her whereabouts a secret. She hadn’t expected Matthew to try to find her.
“You didn’t have to track me down in person,” she said. “You could have said all you need to say via a solicitor.”
“A solicitor?”
“You know, the person you hire to get you through a divorce.”
Met with silence, Flick glared at him, struggling to keep a lid on her emotions. “Why else would you be here? Married life obviously isn’t for you. The fact that you did a runner on your wedding day proved that. And while we’re on the subject, just answer me one question –Why?Why not just tell me you didn’t want to go through with it? Hell, why not just leave me standing at the alter if you had to?”
She continued to look him square on, holding her head high, as she waited for him to answer, but he refused to meet her gaze. Instead, he stared at his hands resting on the table.Coward!she thought.
“It’s hard to explain.”
Flick refused to budge on the issue. She didn’t just want answers, after everything he’d done to her, she deserved them. “Try me.”
He swallowed hard before speaking. “I was scared, I suppose. I felt under too much pressure.”
Flick’s eyes widened. “Pressure? About what, getting married?” She’d heard it all. “Because it was you who asked me, remember?”
“I know. And I shouldn’t have.”
“No. You shouldn’t.” Despite this being an understatement, at least they agreed on something. “How is Sarah, by the way?”
At last, Matthew looked up. “That was a mistake.”
“I think you’ll find it was more than that.” As far as Flick was concerned, a mistake was putting sugar in her coffee, or a pink bra in the laundry amongst the whites. As for his dalliance with Sarah, Flick couldn’t think of a remotely adequate word. She felt her blood begin to boil, feeling her embarrassment over the whole thing as if it were only yesterday. “Do you know how humiliating it all was? It wasn’t enough for you to disappear like you did, oh no, you had to take one of the bridesmaids with you?” She closed her eyes for a second, trying to calm herself down. “So, where is she?” Flick scoffed. “How is she?”
Matthew shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Anyway, this isn’t about her.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I told you, she was a mistake.”
“Just like our marriage?”
“That’s not what I said.”
Flick bit down on her lips, not sure if she could listen to any more.
“Nothing happened between us, you know.”
Flick raised her eyebrows. Did he really think she was that stupid?
“I knew as soon as we were out the door that she wasn’t the answer.”
“So, what? You dumped her as well?”
He shifted in his seat, enough to tell Flick that, yes, he had.
