It was 3am and I’d had a lot to drink; two reasons why I was pressing my boyfriend of 10 years on why he hadn’t yet proposed. We were strong and happy, and loved each other madly, so his reticence seemed ludicrous to me when sober, let alone drunk.
I suspect it was my ceaseless questioning that ultimately blew a fuse in his brain, because that’s when he told me his secret. When I woke up, he was gone. I watched his WhatsApp status like it was the heart monitor of an ailing relative. The second I saw “online”, I called and asked him to come home. To talk. To answer the questions that I’d scribbled illegibly on a half-folded piece of A4 paper.
He walked through the door and sat down, his face masked with fear. “What were you trying to tell me?” I asked hopefully, all too aware of how different things can look when alcohol is no longer shaping your every thought.
