You Must Be Very Intelligent by Karin Bodewits

Author:Karin Bodewits
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Chapter 21

Karin Bodewits1

(1)Munich, Germany

Karin Bodewits

Email: [email protected]

“You don’t eat?” Thomas asks with a worried look that make his brown eyes look even sexier than when he smiles.

“I’m not hungry.”

There is a full plate of beautifully decorated Spanish tapas in front of me that I would normally love to eat, but today it makes me feel sick. I haven’t eaten anything substantial since Daniel left. I get my calories from alcohol.

We had finally parted, for good. It is a feeling of relief, like the one you might feel post cecum removal; the appendicitis has been alleviated but, at the same time, it hurts. What hurts me most is that I hurt him. The desperate messages he sent me during the last two weeks trying to win me back, begging to talk it all out and so on. The pain in his words and his trembling voice. All his emails and voicemails end with similar content; that he is not sure how it all happened but that I am definitely not the same person as I had been before the PhD. Three days ago, he said I should go and see a general practitioner to get checked, something must be wrong. Two days ago, he suggested I go and see an endocrinologist – clearly an imbalance of spooky female hormones has driven me to an irrational decision. Yesterday he proposed a psychologist. I’m half-curious what specialist he will suggest tonight. Lucy and I speculated a cardiologist, which wouldn’t make any logical sense, but it would fit the dramaturgy. Next week it might well be a brain tumour causing my foulness, though Daniel could just as well recommend a tarot reading. I feel sorry for him but I also know that his desperation will yield to anger, misunderstanding and years of throwing mud in my face. Such is life when you dump someone who does not want to be dumped. Sometimes I yearn for that mud in my face ASAP; it will be one step closer to the end of the end.

I am too sober. Our story hangs over me like a cloud of gloom. Sexy, it is not. I can’t talk to Thomas about it anyway; I would bore myself as much as him. He knows it is over now, and despite the fact he never asked, he probably has an inkling that the dumping of Daniel so soon after the ceilidh is not entirely coincidental. Thomas gave me license and confidence to pull the trigger. He symbolised the fact that I could score better, or at least differently, or at least someone whose sloth doesn’t make me want to howl at the moon. True, Thomas is someone who makes my stomach heat up in a manner it has not done since my teen years, but he needn’t fear it; I’m not looking to pick out curtains with him. I just want to play while time passes.

Today my stomach does not boil. I feel empty, exhausted and wonder if it would not have been better to go drinking yet again with Lucy.

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