by Jo Watson
“We are so what?” I asked.
“Well, I thought we were anyway,” he said sadly. “But it’s clear you don’t feel the same way, because you’re not over Matt. In fact, you’re kissing him. You’re running your hands through his hair, you’re rubbing yourself against him . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I . . . I . . .” I stuttered again. “Alex, please?” I said.
“Please what?” he asked.
Please tell me what I should be feeling. Please tell me exactly how you feel. Please tell me what to do, what to think. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Val,” Alex took a step closer to me, “since meeting you, I feel alive. I’ve done things that I never ever thought I would do before. I feel like I’ve woken up. That before meeting you I was sleeping and now . . . I’m awake.”
“Awake?” I asked. But I wanted to hear more than “awake.” Surely “awake” didn’t override years and years of love that I’d felt for someone?
“Well, what do you feel?” he asked.
“I . . . I . . .” I tripped over my tied tongue. “Confused,” I admitted.
Alex sighed and then shook his head. “So here I am again . . . I feel like I’m on the rooftop all over again asking the girl to pick me and then she doesn’t.”
“Is that what you’re doing, Alex? Asking me to pick you?” I asked.
“Maybe . . .” he said. He looked at me. I could see he was wrestling with something in his head and then he just blurted it out. “I think I might be feeling a lot for you, Val . . . that I might be . . .” he paused for the longest time, “falling for you.” Alex threw his arms in the air. “Is that better? Is that what you want to hear? Even though I said I wasn’t going to be saying that anytime soon, I think I might be saying it again.”
A warm rush swept through my body and my heart started thumping in my chest. “You are?” I asked.
“Yes . . . Jesus!” He turned away from me and walked in a small circle. “Talk about falling for the wrong women. I seem to have a habit of that. One cheats on me seven years into the relationship, and the other one is kissing her ex the night after I made love to her.” And then Alex paused and looked at me curiously. “And you are confused.” It was a statement. Not a question.
I locked eyes with Alex, I could feel a tear dislodging itself from my eye and start rolling down my cheek. I was confused. So confused. I couldn’t quite sift through what I was feeling right now. It was all just too overwhelming and sudden. Matt arriving and breaking up with Sam. Alex telling me he was falling for me. I needed a moment to process this all. But I didn’t get it, because I heard my name being called.
I turned and looked at him. Matt. He was smiling at me. Waving. I looked back at Alex, his eyes seemed to be beseeching me.
“Val?” Matt called again and I turned around once more. He was looking at me with the look.
Shit! I looked back over at Alex. He looked expectant, waiting for me. Waiting for the answer. I started shaking my head at Alex. “I don’t know wh—”
He cut me off by holding his hand up. “Then let me do it for you.”
“Do what?” Panic gripped me.
“The last week has been amazing. I will never forget it. And I will never forget you. And I wish you only the best, Val. I wish you all the happiness in the world, wherever and whoever that may be with.”
My heart snapped. Broke. It shattered into a million pieces in my chest and I wanted to cry. He turned and started walking away.
“Wait,” I called out in panic.
Alex turned again. “You don’t know what you want, Val.” He said it so firmly and I knew he was right.
“I just need a few moments to think,” I said. I needed a second to catch my breath and fucking process this all.
“You shouldn’t have to think so hard about this. I know I don’t have to.” He turned again and continued to walk away.
“Val?” I heard Matt call me again. I turned and looked at him
Matt had left Sam. For me. He’d come all this way to tell me he loved me. I’d spent more than a thousand days loving that man and surely something that had happened over the course of a week could not erase that?
I turned and looked back at Alex. He was far down the beach now, jogging. I wanted to run after him and stop him and . . . and . . .
“Val, are you okay?” Matt called from behind me again.
“I’m fine,” I called back to him. “Give me a minute. I’ll meet you inside.” I turned and he smiled at me. I smiled back because that’s what I always did when he smiled.
“Sure.” He nodded and walked back inside. I looked back to where Alex had been. But he was gone now. I scanned the beach and the garden, but couldn’t see him anywhere. So I turned and started walking back towards the hotel. Towards Matt. I walked towards Matt, because that’s what I’d done for the last three years of my life. Matt was my default.
A rustle in the bushes made me stop. I didn’t even turn to look, because I knew exactly what it was.
“WHAT!” I shouted.
I waited for a response, but of course I knew I wouldn’t get one. So I turned and looked at him. His head moved from side to side, almost as if it were shaking it at me.
“Fuck!” I hissed quietly to myself and then wanted to turn around and run to Alex again. But Matt was waiting for me. Matt.
“I’m doing the right thing,” I whispered at him. “I’m doing the right thing,” I said again.
Wasn’t I?
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
Several very confusing hours later I found myself standing at the airport once more. But this time, I wasn’t alone. Since leaving the hotel, I’d been in some kind of strange detached space where I felt completely separate from everyone else and everything around me. In a kind of surreal, fuzzy no-man’s land. Today was Wednesday, one of the days there were flights back to South Africa, and this time there had been space on the flight, was that a sign?
