The London of Us

by Clare Lydon

  He straightened up and ran his hand though his curls, but I could see it was shaking.

  “I better go.” He’d said what he came to say.

  I nodded. “See you at the next shoot.”

  He gave me a long stare, and I didn’t look away.

  I wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, that he’d been a great boyfriend, but it didn’t seem fair.

  Instead, I watched him go, and only when the front door slammed did I start to shake.

  I took a seat on Tanya’s balcony. A year ago, I thought I’d marry Jake and have his children.

  Now, as I looked up, I found myself staring into the eyes of the woman who’d unwittingly started the fire that was only growing daily. And she had no idea.

  I put my head in my hands as I heard a chair being dragged along the ground, and the reassuring presence of Rachel alongside me.

  “It was always going to be hard, you know. Seeing him for the first time.”

  I sat up, wishing I had my sunglasses, but knowing they were still on the table in my parents’ lounge. “I know — and I wasn’t prepared.”

  “Might be the best way, so you didn’t fret about it for ages.”

  She had a point. “I just hate the way he looks at me. Like he loves me and he doesn’t understand, which I completely get. But I can’t explain it to him because it’s all too overwhelming for me to grasp sometimes.”

  Especially with Rachel sitting beside me.

  “Why don’t you try to explain it to me, and then maybe you’ll get it clearer in your head. Maybe that’s what you need to start feeling calmer about everything.”

  I looked up and saw a smile caressing her lips, encouragement in her eyes.

  My insides turned to jelly and a minor tremor slid through me.

  She wanted me to tell her, and I so wanted to, more than anything. But then again, how could I when there was an emergency siren blaring in mind? She was the catalyst, the whole reason my life had gone into a tailspin.

  I shook my head, not knowing what to do.

  She threw up a hand. “You have to start talking about it — you can’t just bottle everything up.” She paused. “That’s a really bad strategy, it’s one I’ve tried and believe me, it gets you nowhere. Honesty and admitting what you’re feeling is the best way forward.”

  If she knew the truth, I wasn’t sure she’d agree, but I wasn’t opening my mouth just in case the wrong thing came out of the wrong compartment in my brain.

  When I left Jake, I’d sworn to myself I wouldn’t look back, I’d only look forward. So I’d smashed my rear-view mirrors, and I’d been true to my word.

  But looking forward now meant looking at Rachel and admitting what I was feeling, and there was no way that was happening. Not when Jake had just told me he loved me and I’d said nothing.

  I’d seen the way he looked at me, what he’d hoped might happen, and hadn’t. And if I told Rachel what I was feeling, I’d be on the receiving end of that same look I’d just given Jake, and I couldn’t take that.

  However, when I looked up, Rachel reached across with her hand and laid it on my arm, and my whole body flinched, like Rachel was an electric current and 5,000 watts had just shot through me.

  Rumbled.

  I could hide my words by sealing my mouth shut, but I couldn’t hide what my body was doing: with Rachel’s hand on my arm, it began to shake.

  I sucked in an audible gasp of breath and looked up into Rachel’s questioning gaze; with my defences down, the look I gave her was unfiltered, raw, real, and I knew she’d caught something. Something new, that she might not have caught before. But also something she might recognise.

  Desire.

  I looked down and wished I could be anywhere but here. Why had I agreed to carry on with these shoots?

  Being around Jake and Rachel was impossible.

  “Alice, talk to me,” Rachel said, her voice honeyed, oozing through me and making it hard to breathe.

  What could I say? Nothing. So instead, I shook my head.

  “I can’t.” I’d thought I was ready, but maybe I wasn’t.

  I shook off her arm, taking a deep breath and standing up, rolling my shoulders in a bid to steady myself. “I have to go.” Where had I put my bag? I needed it if I was going to flee.

  “But I thought you were sticking around? Tanya said you were having dinner later?”

  Damn it, I was having dinner with them.

