The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Forty-Six
In the main, it is women, Fia notices, who tend to be accused of overthinking things – of having, quite literally, more thoughts than can truly be good for them.
Consequently, she wouldn’t describe herself as an overthinker, purely as a matter of principle. But she does certainly find herself with plenty to think about on a daily basis.
Not always wills, or trusts and estates, or office politics, though those things are generally in the mix. Sometimes, instead, she’s thinking about the cost of giving birth, in America, to a baby she’s not expecting and perhaps never will be. She’s thinking about why her best friend abandoned her two years ago, or about the simple fact of her sister’s upcoming wedding, or about what would be the safest route to walk home. She’s thinking relentlessly, every fucking night, of what to eat for dinner.
Benjamin Lowry, when he touches her, manages somehow to silence all of that.
He actually always has, now that she thinks about it. Even when she was 22 years old in that bedroom, Fia was able to come up with no explanation beyond I must have lost my mind.
It seemed like foolishness to her, back then – an aberration on her part. And maybe, in the circumstances, it was.
Maybe it still is – but Fia can’t help it. All she wants to do is quiet her mind, lose her mind, as often as she possibly can. After their little road trip, even more so than before it, everything and everyone else in her life seems to have become a blur, just a slog of waiting to be alone with him.
In the office, the tension ratchets up to almost unbearable levels. Fia begins to worry that anyone who so much as lays eyes on her and Benjamin, in any context – including entirely innocent ones – will surely guess what is going on. If anything, it seems incredible that no one has guessed already. Fia feels like both she and Benjamin practically have it written across their faces every minute.
Thankfully, some moments of privacy do come, Benjamin’s roommate having chosen this week for a post-break-up self-care trip to Mexico. Then, it’s a different sort of blur, decadent and delicious. Yes, some creativity is required, with Annie and Kavita – alternately, Fia makes excuses for her absence or is vague about her whereabouts. However, she’s inclined to think that’s a very small price to pay.
On Friday morning, for reasons that have to do with poor planning and lack of self-control, they’re in her bed rather than his for the very first time. They’ve agreed to be just on time for work – not a minute earlier. Fia curls into Benjamin’s back when the alarm goes, her hands snaking around his middle, a kiss pressed between his shoulder blades.
Twenty minutes later, she’s standing at her apartment’s kitchen sink, gulping down half a cup of coffee. Around her, Annie and Kavita are the usual whirl of activity, when out strolls Benjamin, happy as a clam.
And it isn’t that he was supposed to hide in her bedroom, per se – she hadn’t told him to hide – but neither did she necessarily think he’d choose to emerge before her roommates left for work – much less in just his boxers and a T-shirt. He looks unbelievably, heart-stoppingly good.
It’s probably that schoolgirl thought, as well as the schoolgirl sense of being somehow caught red-handed, that makes Fia feel a little flustered.
At the sight of him, both Annie and Kavita stop in their tracks entirely, the gathering of jackets and KeepCups all but forgotten.
‘You remember Ben,’ Fia offers weakly, as if to the apartment at large.
‘I do remember Ben,’ Kavita says, not doing one thing to hide her delight. ‘How ’bout you, Annie – do you remember Ben?’
‘I do,’ Annie confirms, equally thrilled, and she turns to address him directly. ‘It’s just wonderful to see you again. Although I have to say, it does seem a little early for you to, uh … drop by. Didn’t your mom ever tell you it’s kinda weird to make house calls before 8 a.m.?’
‘And so casually dressed,’ Kavita adds.
‘So casually dressed.’
The two girls are looking him all the way up and down now, entirely unabashedly, and Benjamin flashes them a chagrined little grin, before glancing over at Fia.
It’s her job, evidently, to say something at this point. Before she can, though, Kavita beats her to it.
‘You’re just in time for Pocket Pema Chödrön,’ she tells Benjamin, thrusting the book at him. ‘Do you want to do the honours?’
