For Her

Spoilers: Up to end Series 4. Jen's POV, sort of, but TM focused

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A year has passed since he broke up with you. You remember the day well. He worked overnight and seemingly in one day he changed. He changed for her; you just didn't realise it at the time.

He apologised to you, told you that he was grateful for everything you had done and provided, and that ultimately you deserved someone who would treat you better. He tried to give you a reason, but you didn't care to hear it; you were too busy accusing him of things that were only partly true. He left you that night, took his few belongings, and drove off. You didn't ask where he was going; you imagined that he had gone back to her.

You know about her. Some of it he told you; some of it you found out; some of it you have inferred.

You don't like her. At the beginning, when he was drunk a lot of the time, he told you things about her; about how she had abandoned him without warning, had been the reason that he was so messed up, how she had caused him to go to prison. He never gave you the details about his previous life, and you didn't ask because it was a past life that you didn't want to know about, not when it involved her.

He kept away from you on the day the divorce papers came. He was distant and awkward for several weeks after. He drank more for a while. Then the drinking began to subside and he began to be someone else.

Later, when he was sober and less bitter, he told you that he understood her reasons, that he didn't hate her. It didn't make you hate her any less. He didn't talk about her much, but that one time when he made those comments, when he told you that he understood her, there was a look on his face that you couldn't divine. He spoke about her as if she were magical, an entity to be revered. Later, when you thought about it, which you did at length, you wondered if he still loved her, but you couldn't ascertain why.

In your mind, she was the cause of all the problems in his life and you were the one to resolve them all.

It was a few weeks before the end when you accidentally happened upon her photo. He told you to get the money for the grocery shopping out of his wallet. You took the twenty but it was awkward to remove and in doing so you discovered a well-concealed compartment. Naturally curious, you removed the object you found placed there. It was a well-handled photograph of a woman, about 30, with dark curly hair and a bright smile. You didn't need to ask him who it was; you instinctively knew. And it hurt you inside but you said nothing. You weren't weak and needy like other women.

Several weeks later he worked with her and everything changed.

You later heard that he was with her in a long-term relationship.

You work in a coffee shop during the day. It's nothing special but it pays the bills and the people are nice enough. When you started there your colleagues told you that on occasion celebrities happened upon the place. You kept your eye out ever since, although vehemently denied that you believed them.

You have not yet seen anyone famous. And until today you have rarely seen anyone of particular interest.

She attracts your interest immediately; not because she is attractive – which she is despite the fact that you wouldn't admit it out loud – but because you recognise her and can't think where you know her from. Initially, you wonder if she is a celebrity; that your colleagues may have been correct, but you dismiss this soon afterwards. All you know is that something happens within you, your body responds before your brain engages, causing your heart to beat faster, your lungs to expel all air, and your core temperature to increase. And it is not due to a positive association.

Five seconds later, the connection is made: she is the woman from the photograph. She is the woman whom he left you for. She is Michelle.

And then the rest of her appearance becomes sharply apparent. The rings on the fourth finger of her left hand informing you of her marriage; the protruding stomach announcing a pregnancy that is well into its third trimester; the smile adorning her features, displaying an easy happiness associated with the previous two discoveries.

You take a sharp intake of breath.

You expect her to recognise you as she orders a latte and one decaf cappuccino. You don't know whether you are disappointed or delighted that she doesn't.

You want to tell her what you think of her, but instead you plaster a fake smile on your face, pass her order onto the guy who is making the coffees and inform her of the amount that she is to pay. You don't breathe easily throughout your encounter, try to ignore the way she absentmindedly rubs her stomach, attempt to train your features into a smile as she laughs about needing the bathroom because of the effect that the baby is having on her bladder.

You think about telling her about how he wouldn't have been the man he was today without you; that before you he hated her, drank all day, would never have been employable without you. You know that deep down, however, he didn't change for you; it was for himself. It was for her. It is this that keeps you from speaking aloud.

It is a year's worth of analysis that has led you to these revelations. And you hate that you have come to the conclusion that he was never really with you. He never loved you.

He changed for her. He wanted to live his life with her, and so he eventually managed to pull himself out of the place he was in for her.

As you look at her, as she waits for her coffee, happy and self-assured, you hate her even more. You hate that she is so perfect and pretty and pregnant. You hate that he is probably happy in his new life. You hate that you're stuck working in a café, alone and bitter.

You don't know why you still think of him.

You watch her leave. You envy her. And you hate that.

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