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Choose to wake at noon. Choose to call in sick to work for the fourth day in a row. Choose to wear only joggers and T Shirts that no longer fit and not to shower. Choose to stay indoors with the curtains drawn and eat nothing but frozen pizzas and increasingly stale biscuits that leave crumbs on the carpet and down your front. Choose to ignore those missed calls from your friends. Choose to ignore, too, that text from Jeff or Dave or whoever inviting you to the pub. Choose, instead, to spend your evening alone again, pouring too many whiskies and watching terrible late night television. Choose to venture out only for cigarettes, occasionally buying a DVD or two from the bargain bins beside the till. Choose to watch these DVDs repeatedly despite their mediocrity, and even choose to cry at the weepy bits. Choose to cry about other things too, things you’d rather not talk about just now, or next week, or ever. Choose to spend hours just staring at a picture of her face. Choose to drunkenly burn that picture before bottling out at the last minute lest it feel like losing her all over again. Choose to realise that it was your fault she left, your own stupid fault. Choose to acknowledge yourself as the architect of your own misery, and pour yourself yet another drink. Choose to drain the bottle because that’s the only way you’ll sleep. Choose to end your day when the birds begin theirs, falling onto your mattress as the first thrush sings. Choose the engulfing arms of sleep, even though you know, you know, she’ll be there still, haunting your dreams.
Choose, eventually, to break the cycle of lonely self-loathing. Choose to leave the whiskey in the cupboard. Choose to accept that invite to the pub, to see people. Choose to put on a clean shirt for the first time in what seems like years. Choose to smile wanly at the cheers that greet you as you arrive, accept the slaps on the back without comment. Choose to lie to their grinning faces when they ask how you are and say that you’re fine, that you’re doing ok. Choose to order a pint. Choose to sit quietly and drink it. Choose to quash your desire to bolt for the door when the conversation inevitably turns to your consolation. Choose to nod in meek agreement when Jeff says that she was never good enough for you - even though you know deep in your wasted heart that she was far better than you’ll ever be - and listen as your friends tear apart the woman you love before your eyes and ears. Choose to wish you were anywhere else, anywhere but here. Anyone but you.
Choose, then, to order another beer, then another, then another and another. Choose watch the grins turn to grimaces as you sink pint number twelve, the note of false cheeriness in your voice becoming louder and more slurred with every sentence. Choose to remain oblivious to the increasingly nervous atmosphere, ordering drink after drink, knowing that happiness will be at the bottom of the next glass. When the room begins to revolve, choose to stumble from the pub to the street, the cool air hitting you like a fist, worried shouts from your friends still ringing in your ears. Choose to shake Dave’s concerned hand from your arm when he follows you outside and set off for home at a run, just wanting to get away, from the pub, from yourself, from everything.
Choose, after to ten minutes, to sit, head spinning, on somebody’s front wall to catch your breath. Your phone is ringing – Jeff – choose to reject. Instead, stupidly, choose to call her. Choose to believe in your desperate drunken way that, this time, begging her to take you back again will actually work. Choose to dial her number. Choose to listen to the ringing on the other end of the line as you clutch the handset to your cheek, breathing harsh and ragged. Ring ring. Ring ring. Choose to gasp with fear and hate and anguish when the sleepy voice that answers is not hers at all, but his. He’s there, him, in your place, where you should be. With her. Choose to let the phone slide from your face to your lap, still wrapped in your shaking fist. When the sleepy voice says ‘hello’ once more, choose to frantically mash the call-end button with drunken fingers. Then silence. Then rage. Hot, boiling, venomous rage. Choose to hurl your mobile phone against the curb, choose to watch it shatter, slow motion, into a million tiny fragments, shattering just like your heart shattered when she told you she was leaving…
Choose to sit on that lonely wall until dawn, not moving, making no sound. Numb. A statue. Choose to watch the sun rise over silent suburbia without actually seeing it at all. Then, as the world around you begins to wake, choose to make a decision. Choose to collect the little that remains of your phone, to pick yourself up, to walk unsteadily home, to find your keys, to go inside, to shower, to have a decent breakfast, to get ready for work, to face the day, and the next day, and the next. Choose to clean the house and to wash the dishes, to sort the mail and to take out the rubbish. Choose to start answering your emails again. And, when you catch your own eye in the mirror, hair combed, fresh shirt, clean-shaven, choose to know that, finally, you’ll be just fine.
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