‘I’ve been ditched.’ Olly waves the letter at me, gold embossing dancing under the kitchen spotlights.
He screws up the thick, buff paper and throws it in a perfect arch over the marble breakfast bar. The ball lands in the open kitchen bin – something I imagine Olly, as a competitive sportsman, feels satisfied about.
We’re having breakfast in Olly’s Earl’s Court flat. I still can’t really explain how I got here. I don’t mean at the flat itself, but I mean in Olly’s life. How does someone like me end up living with an Olympic athlete? A trainee nurse who didn’t even finish her training?
I suppose the answer is: when an Olympic athlete breaks his femur and can no longer compete.
Perhaps I should think more highly of myself. That I’m worthy of someone like Olly, injury or no injury. But with my upbringing, it’s hard. Inside, I often feel like nothing. Invisible.
I grew up in the shadow of my mother – an invisible, empty little thing whose job was to ignore all my own needs and make Ruth Riley look perfect.
Then there was loneliness.
And now I have Olly – a man who makes me feel so loved I could burst with happiness, yet at other times, casts me back into the shadows.
That’s where I am today.
It’s times like this I wish I hadn’t given up my nurse training to be with Olly. At least if I were a nurse, I’d be something in my own right.
Olly is angry. Erratic. This is a side he hid when we first got together. Yes, he is charming and attentive. But things have changed.
‘There’s still a chance,’ I say. ‘If you’d only carry on with your physio exercises. I can help you—’
‘I don’t want your help!’ Olly glares, fists clenched. Then he looks away. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘It’s the physio who doesn’t know,’ I counter, voice rising. ‘He sees you half an hour, once a month. I see you all the time. I see how your body moves. I know about this stuff. It was part of my training—’
‘Oh, fuck off.’ Olly bangs a fist on the solid wood counter top. ‘It’s over, isn’t it? Everything I worked for. Gone.’
‘I’m still here. It doesn’t matter to me if you’re an Olympic athlete. I love you.’
‘No you don’t. I see through you, Lizzie Nightingale.’
My hands begin to shake as I stand, clearing the breakfast things.
‘Why then?’ Olly demands. ‘Why do you love me?’
‘Because … we’re a good fit. When you’re not screaming at me. I think you could still be drunk from last night—’
‘Oh, fuck off, Lizzie. Stop trying to control me.’
‘Why can’t you ever just have one drink any more? You don’t know when to stop.’
‘You’re a controlling bitch, that’s what you are.’
‘Olly. Don’t do this.’
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ Olly yells. ‘You’ve never loved me.’
He stands, unsteady, then grabs the plates from my hands and smashes them on the slate kitchen tiles.
I stare at the broken porcelain.
This is what I do when under attack.
Stay still.
I learned, growing up with my mother, not to use teeth or claws against a stronger animal. Camouflage is best. Invisibility has its benefits.
Another plate smashes and I feel a burning on my forehead. Porcelain shards fall on my body, jagged edges clinging to striped fabric. A warm line of blood trickles down the side of my nose and onto my lips. Tears come and, to my relief, Olly’s anger subsides.
‘Here.’ He takes a tea towel and holds it to the blood. ‘I love you,’ he says. ‘You know that John Lennon song? “Jealous Guy”? That’s me. I get scared you don’t love me. You know that.’
‘Of course I love you,’ I say, face wet with tears and blood, hands shaking.
‘I’ll get a bandage,’ says Olly.
I nod, pushing Olly’s Frosties cereal back into the cupboard.
In the same cupboard is a pile of pregnancy leaflets and magazines from the hospital. I really should read those. But right now, that would make everything too real.
Which is why I’ve pushed them between the cereals, out of the way.
When I told Olly about the baby, he was ecstatic, dancing me around the living room, telling me what perfect parents we were going to be. Talking about raising a champion snowboarder. But how quickly that moment passed.
I burst into tears, hands going to my baby bump. This happens almost every day now – Olly getting angry and me crying. An endless, awful cycle. Maybe he’s stressed about the baby, the realities of parenthood closing in.
Usually at this point, Olly would comfort me and apologise. But this time he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me with contempt, hobbles to the bedroom and slams the door.
On my stomach, I see my fingers trembling. If things are this bad now, what on earth is going to happen when the baby comes?