“You’re as Cold as Ice!” 🧊

Date: 6/23/2020

I was driving along in the car with my mum and my husband when I spotted a pair of light purple lace knickers I didn’t recognise before in my rearview mirror. I reached back and grabbed them and asked my husband if he knew anything about this... because they certainly weren’t mine. (Purple’s not my colour!) “They must be Phoebe’s.” My mum suggested, “she’s always leaving her dirty knickers around!” I know my mum was trying to make me feel better for suggesting they were my 15-year-old daughter’s briefs, but I could see the look on my husband’s face. The look of shame and deceit. “Come on, mum! These aren’t Phoebe’s. She hasn’t been in the car for months,” I said, glancing straight over to my husband. “But someone has!” I sniped. “So who was it?” I asked. At this point, we were all standing on the side of the motorway and, there I was, waving a pair of lace undies in the air, hot in the face with anger. “Who was it?” I repeated. “Hollie.” My husband finally answered. “And do I know her?” I interrogated. “No.” He replied. There was a moments silence before I asked; “Is she younger than me?” (What a question to ask?! I knew what was coming....) “Yes.” He nodded. That was it. I was raging mad now. Younger than me?! How bloody dare he?! It was the ultimate betrayal. My mum suggested that we took a break from each other for awhile and cool down, but that didn’t happen. He remained in the house (Covid and all that!) My husband became cold (as ice... not willing to sacrifice!) and detached and just didn’t want to know. It’s like I was a complete stranger to him now. This made my blood boil even more so. I remember looking in the mirror and hating my reflection. I may have called myself an ‘ugly twat’ in front of him, or something of that kind, but he didn’t console me in any way. He just walked on by as if I didn’t exist at all. Next scene; My son was playing a game of “airports” which involved dismantling my kitchen sink and pretending it was the ‘beeper machine’ (I’m sure there is an actual term for this, but it’s 7 am and my brain no workie!). It looked so flimsy it could snap in half, but he kept stamping all over it, as he played in his imaginary world. I came along and pretended to be the frisk lady. (Again... I’m sure there’s a proper name but... me tired.) “Now, I’m just going to run this buzzy thing down your body, you may hear a light hum.” I said, in a pretend Australian accent (not sure why? Maybe I thought I was on Border Controls or something?!) Suddenly two tourists appeared, out of nowhere, standing to the side of me. One had asked me why I had so many circle tattoos. I looked down at my arms, but there were no tattoos in sight. Next scene; “Have you got any bandages?” I asked my mum. I had burnt myself badly, all over my arms. I had raw pieces of flesh dripping with blood and oozing pus. I could only find a box of sanitary towels (dammit!) to put on them, but I had run out mid patch-up. The burns looked horrendous, the kind that would leave deep scars on my skin forever, but I didn’t seem too fussed about this. I just took it in my stride. Next scene; I was watching this Easter play at the school with my friend, Ash, but was sat behind the tallest people imaginable and couldn’t see a damn thing. Ash was getting really annoyed and asked someone if we could switch chairs with them. They grumpily told us “Not a chance in hell.” And so I turned around to her and said, “Don’t worry, it’s going to be shit anyway. I didn’t even want to come.” Ash looked horrified that I had said such an insulting thing. Why wouldn’t I want to see my children’s precious play?! I remember seeing someone I recognised from secondary school (Stacy Davis) sitting a few seats away. She kept cracking all these really unhumorous jokes all the time and then laughing at them, which pissed everyone off. Next scene; My mother-in-law was at the door. She had a parcel in her hand and told me that this will be the last time the neighbours will take parcels in for me. “Why? What’s their problem?” I asked. “I don’t rightly know, but she seemed extremely angry.” She replied. I looked over to my neighbours house, to find Amber (my neighbour to the left) tapping away at her desk. She’d made an office in her tiny porch. It looked impossibly small from where I was standing, but on closer inspection looked massive. Like some kind of freak tardis! I felt a pang of jealousy, followed by resentfulness that she had been so rude. “Well, screw her!” I snapped. My mother-in-law looked at me in shock. (Yes! She’s very prim and proper, dontcha know!)