The Last Goodbye

by Fiona Lucas

Anna nodded and smiled along—she couldn’t do anything else, having no personal knowledge of the incident—but as she sat there, she realized this hadn’t been the first time that Gayle had been a little “off” with her in recent months. She hadn’t thought anything of it at first. Her mother-in-law had never been an easy person to get along with, so she’d merely assumed it was just Gayle being Gayle. Maybe she was being uncharitable, but now she was starting to think otherwise.

  Chapter Six

  Anna felt a little nervous as she walked up the path to Gabi’s block of flats. She’d stopped off at a service station on the way back from Gayle and Richard’s, where she’d picked up a bottle of red wine and a large Toblerone. She balanced them in one hand while she pressed the intercom with the other.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me,” Anna said, her voice less confident than she wanted it to sound. “Can I come in?”

  Usually, the buzzer would have sounded immediately, but today there was thick silence. After a few seconds, however, the door hummed and clicked. Anna stepped inside the communal hallway and began to climb the stairs to the first floor.

  Gabi opened her front door, smile noticeably absent, and allowed Anna to walk past her into the living room. Anna perched on the edge of the sofa and looked around the room she knew so well. While she went for clean lines and neutral tones, Gabi’s decorating style was more colorful and eclectic.

  What always stood out to Anna was the number of photograph frames cramming every single surface, all of Gabi’s family back in Brazil. Not only were there plenty of pictures of her parents and siblings—two brothers and three sisters—but there were snaps of uncles and aunties, nieces and nephews too. From what Gabi had told Anna, they were a large, close-knit family, always in each other’s business but always there when they needed each other. Being an only child, Anna had often wished for a family like that.

  She and Gabi had met in their early twenties when Gabi had moved from São Paulo to London for university, and they’d instantly hit it off. However, it was after Anna’s parents had left for Canada that they’d really become close, bonding over both having their family thousands of miles away. Gabi had become the sister Anna had never had, which was why she was determined to fix this.

  She placed the chocolate and the bottle of wine on the coffee table. Gabi sat down on the armchair across the room, back straight, arms folded.

  “I’m so sorry, Gabi. I was a total bitch last night.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  Anna swallowed. “Did you get home okay?”

  Gabi raised an eyebrow and shot Anna a look that said, Seriously?

  Anna buried her face in her hands. “I know, I know . . . I don’t know what I was thinking! I was just . . .” She looked up again. “You know I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose, don’t you? Because you’re the best friend anyone could ever have. You try to help me, put up with all my crap, and this is how I treat you. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to speak to me at the moment. I don’t blame you if you don’t want to speak to me ever again!”

  Gabi’s expression softened a little. “There you go, being all dramatic again.”

  Anna paused for a few moments and thought hard. There was really only one thing she had left to say. “I’m so sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  Gabi sighed. “Maybe. But things need to change.” She tucked one leg up underneath herself and reached for the Toblerone. “You need to change.”

  “I’m okay,” Anna said, mostly on reflex.

  “No. You’re not. You walk around like a zombie most of the time and when you do connect with the world around you—with the people around you—you go crazy!” She shook her head. “It is not healthy, Anna.”

  Anna wanted to disagree, but the events of the previous night loomed between them as evidence. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  Gabi sighed again, and it struck Anna that Gabi did that a lot when she talked to her these days. She hadn’t realized she’d become the sort of friend who was hard work, but she obviously had. Maybe she hadn’t realized that because, as Gabi had so eloquently put it, she was a zombie.

  And that was exactly what it felt like: as if a piece of her had died with Spencer and she’d been shuffling through life—sleepwalking—ever since.

  “I understand that some days are good, and some days are bad,” Gabi said gently. “And that Christmas and New Year are hard for you, but . . .”

  “I know,” Anna said again. It was all she could say. Last night was a mirror held up in front of her, one she couldn’t look away from, and she didn’t much like what she saw.

  Gabi shifted, sat up a little straighter. “So . . . What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna replied slowly, and she really didn’t. She’d done it all. Grief counseling? Tick. Self-help books and support groups? Tick. Nothing seemed to work. “I wish I did.”

  Gabi didn’t say anything; she just smiled.

  “What?” Anna said, slightly scared of the answer to her question.

  “How about salsa?”

  “Really?” she replied, hoping that Gabi was just pulling her leg. The determined pair of eyes that sat above the troublesome smirk said otherwise.

  “Really. If you go to salsa, we won’t talk about New Year’s Eve again.”

  Anna hesitated. Gabi was still sitting with her arms folded, watching her. Waiting. Anna swallowed.

  “It will be fun,” Gabi added, without smiling this time.

