Page 43 of The Best Ex of My Life

After the applause dies down, they move away from the front of the function room and back to their friends and families and all the open arms waiting for them. I hang back, watching Karina’s face, my own aching with the grin I’ve not been able to remove all night.

‘How you holding up back here?’

I look to my left to find Jordan standing beside me, his gaze also on Karina and Matthew and thankfully, not on my face, which I’m pretty sure has black smudges from my mascara halfway down my cheeks thanks to all the unexpected, happy tears.

‘Oh, hi. How long have you been standing next to me?’

‘Just the whole speech,’ he says, his eyes shining with amusement. ‘I came to find you when you didn’t come back from the toilets.’

‘Oh. I didn’t realise. Sorry.’

‘It’s fine. I couldn’t look away from them either. It was a really beautiful speech. They look so happy.’

‘Yeah, they do.’ I self-consciously wipe under my eyes again for any leftover smudges of make-up before turning to him more fully. ‘Isn’t it just wonderful?’ I ask him, like I’ve asked him a million times since Karina rang me up and told me how Matthew had been at hers, they were in bed (but not in the version of the story she told her parents) and she turned to him and just knew she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. She asked him there and then when they were both naked if he’d marry her, and he didn’t hesitate for a second before saying yes.

‘It is. I’m sure they’re going to be really happy.’

‘Me too.’

Karina and Matthew move away from the front of the room to Karina’s large family, and the rest of the guests start to disperse back into their groups.

Teddy starts to cross the room to get to Jordan and I, but before she does, Elliot appears at her side. She slows and turns to him, and I let out the breath that’s pooled in my lungs as she takes his hand, and he leads her off to the bar. With her free hand, she holds a finger up to let me know they’ll be back in one minute, but I will them to take longer, to get waylaid at the bar by one of Karina’s sisters and end up staying with them, drinking the tequila rose they’ve already started on until it’s time to go home.

This is how it is now. These are the thoughts that cross my mind whenever I see Elliot and Teddy together – an occurrence that happens way more than I’d like, despite my best efforts to avoid them as a couple. Elliot never told Teddy about how we ended things at the dinner party and nor did I. He went back upstairs after leaving me and said to Teddy he was pissed from too many rounds and ready to go. They left five minutes later, as did Karina and Matthew. Jordan stayed, but we didn’t have sex that night. I played the same card as Elliot, pretending I’d drank too much and needed to crash.

I spent the days after not just dealing with a colossal hangover, but with the fact my head had finally got round to working out what my heart had known for much longer – I liked Elliot way more than a friend. I replayed the words we’d said to each other on repeat – him calling me out for being jealous, me revealing the truth before immediately shutting him down. More than anything I rewound and rewound our conversation until I got to what I’d heard in his voice when I’d spilled my guts and shown how I felt, and he’d said ‘Lizzie, I had no idea.’ I’d heard something that night, I was sure of it. I tried desperately to work out what it was. Pity? Relief? Hope? In the end, I realised it didn’t matter. I played out every possible scenario in my head – that he felt the same, that he didn’t, that there was something between us, that there wasn’t, that it wasn’t just me, that it was. But none of it mattered. There was only one outcome that was going to work, and it was for me to get over how I felt and get back to normal as quickly as I could.

Elliot and Teddy were a couple, and despite hating seeing them together, despite how much it drove me crazy remembering the night we had together and knowing Teddy was now the one sharing his bed, I wasn’t going to do a single thing about it.

Teddy was happy. I was never going to let myself be so selfish as to put my feelings above hers and jeopardise something real between them, something good, all for the sake of my jealousy. I’d met someone decent too, someone who deserved a chance. I made the choice to leave them to it and to focus my attention on my relationship with Jordan.

It’s been the best decision I could have made. Every good moment with Jordan – from the lazy mornings together to the good sex to the easy companionship – has helped build a wall between Elliot and I, to block me off from any unwanted feelings I’ve had. I’ve been wrapped up in Jordan, Elliot’s been wrapped up in Teddy, and our friendship has turned into the way it is tonight: the same on the outside but emptied out on the inside.

It’s not like Elliot and I have kept up our argument. In true form, we’ve not mentioned it. We act like it never happened, but we can’t stop it curling around us like a bad smell we’re both pretending isn’t there. I feel the distance between us every time Karina or Teddy comes up with another plan that involves us all, like the visit to the Christmas markets, spending New Year’s together, having a games night to break up January, and all going into town to try out a new Thai restaurant.

At school, it’s easier. There we can compartmentalise. Elliot’s been an expert at that since the night we slept together, and I’ve learned to be good at it too. When we need to, we pretend to be workmates, talking about our school days and the major dramas that can happen in a building with fifteen hundred hormone-filled teens. But with his new promotion I don’t see Elliot anywhere near as often as I used to. He has his own office on the other side of the building to my classroom, and whole days can go by without running into him. When we are together, we try to stick to the easy banter we used to do so well, but anyone listening would know how forced it was.

Now, I watch Elliot and Teddy making their way to the bar and let out a sigh when I remember how easy it used to be.

‘You want to go over?’ Jordan asks.

‘Huh?’

‘To Ted and Elliot. Shall we join them?’

My brain scrambles for an excuse to avoid more stilted conversation, but I can’t find a single good reason not to go over. I shrug my shoulders and begin to walk towards them.

‘How amazing was that?’ Teddy asks, putting her arm around my waist. Like me, she still can’t get over the fact that Karina is engaged, and her eyes are still glistening from the speeches.

‘I know. They did so well,’ I agree.

‘And you made it all happen,’ she says, turning to face me.

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘No, you did. You put this whole plan in motion and look where we are. It’s incredible. You’re incredible.’

I scan her face for signs she’s been necking the prosecco, but she only looks like she’s two or three drinks in. ‘I’m really not. This is all thanks to the unbelievable number of dickheads I went out with that led me to come up with the ex-plan in the first place.’