by JC Harroway
‘And more than anything,’ she whispers, ‘I hope you find contentment in your life.’
I recoil, too shattered to hear this now. ‘I can’t do this,’ I say. ‘The end was always coming for us. We both knew that. It’s just one day early.’ And there’s only room in my head for one sickening storm.
She faces me with a brave smile. ‘I know. It was just a holiday fling,’ she says, letting me off the hook.
I feel her distance even though she doesn’t move. She’s giving me space. Letting me escape gently, so great is her empathy and understanding.
‘I’ll be okay, you know,’ she says. ‘And if you need to talk, I’ll be there. Any time.’
Irrational rage bubbles up, an inferno of need and denial and powerlessness. Part of me bows under the weight of gratitude, and the darker part, the part snarling in a corner for fear of being dragged into the light, wants to test her passion, to know that it isn’t just me reeling and rudderless.
‘You know you can’t fix this, Grace. You can’t fix me.’ I ignore the flash of hurt in her eyes, the foul words spewing unbidden. ‘It’s okay—just walk away and see what happens.’ My eyes burn, so intent is my stare, but I don’t back down; my sanity demands this vile display. ‘I’ll survive. I’ve survived before. We’ll still be the same two people who want different things. The world won’t end.’
It will just feel that way.
But I can’t give her any more than I have, and the evidence that it’s not enough may as well gouge out my eyes.
She swallows, her huge heart boldly on show as she tries to conceal the pain I’ve caused. ‘I know I can’t fix it—I would if I could. But at least try to be honest with yourself going forward. Yes, you’ll survive, but is that living? Is fear a good enough reason to never allow yourself to be loved?’
Her sad smile, the stoic tremble of her lip, kills me, chews me up and spits me out. She presses a kiss to my cheek and steps away, heading for the door. I watch her go, my feet glued in place by the very fear she thinks is easily overcome. I’m only strong enough to face one loss.
Grace slips outside, but before she closes the door, she levels her courageous stare on me, stealing what’s left of my air. ‘I lied before, on the beach.’
I frown.
‘About how easily I could fall for you.’
My pulse pounds in my temples, a sick mix of relief and longing.
‘I know I shouldn’t have,’ she says with bleak eyes, ‘but I’ve already fallen.’
And then she leaves.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Grace
THE FIRST WEEK back at work after a holiday is the toughest. I tell myself that’s why my feet feel as if they’re dragging, and I’d rather sleep in one of the sterile on-call rooms at the hospital than go back to my empty, cold apartment. But even in the temperature-controlled hospital I feel frozen to my core. It’s as if I’ll never be warm again, as if I left all the available sun in the world back in Fiji.
The same place I left a piece of my heart.
It’s ridiculous to pine for someone I met two weeks ago, someone who wants the opposite of what I want. But pine is too mild a word for the soul-deep ache rendering me morose and chilled to the bone.
No, it’s not depression; it’s heartache. I’m the ultimate cliché. I fell for a man I met on holiday. A man so emotionally unavailable, he should have come with a health warning. And now I need to get over it.
Please let me get over it.
I toss my disposable hat into the bin, scan my access card and leave the operating theatres, still wearing scrubs. I walk on autopilot past the wards and head for the exit that will take me to the staff car park.
That’s when I see him.
Ryan.
If he weren’t permanently stuck in my mind since we parted in Fiji, I might not have recognised him. Wearing a sharp, charcoal business suit and tie, he leans up against the wall near the exit, one hand slung in the pocket of his trousers and the other holding his phone, which is where his focus lies.
I stand stock-still, hold my breath, drinking in the sight of him with greedy, burning eyes. He’s had a haircut, his decadent dark waves shorn around the sides and back; even the top, a place my fingers know all too well, is tamed. It’s only been a week since I last saw him, but he appears to have dropped some weight, dark circles under his eyes.
My heart clenches, the violent spasm stealing my breath. How can I still want him so badly? How can every cell crave him, need to comfort him? It’s a lost cause. Even now, I’m bargaining, making deals in order to kid myself for a little longer, so I can have what I want.
Just one last night... I’m strong enough to be his fuck-buddy... Perhaps I don’t want commitment after all...
Lies, all lies. And I’ve stopped moulding myself for others. No matter how crippling this pain, I have to stay strong.
I must move, because my theatre shoes squeak on the hospital linoleum and Ryan looks up from his phone. His gaunt, tired face lights up for a second, and hope soars inside me, and then the shutter falls on his expression and we’re back to strangers who shared a week of incredible sex. Strangers who aren’t even friends. He never contacted me after he left Fiji. No call. No text.
Not surprising.
‘Hey, how are you? How’s your grandmother?’ Immediately I see the answer in his eyes, the pain he’s battling as he pushes away from the wall and walks towards me. We meet in the centre of the corridor.
‘She didn’t make it. I buried her yesterday.’ He speaks without inflection, as if he’s challenged himself to say the words minus the emotions I know are stacked behind them.
I sway in his direction, my grief for his loss acute and violent. But he’s not mine to console.