  “You really think I need to—”

  “Yes. I do.” Gabi’s answer was hard, but her eyes gave her away. Behind the determined stare, Anna could detect quiet pleading. Gabi was worried about her. Really worried. That was why she was clinging on to this idea as if it was a lifeline. It wasn’t about the dancing or the classes. Her friend was just desperate to know there was hope, that Anna could find some way to be happy again.

  She nodded. “Okay.” She’d do just about anything for Gabi. Even salsa.

  Gabi jumped off the armchair, squealing, and ran across and dived on Anna, wrapping her in a hug. “I will ask Jeremy about—”

  Anna pushed Gabi back enough to look her in the face without going cross-eyed. “Hold on! No one said anything about Jeremy!”

  Gabi tipped her head to one side and gave Anna an exasperated look. “But Jeremy is very nice—and very hot!”

  “You go salsa dancing with him, then!”

  “No one is asking you to marry him. It’s just dancing. Think of him as . . . What is the word? Training wheels! You can take them off when you are ready for more.”

  Anna folded her arms. “I said yes to salsa, not to Jeremy. And if you’re going to make me salsa at all, then you are going to be my partner.”

  “Oh, yes?” Gabi held out her hands and beckoned to Anna with her fingertips. “Show me!”

  Reluctantly, Anna got off the sofa and joined her friend. Gabi wouldn’t let her sit back down until they’d tried a few steps of what seemed like salsa, but it all got out of hand when Gabi tried to dip Anna and lost her balance. They ended up on the floor in a heap, giggling.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh,” Gabi said.

  Anna sighed. “I know.”

  They pushed themselves onto all fours and then crawled back onto the sofa. “I’m going to get glasses,” Gabi said, nodding at the wine. “Do you want to sleep here tonight?”

  Anna crawled over to Gabi’s end of the sofa and gave her a big, fat, squishy kiss on the cheek. “I love you, you know that?”

  Gabi gave her a squeeze back then shoved her off so she could stand up. “I know. It’s hard not to.”

  Anna gratefully accepted the large glass of red wine Gabi handed her a minute or so later, and the duvet and pillows that were thrown at her when they’d polished the bottle off so she could nest down on the sofa. Gabi even produced a pair of freshly laundered, brushed cotton pajamas for Anna to wear.

  “Thank you,” Anna said as she took them
and held them to her chest.

  “They are too small for me now. You can have them if you want.”

  “Not for the pajamas, you doofus—although they’re lovely—I meant for everything.”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  Anna nodded. She knew that. But it was safer not to reply in words, because she also knew that what Gabi wished for her just wasn’t possible. There was a difference between having a quick giggle over falling over your best friend’s two left feet and being truly content and peaceful. Anna wasn’t convinced she could ever feel that way again. How was it possible when a huge piece of herself was missing, and always would be?

  ANNA RETURNED HOME the following morning and headed straight for the shower, leaving her clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor. It was her first day back at work after the Christmas holidays, and she didn’t want to be late, even if it wasn’t the most thrilling job in the world.

  Before Spencer had died, they’d worked together, but it hadn’t always been that way. He’d left university with a degree in computer science and, after a few false starts, had ended up working for a medium-sized video game developer. However, as the popularity of smartphones had risen, Spencer had become obsessed with creating a game app that would go viral. He’d tried all sorts of different things, from racing cars to flying sheep or bubbles that needed popping. He’d earned enough from a couple of them to go part-time, but he’d never quite come up with the big success he’d been looking for.

  The problem was that Spencer was a mass of overflowing energy, and he struggled with focusing on one task for a consistent length of time. This became more apparent when he worked whole days at home with no structure. Anna had just accepted that was who Spencer was, but it had frustrated him to no end.

  He’d begun a search to find a time management method that worked for his butterfly brain, but nothing had seemed to stick until he’d stumbled upon the concept of “block scheduling,” which gave him the structure he needed without pinning him down too hard. However, the only relevant app he could find was not only a bit basic but hot pink. Spencer had ranted at length about that—who on earth made their app all pink with no option to change the color scheme? Anna had finally got fed up and told him to stop moaning and start creating an app of his own. He had the skills to do so, after all.

  And Spencer had done just that. He’d teamed up with a couple of other guys he’d known at uni, and together they’d built BlockTime, a stylish, intuitive time management app that (a) wasn’t hot pink and (b) integrated seamlessly with existing calendars, to-do lists and other apps. And, thanks to Spencer’s attempts to create the next viral game, it was more than a little addictive to use. It had taken time, but eventually it had grown in popularity.

