I really hoped he would understand. That it would be a short, sharp break, a quick cutting of ties, hard but sudden, not a long-winded, drawn-out process like it became.
But Tony didn’t get it at all, and totally wouldn’t accept that we were done. There were tears, too, and what I can only describe as begging. Shit, I should have just ended it over the phone. Why would anyone want to stay with someone who didn’t want them? I’ll never understand that.
He kept asking me why, even though I’d already explained it. In the end, I had to leave. I didn’t want to be there when his mam came home and found him in that state.
‘Was it something I did?’ he asked me for the umpteenth time as I was leaving.
I told him again that I just needed some space, because I couldn’t breathe.
I told him it was my choice and I needed to do this, and he asked me if he didn’t get a say in it.
‘No,’ I told him. ‘You don’t.’
That’s when he called me a fucking bitch.
Those were his last words before I walked out of the door.