‘I am so sorry.’ I swallow my own feelings and reach out, touch his arm. I can’t stop myself. I need him in this moment, even if he doesn’t need me—but it’s poor substitute for touching his bare skin, even though the wool of his suit is so fine, I can feel his tightly coiled muscles beneath the fabric.
I want to whisk him back to the island, to strip away all our pretences along with our winter clothes and just exist with the sun on our skin. But no, he gave as much as he could give, and I’m a stupid woman for wishing it could be different.
He doesn’t want me.
He doesn’t even need me.
Even just to hold his hand at his lowest ebb.
If he’d called, told me about his grandmother, I’d have dropped everything, been there for him in a heartbeat.
‘How did you know where to find me?’ I ask, forcing my hand to drop to my side, because Ryan has made no move to return my touch. No polite cheek-to-cheek greeting.
‘I didn’t, really, I just hoped if I hung out near the staff car park I’d see you eventually. Hospital security is really tight—turns out you can’t just phone up and ask for the location of a member of staff because if you don’t see them, don’t speak to them right that minute, your head is going to explode.’
I smile, although the threat of tears burns my throat. ‘Who knew...?’
The light-hearted moment seems to take its toll on him. He swallows, visibly struggling. ‘Can we go somewhere? For a drink?’
My pulse leaps, my heart clamouring to be heard.
Yes... Oh, please, yes.
Then I shuffle my feet as his request tears a big strip off me, leaving a fresh wound, raw and gaping. Because he doesn’t want me. He made that clear on the island. He’s grieving. He wants the pain to stop. And together we can patch the hole for a while. But it won’t hold for ever.
And at what toll to me...?
‘I can’t... I’m... I’m meeting a friend.’ A friend who would understand if I cancelled, but am I strong enough when all I want is to be the person he turns to? Not just in the acute phase, but always and for ever.
&nbs
p; He presses his lips together, glances away and then steps closer, filling the thick air between his body and mine with his delicious scented heat, a potion designed to enslave me.
‘Right, the thing is,’ he says, his stare dark, ‘I miss you.’
My stupid heart talks to my pituitary gland so a cascade of endorphins joins the protests in my weak body. ‘I miss you too. We had quite an intense holiday, didn’t we?’
He frowns and I bite my cheek. Don’t interrupt a man when he hunts you down to get something off his chest...
‘But I’m not done. I’m not ready to move on like it never happened. I want you back, Grace. I want to keep seeing you, take you on dates, get to know you in the real world...’
I sway towards those words. The urge to kiss him—to snuggle inside his suit jacket and steal his warmth, suck in the scent of him and agree—is so strong, I have to curl my nails into my palm to stop myself from moving. My body clamours in triumph while my brain rocks up with the police and noise control, breaking up the party.
‘Ryan,’ I whisper, ‘I’m heartbroken for your loss. I know how important she was to you. You’re grieving and that’s horrible, worst of all because it’s a process and there are no shortcuts—you just have to go through it until, one day, it won’t hurt so bad.’
He looks annoyed, furious even. ‘I am grieving, of course I am, but I still want you.’
I swallow down scalding heat, my eyes burning. ‘I want you too. And, sure, we could see each other for a while, but... I still want to find a for-ever person. I want a relationship and romance, and a ring one day. And you don’t.’
He shakes his head but I plough on, my courage for rejecting what my heart truly craves dwindling as I cling to the last threads. ‘I made myself a promise that I’d stop hiding the real me, stop being apologetic for what I want. You helped me do that, helped me see that the passion I want is out there, I just have to find it with someone who wants the same. There’s no point forcing it if it’s not there. I made the mistake of fooling myself before.’
He steps closer, still not touching me. ‘You can’t deny we’re good together.’
‘Of course not, but the cracks had already begun to show before we left Fiji. We tried to patch them up with sex and that worked fine on the island, because it was a magical, fantasy place, but it won’t work here in the real world. You know that. You even tried to remind me of that before we left. And you were right. I can’t settle again. I can’t put others’ feelings before my own.’ I swallow hard, scrape out the next sentence, which cuts me to shreds. ‘Not even yours.’
I want my words to be lies more than I want my next breath. I want him to be in a place where I see a glimmer of hope for us. I wish I could settle, be okay with what he’s offering.
I feel myself waver, so strong are my feelings for this man. ‘Perhaps—’
‘No.’ His voice is a whip crack. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t relent. Demand what you want—always. You deserve it.’ He scrubs a hand down his tired face, and my pulse trips, missing a beat, compassion for the man I think I’m in love with oozing from every pore.
‘I was just going to say that perhaps you could give me a few days to think it through. Perhaps we can go for a drink Friday, after my shift. I really am meeting my friend Brooke tonight.’ I step close, press a kiss to his cheek and force myself to back away when the feel of his skin under my lips is so right, I’m leaving a part of me behind with that final kiss. ‘I really am sorry for your loss. Call me if you need to talk before Friday.’
I turn away before the tears fall, rushing to my car on wooden feet while every cell in me wails and wheedles. I tear out of the car park as fast as I can, silencing the voices in my head with the blaring radio.
Otherwise I’d cave.