I looked around the airport. A week ago I hadn’t even known that this island existed and now that I was leaving it, I realized how attached I’d grown to it. I looked around at the massive boards and pictures everywhere advertising the many beauties of the country.
A huge underwater scene was splashed across one. A scuba diver swimming around a brightly colored coral reef. Dive Réunion, it read. Yellow fish swimming around the diver, bubbles escaping his mouth rushing to the surface and then . . . What the hell was that?
The bloody bastard. Lurking in the corner of the billboard, so, so far in the corner that you might miss it, a beady little brown eye attached to a long wrinkly neck. I shook my head, feeling like there was a conspiracy against me. All the shelled creatures of the world were conspiring against me. Stalking me. Staring at me . . . judging me.
I huffed and turned my back on the billboard, but there, plastered across the other wall . . .
Welcome to Réunion. Visit the Tortoise Sanctuary. More beady eyes. More wrinkly necks. More judgey, pursed-mouth beaks.
“Bloody hell.” I turned my back on this billboard too and folded my arms.
“Are you okay?” Matt asked, putting his hands on my shoulders. I flinched in fright. I’d almost forgotten Matt was even here. How had I forgotten that? For the last three years all I had wanted was him here.
I spun around. “Ever get that feeling you’re being watched?” I asked.
Matt burst out laughing and pulled me into a hug. “God, Val. You say the funniest things. That’s one of the reasons I love you.”
I lifted my arms feebly and wrapped them around him. I closed my eyes and buried my head in his shoulder and inhaled his scent. He smelt like he always smelt. Bleu du Chanel. But this time, the scent wasn’t doing what it usually did to me. It wasn’t giving me that feeling. The feeling that used to make my stomach leap and cartwheel and plummet.
Matt took my face between his hands again and raised my lips to his, kissing them softly.
“God, this feels so good,” he whispe
red softly against my mouth. “So right.”
“Mmm,” I mumbled, “it does.” I said this even though I wasn’t entirely sure it did.
“I know what you were doing with that Alex guy, and don’t worry, we don’t have to speak about it. I get it,” he said suddenly.
“What was I doing with Alex?” I asked, surprised by his statement and genuinely interested in what he thought I’d been doing.
“I know you just did it out of anger and pain,” he said. “I know it didn’t mean anything.” Matt looked deeply into my eyes again as if he loved me. As if he really loved me. “Shall we go home?”
“Home?” For some reason that word had such gravitas to it and seemed laced with meaning.
“Your place or mine?” He smiled at me. Sexy. Flirty. Dirty. And it suddenly occurred to me what he was getting at. Sex. Matt and I were meant to have sex now. But I’d just been with Alex the night before, and I wasn’t sure I could be the girl who slept with two different men in twenty-four hours.
Wait. What the hell was going on here? My mind was swirling. So many thoughts, so many feelings, so much confusion clouding everything right now that I wasn’t sure what was right or wrong and what I wanted or didn’t want.
I pulled away from Matt gently. “Would you mind if we took this slow? It’s all a bit overwhelming still,” I whispered quietly.
“Sure. Of course. No pressure.” Matt quickly corrected defensively. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. This is all just so strange and I’m still trying to get my head around it,” I said, moving a little further away from him without even knowing.
A boarding call came through the intercom. “That’s us,” Matt said. “It’s time for us to go.”
Time for us to go. This was all so strange. But I followed him towards the plane anyway.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
Dear Diary,
I bought a new one of you because the last one of your kind is lying at the bottom of a pool in Réunion. I’ve needed to write. To try and get all the thoughts out of my head and onto paper so I can make sense of them.
Matt and I are officially together . . . I think? Well, we are. I just didn’t think it would feel like this. We are doing the same things as before, pizza, beer, TV, chilling . . . and kissing. We kiss a lot. Last night he ran his hands over my breast and it felt really weird. Matt has been talking about the future, saying what a waste it is that we have two flats. That we should move in together. I told him I thought that was a bit fast, he laughed and said it’s been three years in the making though.
It’s been exactly five days since I’ve come home. Five days since I saw Alex, but I can’t stop thinking about him . . .
I got a message from Julian the day after I arrived home. Well, a photo. He’d taken a photo of Alex and sent it to me with the word WTFAYT? written below. In brackets (What the fuck are you thinking?) The photo showed Alex slumped over at the bar. He was drinking his little pink drink again. He looked miserable. He had facial stubble and his hair was a mess and it broke my heart.
I don’t know. I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to think or how to act or how to feel! I wanted something so badly for so long and now that I finally have it . . . IDK!
More laters . . .
Dear Diary,
It’s been two weeks since I got back from Réunion. Matt has been away on business for the last five days and I know I shouldn’t say this, but I feel relieved. Guess who I bumped into today at the mall: THE BOSS and DIVORCED! They saw me and wanted to thank me, because now they are in love. They say. (I crashed both their cars at Matt’s engagement party, you’ll remember.) Matt wanted to have sex with me the night before he went away on business. I told him I wasn’t feeling that well . . .
