Day 78: Tales Of Numb Shopping Trips And BFF Stalking

Day 78 Of How To Move On From A Man — 1LD

Apr 23, 2023

“Excuse me? Miss? Excuse me? Can I get through?”

What an idiot I must have looked, standing in the middle of the pasta sauce aisle at Coles, staring at jars like I was on something psychedelic.

Once I realised a very kind yet aging woman was trying to get past me, I wondered how long she had patiently waited for me to move.

Or make a decision.

Or both.

Had she not said anything, she would have waited a long time. I couldn’t stop staring despite having seen these jars hundreds of times before.

I grabbed two jars of pasta sauce and put them in my basket. The sound of the glass jars against the cheap red wine bottles echoed in the near-empty supermarket.

Only lost, lonely and aimless people spend their late nights doing their food shopping. Or powerful, successful, put-together people who use every minute of the day to their advantage.

I wasn’t sure which one I was. Thankfully, in this supermarket, no one else did either.

My phone began to ring.

It was James.

“Babe, where are you?”

I had become proficient at lying the last few days. When he asked me where I was, I bit my tongue and refused to tell him. If he wasn’t telling me things I should know about my own life, he didn’t have the right to know where I was.

“Food shopping.” Good answer, I thought. I could be in Sydney, for as far as he knew.

He didn’t respond for a moment. “Cool. Are you coming straight home?”

“I am. Is everything ok?”

Just tell me what is going on James, I begged, internally. Quit trying to figure out my answers before telling me why you’re asking whatever the hell you’re asking me.

“Everything is fine. I’m home, about to put some food on. I’ll see you soon?”

“Yup.”

I hung up.

There was nothing about that conversation anyone could object to. He was asking me where I was, like a good friend, like a good roommate.

And yet I found myself wanting to scream, shout, chastise him for being rude. For being a jerk. For being a lousy friend. Everything he was saying and doing was sending my friendship alarm bells ringing.

The more these stupid, meaningless interactions stacked up, the more I thought about everything I “didn’t know”. Everything he was hiding. Everything that had changed.

I didn’t want to go home.

By the time I paid for my groceries and loaded them into my car, I contemplated opening one of the cheap bottles of wine and drinking it all.

But I couldn’t afford to be a bottle down after a phone call. Best to save the swill for when I really needed it.

I drove to 1 Lovelock Drive. Putting my key in the front door, I realised it didn’t feel like home, anymore.

Day 78: Tales Of Numb Shopping Trips And BFF Stalking

Day 78 Of How To Move On From A Man — 1LD

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