  I turned, and Rachel was standing next to me, her lips shiny and red in the lunchtime sunshine. I dragged my gaze away from them and looked out onto the river below. “I forgot that,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m just a bit all over the place after seeing Jake.”

  Which was partly true. But then again, partly not.

  Rachel nodded. “It’s understandable, but I still think you should just tell me why you broke up in the first place. Because you seemed great one day, and then not so much the next. I really do think it would help.”

  I brought my face level with Rachel’s and looked into her crazy-gorgeous eyes.

  I went to shake my head, but then I stopped.

  Did she really want to know? Really?

  “I just fell out of love with him, and then I found myself attracted to someone else.” I licked my lips, feeling a bead of sweat run down my back.

  My stomach was turning cartwheels, and my mind was screaming at me to shut up, but I was paying no attention.

  Now, all my focus was on Rachel, and suddenly, my mum’s voice was in my ear: “Just tell her.”

  Rachel’s gaze slid down my face and landed around my mouth, as her tongue skated across her bottom lip.

  I thought I might die there and then, but I held it together.

  “You were attracted to someone else?” she said, as the air around us grew hotter, steamier, thicker. Or was that just my imagination?

  I nodded. “I was. I am.” You can do it. “And that someone is you.”

  It came out of my mouth as a whisper, but once it left, the words seemed to pop in mid-air, and then explode like the most expensive firework in the pack. It felt like it wasn’t just Rachel who’d been privy to that utterance, but also the whole of south London.

  I’d just told Rachel I was attracted to her and so far, she hadn’t laughed or run away.

  Instead, she kept her footing, and gave me a slow, sweet smile. “Me?” she said, matching my whispered tone. “You’re attracted to me? But you like men.”

  “And women, it seems.” A zap of desire shot down me, and I concentrated hard on staying upright.

  “Since when?” she asked, her eyes aflame, her gaze questioning. But I saw a flicker of something behind her eyes then, something warm, pleased.

  I really hoped she was pleased.

  “Since I met you.”

  I’d never been more sincere. Because since meeting her, my world had changed, and I was still assessing the consequences.

  Since meeting her, every day was a new discovery about who I was and what I liked, and most importantly, who I might like to be.

  Rachel and I made excellent friends. Would we make excellent lovers, too?

  If the heat in my cheeks and the thud of my heart were anything to go by, I’d say the odds were high.

  She stepped back now, looking at me like she’d never seen me before, like I was a completely different person.

  Was I? Perhaps I was. I had, after all, just divulged the one thing that had been lying heavy on my mind.

  That ever since I’d met her, during all of our recent restaurant dates together, I just wanted there to be more. And that feeling had only been getting stronger and stronger as time went on.

  “I think I need to sit down,” Rachel said, doing just that, a puzzled look on her face. “So am I the reason you split up? Because if I am, that’s a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.”

  I sat down opposite her, trying to gauge her mood. I couldn’t quite pin it down.

  “You’re not the reason,” I said,
shaking my head. “I’m the reason.” I stabbed my chest with my index finger. “I’m the one who fell out of love with Jake, I’m the one who started having feelings for you.” I paused, wincing. I wasn’t sure how this was going down, but it wasn’t how it’d happened in my daydreams.

  In those, we’d already be kissing by now.

  But as I looked over at Rachel, the over-riding look on her face was shock.

  I hoped she wasn’t feeling horror, too.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I hadn’t planned to tell you like this. Blame Jake for that, shaking me up.”

  I sucked in my top lip.

  Rachel still wasn’t saying anything.

  “But I don’t want this to ruin our friendship. I know you’ve got a girlfriend, so my timing sucks. And I know this is out of the blue. But I don’t want to lose what we’ve got, because I treasure it too much.”

  That elicited a response: she was nodding now. “I value it, too, I really do. This is just a bit… left field, that’s all.” She paused. “You’re my straight friend, which means I don’t think of you like that.” Another pause, then a solid, blinding stare. “Or at least, I try not to.”

