Somebody to Love: Sigh With Contentment, Scream With Frustration. At Time You Will Weep. by Sheryl Browne Page A

man.
    It suited him.
    No, she couldn’t ring him. Even if he wanted to speak to her, she’d be doing it for all the wrong reasons. She had another quick sniff, then wandered across the room to peer into drawers, hoping for inspiration. She’d be ringing him out of guilt and guilt was a problem she’d struggled with throughout her marriage. Jeremy always seemed to make her feel as if everything was her fault if they argued, jumping on her every mood, asking casually if it was ‘that time of the month’ whenever she’d been upset over things he’d said, and done, and had been doing for a very long time behind her back. She’d been such a fool to let him treat her so badly.
    But Mark wasn’t Jeremy.
    Mark was nice. She was beginning to think that that’s what she would have found at the core of him, if only she’d given him a chance. No hidden depths or dark secrets, just niceness.
    Jeremy was most definitely not nice.
    His overt condescension hadn’t taught her that. It was a combination of things. The way he’d laugh at her, belittling her in front of friends. Drawling, ‘Donna’s domestic Goddess gene doesn’t work very well, does it, darling?’ when she’d spent hours in the kitchen and things had gone a bit awry. He’d create situations where he could laugh at her. He knew she was terrified of spiders. He’d pretended to throw one at her once. It was just a crinkled-up leaf from a plant, but Donna hadn’t known that when it landed in her hair. They’d had company around that time, too. She’d been hysterical and the man she’d once thought herself safe with had laughed at her.
    And then, when the guests had gone, they would argue and Jeremy would stomp about and bang things and shout.
    He’d scared her. Donna shuddered involuntarily and reminded herself never, ever, would she go there again.
    Mark scared her too, she supposed, though in a completely different way than Jeremy. No one could be as perfect as he seemed. Donna didn’t want be there when the gloss wore off. When Mark got bored and stopped trying. The opposite of love, it seemed to Donna, wasn’t hate. It was indifference: Treating a person as if they were nothing more than a mild irritation, or didn’t exist at all.
    No, she wouldn’t ring him, she decided, pouring herself into her too-tight sweatpants and vowing to diet immediately after she’d finished her bar of Cadbury’s Whole Nut.
    What happened with Jeremy wasn’t Mark’s fault, but she couldn’t go through that again. Donna honestly didn’t know whether she was damaged goods now, or whether she’d never functioned properly in the first place, inviting a man into her life who didn’t truly care for her. Whatever, she didn’t feel able to cope with the aftermath if she made the same mistake all over again with Mark.
    And she could, quite easily.
    Except… it was all history now, wasn’t it? And if it wasn’t, it soon would be if he caught a glimpse of her in this little lot. Donna appraised herself in the mirror, rolled her eyes and hastily tugged off a breast-flattening vest in favour of baggy. Finally, as ready as she could be in mismatching sports gear, she wrestled her hair into a band and dashed downstairs.
    ‘Bye, baby.’ She kissed Sadie, left Matt pizza money — he being out, having progressed from Facebook to face-to-face with a girl, and plucked up her car keys.
    Just as she reached the front door, the phone rang. Donna’s mouth went dry. She glanced at the caller display. It was Mark. Her heart boomed against her chest as she plucked up the receiver.
    ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘It’s me. How are you?’
    Donna took a breath. ‘The same as I was earlier. Okay, you know.’
    ‘Any chance you’ve changed your mind? About dinner?’
    Donna chewed on her lip. Say yes. Say yes , a little voice said in her head. Go back upstairs, put on some make-up, pick out your best dress and say yes. ‘ I can’t, Mark, not tonight. I…’
    ‘Look, Donna, don’t blow