* * *
‘I made the wrong decision, didn’t I?’ I down half of my pint of lager and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, my body twitching to run out of the pub and find Ryan. I’m still wearing my scrubs, but it’s not that weird a sight as Brooke and I chose to meet in a pub close to the hospital. More strange is that I’m seconds away from throwing myself on the floor and wailing like a toddler.
‘I don’t know,’ says Brooke, her usual unflappable stare wary. ‘Where does it hurt the most? Your heart or your pussy?’
I give her a death stare and then lean into her side for a comforting hug. ‘Tell me I haven’t just made the worst mistake of my life.’
‘You haven’t just made the worst mistake of your life,’ she replies, deadpan.
‘I’m serious.’ I swallow another glug of beer. ‘What should I do? Don’t force me to call Neve for advice while she’s on holiday.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Brooke sips her gin and tonic and props her elbows on the table, her expression that of a mother about to deliver a bollocking. ‘The thing is that men aren’t good with expressing their feelings—universal knowledge. So the fact that he sought you out at work to tell you he made a mistake and still wants you is huge.’
She spreads her hands, indicating just how monumentally I’ve messed up.
I drop my head into my hands, the pulsing throb at my temples palpable. ‘No, no, no...’ I look up, searching for validation in my friend’s expression. ‘I thought I was being strong, standing up for what I want. Refusing to settle...’
‘You were, sweetie. You did all that. But did you ask him how he feels about you? Give him a chance to be eloquent? Did you tell him you love him?’
I shake my head, my throat closing and my head light. I didn’t say those exact words to him in Fiji. ‘No, because he’s grieving. He’d say or do anything right now to make himself feel better. I know.’ My stomach clenches for Ryan. How could I have left him when he needed someone, a friend, the most?
‘Of course you know.’ Brooke reaches across the table to squeeze my hand.
‘I’m in love with someone who doesn’t believe in the concept. And the minute I touch him again, hold him, everything I feel will rise to the surface.’ I laugh to stave off tears, but they build regardless. ‘I want to be there for him, but I just need time to strengthen my guard, because casual isn’t going to be enough for me anymore.’
‘And of course you wouldn’t marry him tomorrow if he proposed, but guys don’t say stuff they don’t mean. Just because he’s grieving doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you, for real.’
I glance at the door, debating a mad dash back to the hospital. ‘I suck at relationships. I suck at long term and I suck at flings.’
‘No, you don’t—this stuff is complicated. And you don’t have to be perfect at it.’ She pushes my hair from my face, her eyes soft with understanding. ‘The important thing is to do what you want, what feels right in your heart. You can’t go far wrong that way, and whatever the outcome, at least you’ve been true to yourself.’
‘You’re right. If I want my happy ending, I have to be honest.’
I should have told him that I love him, put everything on the line, no matter how crazy it sounds after only two weeks, or how crappy the timing. I tug my phone from my pocket and compose the first lines of a text, my thumbs flying over the screen.
‘That’s my girl,’ says Brooke. ‘Go get him.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Ryan
I STARE AT the texts, the words blurring. I don’t need to read them. I know them by heart.
Grace: I’ve had time to think about what you said. Do you still want to meet Friday for a drink?
Me: Something has come up. Out of the country on business for the next three weeks. I’d love to talk on my return. Bailey’s Bar, seven p.m. on the twentieth?
Grace: I’ll be there.
I blow into my hands, my gaze following the inky black ribbon of the Thames. My breath mists in front of me. The bar heaves with Friday night revellers, this table outside the only way to ensure privacy. No one in their righ
t mind would choose to sit outside on a night so cold.
But I’m not in my right mind. I haven’t been since meeting the woman who turned my life on its head, ripping through me with her guts and compassion and courage.
Perhaps she won’t come. Perhaps she’s changed her mind... I’ve veered back and forth for the past three weeks, certain of what I want, but offering Grace enough space so she’ll believe I speak from the heart and not simply out of grief or loneliness or desperation.
A man learns a lot about himself in the dead of a sleepless night. And everything I learned led back to Grace, time and time again.
‘Ryan...?’
I spin and she’s there. She looks small, fragile, wrapped up against the cold, a bobble hat covering her head, but she’s the bravest person I know, her inner strength contagious.
I press my mouth to her cheek, which is ruddy from the cold, when all I really want is to bundle her into a bear hug and never let her go. To look into her eyes and have her read my mind, because, even now, I’ve no idea if what I want to say, need to say, will make it past my frigid lips.
‘Do you mind sitting out here near the heater? It’s chaotic inside.’
Don’t talk about nothing. Tell her how you feel about her.
I pull out a bar stool at the high table facing the river. ‘I ordered mulled wine—it’s still hot.’
‘Thanks.’ Her eyes light up as she sees what I arranged with the bar staff. ‘They have frangipani flowers here?’
I shrug. ‘I organised that. It’s been so cold...’ In my heart, my soul, my life, without her. ‘I wanted a reminder that somewhere in the world, the sun is shining. And frangipani remind me of you.’ I stare, lost in her eyes, struck dumb. How will I ever convince her to take a chance on me? How will I ever convey all she means to me?