What follows is like the feeling after someone dies. I’m stunned and numb. It’s not just losing Edward, it’s the cold, almost clinical way he did it. One week I was his perfect woman, the next it was all over. From adoration to contempt in the blink of an eye. A part of me thinks he’s refusing to admit how much he’s into me, that he’ll call any minute and say he’s made a terrible mistake. But then I remember that Edward isn’t Simon. I look at the pure, pristine walls, the uncompromising surfaces of One Folgate Street, and I can see his strength of will, his bloody-minded determination, in every square inch.
I stop eating. It makes me feel better, the hunger like a welcome old friend, the light-headedness an anesthetic against the sense of loss.
I clutch Slob and use him as a tissue, teddy, comforter. Upset by my neediness, he struggles free and stalks upstairs, only for me to retrieve him from my bed when I crave the warmth of his soft fur.
When he goes missing I’m frantic with worry. Then I see that the door to the cleaner’s cupboard is ajar. Sure enough, I find him in there, curled up on a can of polish in the dark, hiding from me.
That night, while I’m having a shower, the lights suddenly go off and the water runs cold. It only lasts a few seconds, but it’s long enough for me to yelp with alarm and fear. My first thought is that maybe Slob somehow dislodged one of the cables inside the cupboard. My second is that the house itself is doing this. One Folgate Street turning cold on me just as Edward did, showing its master’s displeasure.
Then the water flows hot again. It’s just an outage, a momentary glitch. Nothing to get worked up about.
I let my head rest against the smooth wall of the shower, my tears tumbling with the water toward the drain.