  This time, the tremor that hit my body was a lot larger and I balled my fists together as it rolled through me, not daring to take my wide eyes from Rachel.

  I wanted her like nothing I’d ever wanted before in my entire life and now it was on the table, I never wanted it to be knocked off. I knew then, I was going to do everything in my power to make it happen.

  I also knew I was going to replay her last sentence over and over.

  Or at least, I try not to.

  Rachel had been thinking about me, too. And that thought excited me and scared the shit out of me in equal measure.

  “You’ve thought about us, too?” There was too much hope ladled on top of that sentence as it emerged from my mouth: it was frosted on top like the most calorific cake of want, ever.

  Rachel was flustered now, bouncing her gaze around the balcony, anywhere but me. “Of course, but that’s because you’re cute. I mean, look at you,” she said, wafting a hand up and down in front of me.

  That was the second time that had happened today, and I glanced down at myself. Was I really that alluring?

  Apparently, yes.

  “But you had a boyfriend, so I shut off any thoughts of that. I can admire someone from afar, and that’s what I did with you. But if you’re changing the rules…” she trailed off. “Damn it, why didn’t you say something before I went on my date?”

  Why hadn’t I said something earlier? She was seriously asking me that? “I was a bit busy freaking out, what with having left my boyfriend and needing to find somewhere to live.”

  Rachel put her head in her hands, then appraised me again, this time letting her gaze linger on my body, like she’d been given permission.

  “Look,” I said, sitting up, trying to take control of the situation. “We can just carry on as we have been. Nothing has to change. I know this is a big thing I’ve told you, and I don’t expect you to drop everything and change your life for me. And whatever the outcome, I’ll deal with it.”

  She took a deep breath before replying. “But what if I can’t deal with it?”

  The sun was already hot on the balcony, but the stare Rachel was giving me was making me burn up.

  What if she couldn’t deal with it? This was the response I’d wanted, but now it was happening, I wasn’t really sure what to do with it.

  I couldn’t deal with my emotions right now, never mind Rachel’s. I tried to hold them, but it was like trying to hold onto hot cakes straight from the oven. They were simply too hot to handle.

  Our gazes locked and every drop of blood I had rushed downwards to my very core.

  I opened my mouth, desperate for fresh air to fill my lungs, because Rachel’s eyes were slowing down every bodily movement I had.

  Every. Single. One.

  Then she was standing up, holding out her hands to me, and I stared at them, gulping.

  I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t do this.

  I’d never told a woman I fancied her before, and now my stomach was doing forward rolls again and again, until I felt dizzy, sick.

  How did lesbians cope? All the ones I knew just walked around like life came easy to them, when all the while, this was what they had to endure?

  I raised my hands and let Rachel pull me up, her touch, now so different, holding me in a trance.

  And then our faces were inches apart, her gaze fully on me, and I’d never felt the heat of someone’s stare as much as now.

  Was this my moment? Our moment? The moment we kissed for the very first time?

  A bang somewhere close made me open my eyes before we got there.

  What was that?

  Shit, it was the front door.

  I pulled back slightly.

  The front door meant Tanya was back from downstairs.

  We both jumped apart immediately, my whole body shaking as I walked over to one side of the balcony, assessing the river below. Still there. I clutched the thick, clear plastic balcony wall that came up to my waist and closed my eyes. I was breathing like I’d just sprinted 100m, perspiration coating my back.

  Damn Tanya and her terrible timing! I was just about to be kissed.

  And now I wasn’t.

  My heart was pounding in my chest, my brain weeping at the injustice.

  After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a handful of seconds, I turned to stare at Rachel, every part of my body now thumping, every wall of my body dry. The headache that was winding itself up like candyfloss on a machine was going to be epic, I already knew.

  But it was all worth it. Yes, we might not have kissed, but things were so much clearer now.

  I’d told Rachel I liked her, and she liked me, too.