On a totally different note, my editor wants me to start writing a weekly column for the online magazine. Something “personal” she said. (She heard what happened to me at Matt’s engagement party, apparently we have some mutual friends. She thought it would make a great story, especially now that Matt and I are together. She says this is a total miracle. She said I must be so happy. She said this must feel like a dream come true. My perfect Hollywood ending . . .)
Guess what . . .? Alex seems to have pulled a number four on me. He’s murdered me on social media. I am blocked from all his online profiles. The last picture I saw of him was one he posted the day he arrived back in London. It showed a massive pile of unopened envelopes on his couch saying something to the effect of, “Welcome home!” I saw he’d tagged his location and I went to see it. I think I know where he lives now. I’ve found myself staring at a picture of his apartment building on Google Earth trying to guess which flat is his and hoping I could see him through the window. I know that’s lame. But I just feel like I need to see him. If only for a moment. I hated that the last time I saw him was when he’d looked at me like that, and then run away down the beach. I hate that the last memory we have of each other is that moment.
I haven’t seen any of my friends since coming back. I guess I’m a bit worried what they’ll say to me about everything that has happened. For some reason, I feel strange trying to explain to them why I am suddenly with Matt now. By the way, have I mentioned that I feel really bad about Sam? I keep thinking about her, and not in the way that I used to think about her, in the whole “I wish she would blow up and disappear” way. I hope she’s okay . . . what am I saying, of course she’s not okay. Her fiancé left her for his best friend who ruined her engagement party . . . I’d started feeling so good about myself and everything while I was in Réunion, and now I just feel crap about everything. Including myself.
Later . . .
Dear Diary,
So two things happened to me today that have left me feeling—what is the right word—unhinged maybe? One, I bumped my knee on a chair and ripped the old scab off it. There was blood everywhere. Matt tried to help me with it, but he didn’t have any plasters and landed up wrapping my knee with toilet paper and for some reason this made me so angry with him that we had a fight about it. I apologized later, I don’t know what got into me. I’m just not feeling myself. And then, two, I got a message from Julian today. The message was another photo. It was a photo of the magazine that Alex and I had been using. He said he found it at the bar. He took a photo of one of the other articles in the magazine. The article was called, “How Do You Know If You’re In The Wrong Relationship?”
1. You think of someone else when you are with him.
2. You can’t wait for him to be gone so you can enjoy your own company.
3. When he phones to chat, you zone out and pretend you’re listening, but you aren’t.
There were more, but I think you get the picture . . .
So here’s the thing, I’m pretty sure I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake and I don’t know what to do to fix it. I’m not even sure I can fix it. I feel like I’m drowning in my mistake and the more I drown, the more I’m starting to realize some things that I wish I’d realized a while ago. Anyway, I’m going to my friend this afternoon to chat to her. I need her advice and if there’s one person who knows how to tell it like it is, it’s her. I’m off to see her now.
More later . . .
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I pulled up to the house that Stormy shared with her boyfriend Marcus. It was a pretty house, perhaps the prettiest on the block. Large windows, lots of plants in the front garden and a fresh paint job that made it look brand new and immaculate. I walked up to the front door and found a note attached to it. I opened it.
Key under pot plant with pink flower. Come in. I’m in the back garden.
I shook my head as I read the note which any would-be burglar would have been only too thrilled to have received. I walked inside, looked around and laughed.
The house was a strange mix of Marcus and Stormy. In between big screen TVs, immaculate leather couches and an open-plan modern kitchen, were dots of Stormy. A purple dream-catcher in the corner, a bright pink f
luffy pillow on the couch, a painting of God knows what on the wall and a pair of bright yellow sandals discarded carelessly in the middle of the floor.
“Stormy?” I called out, walking through the house to the large French doors that opened out into the garden. I didn’t see her at first, but when I finally did, she seemed to magically emerge from the undergrowth; mud besmeared, branch in hand and leaves in hair and, Oh My God!
“What the hell have you done to your hair?” I gasped.
“Do you love it?” she asked, twirling around, the beads all knocking together and making that dreadful clanking noise that I was all too familiar with.
“Mmmmm,” I mumbled, “it’s great. What’s not to love about green braids with beads on the ends?”
“I know, right? I was so inspired by your hair that I decided I had to have it too.”
“It looks good on you,” I lied. Not even Stormy-Rain could pull this one off.
She skipped over to me, holding a massive pair of garden shears in her hand which made me incredibly nervous, since she was known for her clumsiness.
We made some tea and a few moments later were sitting on the back porch sipping it—well, she was sipping, I was pretending to sip. It was the most hideous thing I’d ever tasted in my life, I didn’t care that it was organic, magnetically charged, crystal infused and good for your cholesterol, or whatever else it no doubt claimed to be.
I’d been explaining for the last ten minutes, non-stop, the events that had transpired in Réunion and transpired the day I left Réunion. I told her about Alex walking away, about wanting to stop him but not being sure. I told her about Matt and how I was so thrown by the fact that I wasn’t feeling for him what I always thought I would feel. She listened intently. I paused for a while to catch my breath.
“I just don’t know what to do,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel and what I am supposed to feel and for who?”