Olivia Spent the Entire Day Preparing for New Year’s Eve: Cleaning, Cooking, Setting the Table—Her F…

All day, Emily had been spinning about her tiny flat in South London, tidying, cooking, laying the table with trembling hands. This was her first New Years Eve away from home, her first with the man she loved.

For three months now, shed shared Martin’s flat with hima man fifteen years her senior, previously married, still handing over pounds in child support, and, truth be told, a lover of pints when the mood struck him. But none of that seemed to matter in the haze of infatuation. It baffled everyone how shed fallen for Martinfar from handsome, with a face you wouldnt remember in the morning, a sour temper, stingy to a fault, and always skint but for the odd self-indulgence. Yet this odd, lumpy Martin had enchanted Emily.

Shed spent those months hoping that hed notice her cheerful efforts and homely ways, hoping hed decide she was marriage material. Well live together a while, see if youre any good at it. Dont want another disaster like my last, he would say. What sort of disaster was his ex, Emily could only guess. Martin never explained. All she could do was show her best self: never scolding him when he returned late or tipsy, always having dinner ready, keeping clothes washed and floors scrubbed, paying for groceries herself (lest he suspect she was after his moneyha). Shed even laid out tonights feast with her own savings. And as a gift, shed bought him a shiny new mobile phone.

While Emily prepped the flat with streamers and dreams, Martin had his own preparations: getting merry with his mates down at the pub. He returned rosy-cheeked, announcing that hed invited a gaggle of friends round to see in the New Yearhis friends, strangers to her. The kitchen clock told her there was just an hour left until the new year. The mood was soured, but she bit her tongue. She wouldnt act like his ex, whoever she was.

Half an hour before midnight, a raucous crush of people barged inboisterous men and women smelling of gin and cigarettes. Martin perked up, seated them at her lovingly prepared table, and soon the flat was bursting with laughter and shouted stories. Martin did not so much as introduce Emily; she was invisible among their in-jokes and noisy reminiscences.

When Emily, quietly watching the clock, mentioned that it was almost midnight and perhaps time for champagne, a young woman stared at her as if shed seen a ghost and slurred, Whos that, then?
Just my bedfellow, Martin chuckled. His friends burst into cruel giggles.

They dug into Emilys food, mocking her homemade pies, hailing Martins cleverness for nabbing himself a live-in cook and maid for nothing. Martin simply laughed with them. He stuffed his face with the dinner shed paid for, wiping his mouth on her feelings.

Emily slipped from the room with silent shoes, packed her few things, and walked alone through the chill London fog, all the way to her parents house. Shed never known a New Years Eve so nightmarish, so heavy with humiliation. Her mother said, as always, Didnt I warn you? Her father only sighed in relief. Sobbing away the last of her love, Emily finally tapped the pink lens off her heart.

A week later, once Martins wallet had run dry, he showed up at her door as if nothing had happened.
Whyd you leg it? he asked, as if baffled. You sulking? Nice of you to be tucked up at your mum and dads while Im starving, fridge bare! Youre starting to act just like the ex!

Emily was stunned silent by the cheek of him. All those furious speeches shed practiced fizzled away. All she managed was a sharp, final good-bye and the slam of a door.

So, with the chimes that marked a new year, Emilys life, strange and drifting, finally began anew.