  Today was already one of the most important and historic days of my life.

  “Hey you two, I take it Jake’s gone?” Tanya called out from the main room.

  Her words were thorny, such an unwelcome intrusion.

  Would Tanya be able to tell what had just nearly happened? Did lesbians have a sixth sense about this?

  I shook myself, trying to clear my mind and body of what just nearly happened; then not looking at Rachel, I cleared my throat. “Yeah, he went a few minutes ago, so we were just digesting it on the balcony.”

  Sort of. Kind of.

  I had to try to appear normal so I didn’t come undone. One pull on my emotional thread and it could happen.

  “Good plan, especially in this sunshine.” Tanya appeared at her balcony doors moments later. “Anybody want another drink?” She was oblivious to the naked heat hovering between us.

  “I’d love a coffee,” I said, glancing at Rachel, giving her permission to leave, flee the scene. Did she understand my non-verbal communication yet? I was about to find out.

  “I’ve gotta run,” she said, glancing at me, then at Tanya. “I’m working later and I told Jess I’d do a couple of cakes for her before I went.” She took a deep breath and looked at me, and a torrent of desire rattled through me.

  Damn, I wanted to rush over, take her in my arms and kiss her into next week. And after that? Well, after that, my mind was going everywhere.

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday for dinner?” Rachel said, her lips moist, holding my attention. I wanted to taste those lips so badly, but I’d have to wait till Wednesday.

  Could I wait till Wednesday? Four whole days?

  I nodded. “Wednesday, right.” Was it a date now? Did Rachel still have a girlfriend? I didn’t know.

  She reached out and squeezed my hand as she passed. “Great job, today,” she said, her gaze dropping to my mouth as she passed.

  I wobbled anew.

  “See you, Tanya, thanks again for letting us use your flat.”

  “No problem!” Tanya said, as Rachel gave me a heart-stopping look as she left.

  I closed my eyes to recover, then ga
thered myself once more.

  Rachel liked me, too.

  Focus.

  Tanya watched her go, then turned to me, leaning against her doorframe, arms folded across her chest.

  “Everything okay here?” Tanya asked, fixing me with her gaze.

  “Everything’s fine,” I replied, as breezy as I could. “Just weird energy, what with seeing Jake and all.”

  She nodded, moving her mouth one way, then the other.

  Then she clicked her fingers together. “Coffee. Coming right up.”

  Chapter 18

  I hadn’t seen Rachel since our nearly-kiss, and afterwards, I hadn’t stuck around. The thought of sitting through dinner with Tanya and Sophie when my whole world had been turned upside down hadn’t been appealing, so I’d made my excuses and left.

  Tanya hadn’t believed a word that had come out of my mouth: she wasn’t stupid, she knew something was up. However, she hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t told.

  Tonight, though, was the night of our monthly dinner out.

  Four days had passed since we’d told each other how we felt, and I hadn’t been able to think of anything else. At home, I’d been a bag of nerves, getting my easel out and painting for something to do with my hands and mind rather than fret. I wished I smoked, but I didn’t. I contemplated daytime drinking, but knew that would get me nowhere. So instead, I painted.

  Rachel and I had exchanged a couple of texts planning tonight, but nothing more.

  I had no idea where all of this was going, but tonight, I was nervous as hell.

  My nerves had meant I’d applied more lipstick than normal, put on my favourite black shirt, and that I’d polished my brown brogues with a brand-new cloth. I hope Rachel appreciated the effort.

  She was waiting for me at our table when I arrived at September, but I couldn’t read her smile or her body language.

  Because this wasn’t just dinner with a friend, was it?

  As I walked towards her through the crowded restaurant, with waiters bustling by and the smell of Italian summer in the air, I saw none of it: all I saw was Rachel, her features tense, her hands clenched as she got up to greet me. She gave me an awkward hug and we sat down, eyeing each other like we were both hiding an enormous secret.