April 1: The X Factor

The X is back. He emailed to say that cutting me out of his life has made him miserable and not really done him any favours. Did I want to meet up? Yes, yes, yes. God, I've missed him. Things may be awkward and hard and messy but that's better than nothing. I jump at the chance.
I pick him up from his house, walking into his breezy aga-warmed kitchen the way I always did. He has the most fantastic cat that technically belongs to the old owners of his property. When they left and he moved in, a year or so ago, it just refused to go with them. It simply made itself at home on the new sofas, as if to say, 'you want to evict me, you just try it'. It's got more resilience than a family of Romanian squatters. Each time the old owners came to collect it, it just sneaked out of their new house, a few miles away, and came back. Mind you, the owners were a bit bloody weird. The kid had scrawled graffiti on his bedroom wall in black marker pen. (I know one thing for certain - Bump is never doing that.)
The cat is big, and completely black with startling yellow / green eyes and looks a bit like a panther. If I was a cat, I wouldn't mess. It's good to see it, as mad as that sounds. I don't think it has missed me. But I've missed it.
Dinner is good - strange and quite hard but good. I guess - not being a couple - it's about forging new ground, new conversation, new delicate footholds where once there was a great fortified bridge. I don't ask him about his love-life, which he will no doubt have to some degree or other despite missing me. We skirt over FTB. Despite all this, I cry and cry and cry over my fish and chips. It's all too hard. Men. Life. Emotions. This situation. To use a cliche, I would probably describe myself as an emotional wreck. I suppose I'm too tired and weary of it all to think up anything more imaginative.