Agony on the Ice

It was a sunny day but Samantha was past feeling anything. The garden was very large and she wandered off down to where the pond was, there were chairs there and she was still feeling exhausted, she was flushing the sleeping pills Dr Lewis had prescribed down the toilet every night. There was a large swinging garden chair by the pond but when she reached it someone was already sitting in it. She froze and Alex rose to his feet.

‘What the hell?’ she demanded.

‘I thought I’d drop round,’ he said, trying to find something innocuous to say.

‘I told you to stay away,’ she said, ‘I told everybody I didn’t want to see you!’

‘I wanted to see you.’

‘Would you just go? Please.’

‘This isn’t fair,’ he said. He tried to walk towards her but stopped when she flinched away from him. He spread his hands in appeal, ‘You owe me more than this.’

‘I don’t owe you anything! We were partners, that’s all. Skating partners and now that’s all over and done.’

‘We were more than that and you know it. I love you.’

‘Well, I don’t love you! I don’t even like you.’ She held her head in her hands, ‘Just sod off why don’t you?’

‘You’re my fiancée, we’re supposed to be getting married, planning our wedding.’

‘Marry you? I’m not going to marry you!’ it was almost a snarl. She wrenched at the ring on her finger that he had given her, his grandmother’s ring, the expensive one. It stuck and she had to use her teeth and she finally dragged it free leaving her finger bleeding. She hurled it savagely at him and it bounced off his chest and into the flower beds.

‘Now just sod off!’ she said, and she turned and bolted back towards the house.