A Rather Tangly Disentanglement

As I am sure anyone other than my dozy self could have predicted, the ‘trial’ separation from Abel hadn’t gone off quite as planned.

My dearest and apparently unrealistic hope was that he would take on board the comments I had made in my initial missive (bad idea though it undoubtedly was), realise that as a couple we were ultimately doomed to fail; thus finally coming around to the idea of mentally replacing the word ‘trial’ with, oh, I don’t know, ‘permanent’?

Unfortunately, as it transpired, he was determined to be just as single-minded about continuing our union in the face of a veritable cordillera of obstacles (namely my having checked out emotionally months previously) as he was about finishing his university degree.

And so it was that one day, during the summer of 2001, he and his suitcase appeared at my door and informed me that they had made the journey to Marbella in order to win me back.

To say I was taken aback would be understating my shock and horror at the turn of events, but providing I wasn’t obliged to put a roof over his head there wasn’t an awful lot I could do about it other than warn him that he was almost certainly undertaking an impossible task.

The likely impossibility of Abel’s mission notwithstanding, he checked into a hostel, found a seasonal job as a kitchen assistant in one of the larger restaurants, and got on with the business of settling into what I had up to that point considered MY town.

Me, on the other hand? Well, I kept my head down and tried to ignore my feelings of unease at what was undoubtedly to come.

I don’t honestly know how long the impasse would have continued if it wasn’t for the fact that, after about a month, he developed a large kidney stone, a condition to which I knew he was prone, and rang me one morning in complete agony.

Leaving the poor man to suffer was hardly an option, so I scooped him up and drove the green-faced, sweating wreck out to the Hospital Costa del Sol.

The disconcerting greenish hue was still apparent on his discharge from the hospital, and the echoes of extreme pain had pinched dark circles underneath his eyes; he could barely make it to the car.

What could I do?

He certainly couldn’t be left in a hostel to fend for his weak and seemingly disorientated self. No, the only thing was to install the sorry invalid in my apartment, at least until he was capable of heading back to his solitary existence in the hostel.

So despite my very best intentions, Abel and I found ourselves back under one roof once again, although absolutely not together.

Of course he had no intention of leaving once he was well – I had handed him the ideal opportunity to up the offensive in an environment from which I could only escape during the day.

The atmosphere in the house became increasingly tense as he persisted with his campaign to persuade me to accept him back into my life.

Abel had convinced himself that I didn’t want to be with him because he wasn’t rich, and as much as I tried to assure him that I’m the sort of girl more likely to fall for a gardener than a hedge fund manager, he was having none of it.

He segued from that to a period of repeatedly begging me to explain why I had let him fall in love with me in the first place if I was just going to turn around three years later and break his heart.

His final tactic was the waving of other girls in front on my face, both fictional and real – how would I feel if he went off with her, or her, or her?

I was drowning in confusion, guilt and sadness – being faced with Abel’s consuming misery on a daily basis chasing away any feelings of anger I might otherwise have been able to muster up.

There was just no let-up: being at home was unpleasant, but if I stayed out, the atmosphere was a hundred times worse when I eventually did make an appearance. If I was civil to him he thought we were making progress, if I wasn’t, he became even more impossible.

When he finally realised that none of his overtures or entreaties were having any effect, he resorted to showering me with insults until I eventually cracked and ordered him out of the house.

And to my great surprise, he went.

Apparently torturing us both all summer had enabled him to work through his issues, and so he packed up all his belongings – both in Granada and in Marbella – and disappeared off up north back to Villanova e la Geltrú, transmuting his studies to the University of Barcelona and leaving behind a washed-out and emotionally exhausted ex-girlfriend.

That would be last I heard of Abel, whilst I was still in Spain, at least…

I bet you think that was my last ill-fated romantic entanglement, don’t you? You would be wrong. As unsuited as I clearly was at being in a relationship, ending a relationship or being forcibly ejected from a relationship, my heart still craved my very own Mills and Boon ending.

What a silly girl.