‘You just pick one,’ Annie clarifies, through a mouthful of a cereal bar. ‘At random.’
Doing as he’s told, Benjamin flicks through to land on a page, then clears his throat. ‘“If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.”’
He pauses, raises an eyebrow. ‘I mean, I’m not gonna lie, that feels pretty basic. Y’all call this great philosophy?’
‘Well!’ Kavita explodes, all would-be indignation. ‘You have some nerve, Benjamin – coming in here, enjoying our hospitality, dissing our book …’
She trails off then, though, because Benjamin’s not paying the slightest bit of attention to her teasing. Instead, his eyes are on Fia’s, and Fia’s are on him, and the two of them are laughing like fools.
He’s safely in the shower when Fia’s roommates seize the opportunity for some gossip, conducted at a frantic hiss.
‘I knew it!’ Kavita exclaims. ‘Didn’t I say so, Annie? I did! I said that the two of you wouldn’t be in Dublin twenty-four hours before it was all hot-hate-sex on the friggin’ Blarney Stone or whatever that thing is. And don’t think we haven’t noticed you’ve been gone every night this week.’
Fia must look a little surprised at that – a little insulted, even, by the slight against her own efforts at subterfuge – because both the other girls roll their eyes extravagantly.
‘Oh, please,’ Annie scoffs. ‘I’m telling you, when it comes to vigilance, the parents of teenagers have nothing on the roommates of a single woman in New York City. Our eyes see everything. And for the record, we know you don’t have any friends in New Jersey.’
Fia can’t help sniggering in amusement.
The sentiment is oddly sweet, too, though. It makes her think, suddenly, about all the time she’s spent, over the last couple of years, missing George, ruminating on the tiny ways in which Annie and Kavita are just not quite George.
And of course, they are not George. They can never be. But is that really such bad news? Because, for a long time, the main thing George Ferarra has been is gone. Meanwhile, the two girls presently staring across at Fia – all attention and affection, despite the million other priorities that doubtless lie ahead of each of them this morning – have been kind and funny and fun. They’ve been here.
As Fia opens her mouth to respond, she hesitates slightly. If they’re going to talk about all this right now – and it pretty much seems like they are – then honesty compels her to rewind, course-correct just a little bit of the conversation.
‘The thing is, with Benjamin, it hasn’t really been, like, a hot-hate-sex situation,’ she admits. ‘It’s been more like a sort of … romance.’
It feels ever so slightly mortifying to say that aloud. Why should it be, Fia wonders? There are so many other things she could say. She could say, ‘this guy told me he never wants anything serious, but he never wants me to see any other men, not even as friends.’ That would seem very normal. One time, Kavita came home from a date and informed both Fia and Annie that the dude had wanted to spit on her during sex. In the discussion that followed, the three girls were appalled but not necessarily shocked – it was as though the confrontation of such an issue was unfortunately just part and parcel of being a modern woman.
Romance, though. That doesn’t seem a very modern word to use, a very modern thing to encounter.
But then, nothing about this situation with Benjamin seems to be going according to Fia’s usual experience of sex and dating. She has always had the sense, in those areas of her life as much as in any other, of being in control. Now, though, with every day that passes, the risk to her gets only greater, things feel increasingly beyond her control.
‘Okay, so.’ Fia glances towards the bathroom now, and although she can still hear the shower running, she lowers her voice anyway. ‘What do I do if I like a boy, and I’m already married to him? But we’re getting divorced? And he works in my office? But he’s leaving in two weeks? And’ – she hesitates – ‘also, I don’t know if I should even stay in this country?’
That last bit, she realizes, might be the biggest revelation of all, from her roommates’ perspective – or, at least, it’s the one most likely to affect them personally. By now, though, Fia’s ready to admit that she doesn’t have the first clue about any of it.
And, as it turns out – at least in the hurried, hushed five minutes she gives them – Annie and Kavita really don’t either.