Oxidized

It was Saturday. Before this Saturday, Dave and Sarah had spent five years together. They had holidayed in Ibiza, Turkey, Cornwall, Devon, Chicago, and Spain. They had gone to her best friend’s wedding and his sister’s wedding and her friend from work’s wedding. They had taught English as a Foreign Language for three months in Italy living out of a tiny room and a shared suitcase. They had gone to his Grandad’s funeral and they had rented two places. For just under four of those five years they had woken up nearly every morning together, gone through one abortion and one miscarriage. They had done that thing where you take lots of passport sized photos of yourselves, once a year on their ‘anniversary’; they had kept the pictures in their ‘Dave & Sarah’ scrapbook which Sarah had thought of and bought and Dave had found cute and hugged her for thinking of.

Now they sat in silence as they finished their coffee, then Sarah pulled on her jacket which told Dave they were leaving. He walked behind her, pulling on his coat and out his frown and then they were outside on the high street and walking back to the flat via Oddbins. Sarah chose a bottle of white wine and Dave picked up some beers. Sarah paid and Dave smiled vaguely in recognition of this. Once they were home Sarah put the drink in the fridge and showered; they still had not spoken. Dave opened their post, which was one bill, and sat at the breakfast bar and chewed the inside of his lip. His coat was still on.

This would be the first Saturday that Sarah claimed she felt off-colour and would sleep on the sofa, and the first time Dave would actually sleep on the sofa, having insisted if she felt ill she should take the bed. The wine was opened and left. The beer was drunk.

One month later they would be organising who kept what from their flat. Sarah would move in with her parents for a while until the place was sold. They would each deal with their break up in their own ways and would miss each other and hurt a lot. Neither would understand what had gone wrong and despite the few phone calls they would have to try to work out when their love had soured, they would feel no clearer. Each would find someone new within the year but neither relationship would last longer than one more year. Eventually Sarah would be married and fairly happy but feel slightly protective when asked about old photos of this person, Dave, who had curly hair that sort of flattened out over his skull as if he had always just removed a beanie from his head when he had not. Dave would get a decent promotion and find himself married into wealth and would play a character in their lives for the rest of his own.

Sarah would still hear Dave’s praise in her head whenever she achieved something creative, but she would deny this to herself and think of other things. Dave would view Sarah’s various internet profiles from time to time, to see if she still looked like his Sarah, but she would not.