As I approached him in the little tearoom, the steadiness of my breath started to diminish and instead came out in little bursts. I felt ridiculous, immature, and irrational. A whole mixed salad of stupidity.
He caught my eye when I was a few metres away but glanced straight back to his phone. He didn’t recognise me, of course. We’d shared so much and knew each other well that I’d subconsciously assumed he’d know me, give me a friendly wave or a smile or something. I paused for a moment at the insistence of my heavy chest and became aware of my fingers trembling. Taking a deep breath, I switched myself onto autopilot for the last leg of the journey.
‘Hello,’ I said, sitting down in front of him.
He looked a little startled, and I couldn’t help but notice that his long eyelashes framed his piercing blue eyes beautifully.
He cocked his head to the side, just enough to allow a piece of hair to sweep over his eye. ‘Hello?’ The inflection he added made it sound like a question, which of course was valid since a seemingly random stranger had just plonked herself down uninvited. He looked over his shoulder a little nervously, like he was worried Megan would show up while he sat with this other woman.
‘I know you’re expecting Megan,’ I began. There was a marching band playing up a storm in my chest.
He frowned but let his shoulders relax and sat back in his chair. It was incredibly wrong of me to notice how his T-shirt hugged his biceps, but I did.
‘I have some explaining to do,’ I continued. ‘I’m Megan’s friend, Charlotte.’ I paused as a flash of concern flickered across his face. ‘Megan is fine,’ I said quickly. ‘The thing is, well, it’s difficult to say.’ Sitting there, looking into those hypnotic eyes, I was struggling to find the words.
I took a deep breath. ‘I’m the person you’ve been talking to you these past few months on the Me & You website.’ I tried to ignore how his jaw tightened slightly. ‘Megan’s fiancé cheated on her, and after she’d kicked him out, I set up the page intending to let her take the account over once she was ready. I wanted to line up a few first dates, nothing more.’
I shook my head and let out a nervous laugh. Would he see the funny side? ‘She is the person in the photograph, but the conversation, well that was me.’ All me. His jaw clenched, and I wasn’t sure things were coming out quite the way I’d intended.
‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ He shook his head. ‘Why would she want you to do that?’
I winced. It was a very good question. She wouldn’t. ‘Megan didn’t know.’ He straightened in his seat. ‘If you knew me, you’d know I like to help people. S . . . some might call me a meddler but I do these things because I care. I just wanted her to find happiness.’
‘Well, I feel like a prize fool.’ He shook his head and let out a hollow laugh.
I started to panic. ‘Please don’t – this is all my fault. I’m the fool and you should lay the blame firmly with me.’
‘Oh, I do!’ He glared at me. ‘I feel so stupid. I’m sat here now because I thought I had a connection with someone, but I’ve no idea who! It was all a lie!’ His features darkened. ‘The things you said – were they what you thought Megan would say, or what you thought I wanted to hear?’
My throat thickened and I swallowed hard. ‘Neither. They were just the things I thought. It was me you were talking to.’ He slumped back in his chair. ‘I was honest. Everything I said was all me: my favourite films, my words. Everything.’ I hoped he’d realise the feelings I’d confessed to were real, that they were also me.
‘This is crazy. I’ve heard of catfishing, but this is just weird. What were you, just bored?’ He cast an eye over me. ‘Bored little rich housewife needs a new plaything?’
Hot tears started to burn my eyes. ‘That’s unfair. I . . .’ Of course, from his perspective, it was entirely fair and after all the awful people I’d criticised on the Me & You website, I was by far the worst. ‘I’ve been going through some things too and—’
‘I’d started to . . . feel things.’ He rubbed his temple. ‘For the first time since Beth died, I felt a connection with another woman. Have you any idea what a huge step that was for me to take?’
My face tingled with heat and shame as guilt percolated through my skin, filling me up like a mug of bitter hard-to-swallow blackness. ‘I felt that too,’ I whispered, shaking.
‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘Those feelings I had weren’t real. You lied. You didn’t allow them to be real.’ The bitterness in his tone was cutting. ‘You need to see someone for help if this is how you get your kicks.’ The last line earned us a glance from the lady on the next table.
I dropped my head. He had me all wrong.
‘I was just trying to help Megan get back into dating. I didn’t expect to like anyone. I was happily married when I started the whole thing up.
‘And then your husband realised you were a sociopathic liar?’ he spat. He was always so friendly, so lovely, that those words felt too sharp.
‘No, that’s not what happened at all. He cheated on me!’
‘Whatever. This is probably just all part of your fanciful web of lies. Maybe you believe them, but I don’t.’ He slid his chair back to stand up.
‘Please don’t go,’ I whispered pathetically.
He looked down at me and shook his head. ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ he said before walking out of the coffee shop while I sat shackled to the chair. Hot, salty water stung my eyes.
‘Excuse me, but if you don’t want to order anything, I’m afraid we’re going to need the table.’ The waitress’s voice cut through my emotion; she was gesturing to a group of people by the door. The tearoom was full, and everyone was staring at me. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry,’ I said scrambling to my feet.
The air was fresh when I stepped outside and Andrew was nowhere to be seen. I was supposed to be putting things right, but none of it felt right.