Bound to You by Nichi Hodgson Page B

Nichi
mou
.’
    ‘Hi,’ I replied faintly.
    ‘Nichi, are you OK?’
    ‘Christos, I need to tell you something. It’s very serious.’ I must tell him right now, I thought. I have to tell him right now. ‘I cheated on you last night.’
    Silence. For each year of our relationship a second passed. ‘Did you hear me?’ I quavered.
    ‘I heard you,’ he replied. His voice was darker and lower than I had ever known it.
    ‘Christos. Christos
mou
. . .’
    Down the line came a half-choking, half-wailing sound. Then Christos spoke again. ‘How?’
    ‘In a club. I met this random.’ I couldn’t even bring myself to say man. ‘We went somewhere. Christos, I was drunk. Far too drunk. Utterly wasted, in fact . . .’
    Christos knew I rarely drank; surely he’d understand that only if I were completely inebriated would I do something so out of character. I swore to him that I would never do anything as stupid ever again as long as he loved me.
    ‘Nichi,’ he interrupted. It came out as three vowels, the second one a sob that obliterated the c.
    ‘Christos, I was off my face. It was a mistake, a terrible mistake but it doesn’t mean anything, we can forget about it, you can forgive me. It can’t touch us.’ I gasped for breath, my own sobs sucking the air out of my excuses.
    ‘Nichi. Nichi . . .’ Christos released my name as if he were breaking open a bad spell. He was crying uncontrollably now. Why had I thought this was the right thing to do? My confession had crumpled his heart.
    ‘I’m going to go. I have to go,’ he sobbed.
    ‘Christos, please . . .’
    ‘I can’t. I can’t. I can’t,’ he repeated, as if trying to shake off the awful truth of my transgression. Then he managed to gather himself for a moment, stifling his own sobs. His silence stopped my heart for a second.
    Finally, he spoke.
    ‘Nichi
mou
– you’ve broken us.’

CHAPTER 8
    At the end of October, I still ached. I was settled in my new flat, at least as settled as I could be anywhere without Christos, and although it had never been our joint home, in my wardrobe, my jewellery box, on my iPod and my bookshelves, he lingered. There wasn’t a single part of my daily existence he had not slightly rearranged. Life was on mute. I’d torn up then tossed back at him our gift of a relationship. But still, I lived. There were pressing, professional distractions that left with me with little choice.
    I had managed to turn my one-month internship into two, and had performed well enough for the magazine to ask me to stay on longer still. As much as I relished the opportunity, and still got a thrill out of knowing that I was working as an editorial assistant, with words and thoughts, and the kind of culture that enriched rather than eroded life, I simply couldn’t afford to work for free for a third month. The trouble was, now that I had had a taste of the kind of intellectual and creative stimulation I had prayed hard study would provide, I couldn’t bear to go back to the hospital. I had an interview for an entry-level position on a small travel magazine the following week, and I was crossing all possible digits in the hope I would get it. If I didn’t, I was going to have to find another way to earn money.
    I was also struggling to fit myself to single life again. I suppose it is one of those myths perpetuated as much by those in London as those outside it that metropolitan downtime consists of fusion cuisine dinners, taxidermy art shows and clothes-swapping parties in disused red telephone boxes. Truth is, it’s just as easy to stay in on a Saturday night with only a bottle of wine and the television for company if you don’t have many people to share your free time with. In the advert breaks between the
X Factor
I would toy with my phone and think about texting Christos. But I knew it was inappropriate, that it would only lead to more stress and confusion for the both of us. I could cope with making myself miserable but not