Warning: sentimental gushy rubbish ahead

I mean it: consider yourself warned. It involves a break-up.

There. I told you...

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It occurred to me a few weeks into the relationship with Essex Boy that I'd never discussed how it was going, what we'd done, the people I'd met through him, where we'd been together.

I made a bit of a mention (ahem) of when I met him (30th April, he says casually). The whole point of that rendezvous had been that it would be a casual one. But we got on a lot better than I'd been expecting and the chemistry was pretty intense stuff. We had another phone encounter after the one the night before I met him (when my bed'd been broken by LS's acrobatics). But apart from that, all it was a case of me going up to Chelmsford to see him -- with the exception of a visit by him to Guildford.

To start this at the end, Monday night was painful: a lot more than I'd anticipated. In my mind, it was going to be rotten, he was going to say something really detached like "okay then, dave" and it would be a case of me doing the walk of shame out the door and back down the 85-mile road to Guildford. In my mind...

In reality, I drove straight there from work, got a call from him (bless him) saying to avoid the traditional A12 which was gridlocked. So I left the motorway at Dartford and tried another route. In the end, I still got there just after 8:00, which didn't help me prepare any longer. In any case, I'd decided weeks ago on the long flight back from J-land what I was going to say if I was going to call it all off. Which I was pretty sure i would do even at that stage. And it was exactly what I said: I can' t do this any more.

It basically summed up the problem: I was getting to the stage where I wanted to get a bit more serious, but couldn't because a) he was 85 miles away, b) his job meant he could rarely leave Essex for even one night because of how long it would take him to get back if he was called in to work, and the c) the clincher, I was leaving England for Japan for a couple of years. Every phone call we'd had recently, which was less often in the last couple of weeks, always hit a quiet point when he asked "so when am I going to see you next". In part, because I got fed up being the one who was making all the effort, and in part because the reality of how fast things were starting to move and the geographical obstacles were so glaringly obvious that it became impossible to ignore the implications of the question. So I told him: I can't do this any more.

But I wasn't expecting him to say "I know you can't".

At first, I wasn't sure if he was just putting a brave face on things. Then, as the conversation falteringly got underway, with me visibly shaking, I learned he'd been giving this a lot more thought than I 'd realised. The biggest surprise was that he'd considered calling it off when I called him my boyfriend, albeit indirectly, as I'm stereotypically phobic of commitment (come on, I only came out two years ago!). But he didn't, and when he came down to Surrey not long after that, I had one of the best days ever around town and in the park with him. And even managed to get him to sleep in the next day -- ha! Never thought I'd accomplish that!

So we talked for over an hour about how it'd all come to be and why it was ending. All amazingly amicable given what I'd expected to happen, and I told him that. He said I didn't know him very well; I didn't point out that that was part of the regret of the situation. Then things got steamy very quickly and we had some of the best bedroom action of the whole ninety-two-day relationship. "Best break-up ever!", he laughed. But the good mood didn't last much beyond an hour. It was starting to cut me up being that close but knowing that I wasn't staying that night. With every five minutes that passed, I wanted to leave less and less, and we were both starting to get quite sore about the reality of it all being over. So I grabbed a towel to go and shower off and start the physical separation.

"Are you coming in with me?", I asked. "I don't know", he replied, completely honestly. I knew then that these were our last few minutes.

The bathroom was occupied, so I couldn't go in and get on with it. This happened three times. Each time I went back to bed and lay next to him and held him. It was harder each time. Harder to let go, obviously, but still difficult when you know something like this is ending.

"I'm taking Karen's advice", he'd said earlier in the evening. What's that? "Treat it like he's dying", apparently. The thought had crossed my mind twice since I'd known him, but it only ever served to make me pull myself together: see now how stupid you're being?, I'd thought to myself. It puts everything into context, doesn't it? I had to agree, I was very right. But when I heard it from To��o's highly kissable lips, it sounded like a totally foreign concept.

The other thing that had surprised me when we'd been talking came up when I mentioned that I'd known it was him calling on his work phone because I'd saved his number.
"I've never been able to save your number"
Really?
"Well it's a moot point now, isn't it?"
I said something stupid like: we can still keep in contact with each other.
"You don't really think that's going to happen do you?"

I hadn't given it a great deal of thought, other than the expectation that eventually we'd be far removed enough from each other that it'd be much easier. And I said as much. But he wasn't convinced. I eventually managed to bargain him up to letting me send him a Japanese fridge magnet for his mum...

We talked about his ex, Mark, and he mentioned that Mark had broken him. And now, so was I. I stayed silent. I didn't fully understand what he meant, although I had this sickening inkling...

Eventually, the bathroom became free. I didn't recognise the face of the guy drying himself off afterwards, smelling of the coconut shower gel I'd used by virtue of it being closest to hand. I looked weird.

When I got back into the room, Tony had dressed again. I sat down quietly on the bed beside him and pulled on my clothes and shoes. We didn't say very much to each other. Then we went downstairs. Parky and the ubiquitous Lisa were in the living room and I said goodbye to them, winking to Parky in a pathetic attempt to pretend everything was okay.

It was a playback of the arrival. What I'd desperately wanted that night when I arrived was for Tony to answer the door and for us to go upstairs. Instead, everyone was there: Maxine, Parky, Ema, Karen, and Lisa, all saying hello and making me feel so small and shitty for what I'd come there to do. I'd had some wonderful times there, and seeing Ema and Karen especially broke my heart. They must have been able to see by my face that something was wrong. I know Tony did because he asked me what was up: he looked worried, even though he didn't admit it later.

So he walked me to the door on My First Break-Up™, and held my hand the whole way down to the door. Past the living room where we'd sat one Sunday and just listened to music on the fancy Bang & Olufsen TV. Past the kitchen where we'd first "pashed" as the Aussie would say. Past everything in the Dream House™. And at the door he said "goodbye dave" and it hurt. I barely registered what else he was saying. Until I held him close and he said the magic words. Then I heard it in crystal-clear surround sound. I said goodbye to my Cutie, and left as he said "Knock 'em dead". And desperately tried to replace the enduring image of him standing sillhoutted in that doorway with one of him smiling.

I still can't.