Better out than in

Some years later, on the first night that I spent with Phil, I split the story out. Quickly and in a nutshell I told it all- the beginning: adoration, insanity, sex; the middle: insanity, arguments, sex; and the end: insanity, grief, loneliness, sex with other people who were not you but who I wished were. He was driving and we were sat at a red light on the M25 roundabout. He didn’t ask any questions. He accepted the story and expressed some sadness at the tone of it. He seemed to know it was important that I’d said it.

I told, I think, because if I hadn’t told it would have somehow been a lie. Tell me about your old boyfriends means tell me some light hearted stories about the men you have kissed, not tell me the story of how you became the mistress of your English teacher by mistake. Once it was out there it was done and I could explain a few things. Looking back I think that that moment in the car was the moment that I first loved somebody else more than I loved you. It was five years after we had last kissed. It was a long time coming.

By telling the story I have quite often banished you. I told a friend at my new job and your specter seemed to go- I worried daily about you walking into my staffroom and announcing that you were the new deputy head- but once I told the story I was clean again, you were gone. Whenever I have admitted to you I have stopped worrying about you. I met an old neighbour of yours, and when I realised that we had you in common I didn’t just say Oh, he was my teacher, but told her the whole story. It was somehow always better out than in. 

You are my sin and the whole world is my confession box.