Page 5 of The Best Ex of My Life
‘Stop it,’ Karina tells us. ‘Why did he have to ruin everything? Look at the state of his nose, Ted. I’m telling you I’ll be drinking Lemsip next weekend never mind prosecco.’ She holds out the phone and shudders again, which only makes Teddy and I laugh harder.
I can see why the picture would make Karina wince, and I’m sure that Ben will reflect on it and admit it wasn’t his finest hour, but I would never break up with someone who sent a picture like that to me. That’s the thing about Karina – she’s always actively looking for the ick, ready to find the thing that can allow her to walk away before someone walks away from her first. Teddy and I both know it’s a defence mechanism after Rick, the first boy she loved, the boy she thought was perfect, who broke her heart by dumping her out of the blue two weeks before we were set to go to uni. It makes me sad, though, to see her blowing up another potentially good relationship.
‘Can’t you give him a chance to redeem himself once he’s over his cold?’ I ask.
‘Absolutely not.’ The shudder that takes over her body is so forceful, it’s clear Ben’s toast.
‘Would you, though, Ted?’ I ask when we’re back to watching TV.
‘Hmmm?’
‘Now Ben is free, would you actually go out with him?’
‘Yeah, I’d love to,’ she says, deadpan.
‘Seriously?’ I say, my voice coming out in a higher pitch than I intended, but at least it gets hers and Karina’s attention.
‘Seriously would I date Karina’s ex? No, of course I wouldn’t.’
‘Fair enough,’ I agree, but her reaction isn’t enough to quash the fuzzy idea I’m starting to form. ‘Maybe Ben’s a bit too recent. What about another of her exes though? Would you date one of them?’
‘What? No. No way.’
‘Why not?’ I ask, genuinely interested in her answer. Karina and Teddy exchange a look.
‘There’s a rule about friends not dating each other’s exes for a reason, and that reason is because it’s a terrible idea,’ Teddy says.
‘What rule? I haven’t agreed to any rule,’ I say, wanting to keep my admittedly booze-fuelled train of thought going a little longer.
‘The rule is kind of implied, Lizzie,’ Teddy says. ‘It’s one of those things friends are meant to get on board with without discussion, like knowing not to buy the same outfits and automatically hating the same people.’
‘Maybe we should discuss it,’ I argue. ‘You’ve got all these amazing men you’ve been out with that you don’t want, Kar, and I reckon we could come up with a few not too awful exes ourselves, Teddy. It’s just a waste, isn’t it, to automatically say these men are out of bounds? I reckon I’d be happy for either of you to date one of my exes.’
‘Great, I’ll really look forward to dating Isaac and being told to fuck off,’ Teddy says, before laughing.
‘Not Isaac. Obviously. Anyway, he was just a first date. I mean a proper ex-boyfriend, someone who was nice and perfectly normal, just not right for me. One of you might hit it off with him way more than I did.
‘We could do an ex-swap! If one of you were to set me up with a good ex of yours, there’s a chance I might end up going on a few decent dates for a change,’ I say, realising that I’m actually onto something here.
This could be a great way for me to get out of my run of bad dates, to stay off dating apps and to meet someone who goes someway to restoring my belief that nice men still exist. I look pleadingly from Teddy to Karina, hoping they’ll see the beauty of the idea.
At least they think about it. For all of five seconds.
‘Nah,’ Teddy says. ‘Too weird.’
‘Yeah,’ Karina agrees. ‘I might be single again, but there’s no way I could date one of your exes. It would be too awkward. The conversation, the flirting, the sex – especially the sex – knowing he’s done the same thing with one of you. Nope, sorry, Lizzie. Forget it.’
Chapter 3
But I can’t forget it. Not the next morning when I wake up at Karina’s after sleeping on the sofa under a pile of fluffy blankets, not when we go to Allan’s, the café at the end of her road with questionable clientele but the best bacon butties and strong coffee, not when I come home and reluctantly make a start on the list of errands that have piled up over the last half term, and not when I’m sitting on the couch that evening with and my phone in my hand, scrolling through my text chats with some of the men I’ve been out with this last year and wincing.
On Monday morning, I wake up way earlier than I should for the first day of the half term holidays. I’d intended to spend as much time as possible in bed this week to store up my energy for the cold, dark early mornings of the next half term, but I’m too excited to fall back to sleep. I’m onto something, I know it. Setting each other up with our best exes is the perfect antidote to the bad dates, the wrong men we’ve all been attracting recently.
All I need to do is get them on board with the plan. But twelve years of friendship has been lesson enough that speaking to Teddy before 10 a.m. does not end well for anyone, and Karina’s late work hours for her job in marketing means she’s rarely up before then anyway.
I’m too restless to stay in bed. I get up to make a coffee and sit at the window in the lounge, looking out at the dank weather and the people hurrying to work below my window. I love this spot, the wide windowsill I’ve covered in cushions and fur throws, and the shelf I’ve put next to it, filled with my favourite books. The rest of this flat is functional, and even after fifteen months of living here doesn’t feel like home, but I bought it for this one feature, so I can pretend to be the relaxed, beautiful woman on the advert for herbal tea that was on TV years ago. My ambition was and still is to be just like her. A woman so content she doesn’t give a shit about anything but her lovely drink and her lovely window seat.
Bud, the ginger cat I rescued as a kitten, who Mr Galanis, my elderly neighbour, spends more time looking after than I do, pads over and settles on my knee. We both enjoy the perverse pleasure of witnessing the stragglers rushing to get to work on time, their shoulders bunched up with stress while we’re all cosy up here.