  Anna had quit her job as an HR assistant manager and had gone to work for the three guys. At first, she’d just done the admin and kept the books, but as time had gone on, she’d become involved in the design side. She had an eye for that kind of thing, it turned out, and while the “boys” had plenty of innovative ideas, they weren’t always very practical. They’d needed someone to keep them grounded, to make sure the app was the kind of thing people would find easy to use, as well as being cool and full of technical wizardry. She’d loved working alongside Spencer, seeing him do what he was good at. When the money had finally started arriving, they hadn’t been rich, but they’d been comfortable.

  She’d taken time off after he died, of course. But two months had turned into three, and then three into six. Eventually, she’d had to admit that she just couldn’t face going back into the office. Vijay and Rhys, the other directors, had understood. She’d inherited Spencer’s share in the business and received a monthly cut from that, but other than that she left them to it. At least one thing she didn’t have to worry about as a widow was money.

  But she’d needed something to fill her days, so she’d applied for an admin job at a successful family-run plumbing business, and she’d now been there more than two years. What with it being winter, pipes freezing and boilers giving out, there was likely to be a lot of paperwork to catch up on after the Christmas break. Today was not the day to be late.

  When she emerged from the shower, pink and scrubbed, she wrapped a towel around herself and hurried out onto the landing, but then she hesitated. The next logical place to go was the bedroom. She needed fresh clothes. But she hadn’t been in there since she’d fled the house the day before.

  Stop being daft, she lectured herself. There’s nothing to be frightened of.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she walked into her bedroom. Spencer had very helpfully pointed out that one of her weaknesses was bottling everything up until she reached the boiling point, and then, when it exploded out of her, she did and said bizarre things. Was it too much of a stretch to think that she’d hear bizarre things as well?

  She walked toward the wardrobe, slowly, quietly, almost as if she was creeping up on it, and then she hooked her fingers around the edge of the half-open door and pulled. Her phone glinted at her from the floor, looking so ordinary, so innocent. She bent down and picked it up.

  There. That hadn’t been so hard, had it?

  And because it hadn’t been hard, because it all felt a bit surreal, like something that had happened in a dream, she pressed her thumb to the wake-up button and brought the display to life.

  She pulled up her phone history. There, near the top of the list, was a call made at exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve. She became aware of a woolly, tangled feeling in her stomach, a strange tightness in her chest. The evidence was there. She’d really dialed. She’d really said, “I love you.”

  The real question was: what had she heard in the silence that had followed? Nothing? Something? Her imagination going wild?

  It had to be that.

  She couldn’t entertain anything else. She couldn’t let herself hope and then let those hopes be dashed again. As low and lifeless as she felt at the moment, it was nothing compared to the first few months after Spencer’s death. She didn’t want to go hurtling back to that dark place.

  Which meant what she did next was important. She was on a threshold. A knife edge. And there was only one possible direction she could let herself fall.

  She lifted her thumb and swiped, deleting the log of just that one call. There. Gone. It had never happened.

  Chapter Seven

  The February night air was cool on Anna’s skin as she walked toward home. She’d known that coming out tonight was going to be a mistake, but she’d come anyway, only to be proven right. Instead of feeling buoyant and energized as Gabi had promised, she felt exhausted and flat.

  She and Gabi had been going to salsa classes for six weeks now, although, much to Gabi’s annoyance, Anna had insisted on going to the Tuesday night class instead of the Wednesday night one she knew Jeremy attended. However, once a month, the salsa school held a “party,” an opportunity for students from both classes to mingle and practice their moves in a more informal atmosphere.

  Anna had cried off the January salsa party, but Gabi had been determined that neither of them were missing the February one, especially as it had been scheduled to coincide with Valentine’s Day. It didn’t take a genius to understand there were certain milestone days every year Anna struggled with. She had done her best to reassure Gabi she’d have a much better evening staying home, out of the way of “loved up” couples, and starting the dark drama series that was next on her “to watch” list, but Gabi hadn’t taken no for an answer, so off to the civic center they’d trotted.

  Gabi’s night had gone well—she’d snagged the attention of Lee, the guy she’d had a crush on since the previous party—but Anna’s night had been . . . well, not what she’d expected.

  Jeremy had been there. She’d been prepared for that. He’d asked her to dance. She’d expected that too. He’d been charming, making her laugh about carrying on with salsa instead of joining his sister in her latest fitness craze (Burlesquercise), b
ut when the song had finished, he hadn’t lingered. In fact, he’d gone straight off and danced with another woman. Anna had got the distinct impression he was just being chivalrous, that she was just one in a long list of wallflowers he’d decided needed rescuing. For some reason that had irritated her.

  But what had she been expecting? That with all her joie de vivre and sparkling conversation, a catch like Jeremy had been pining away for her for the last six weeks? That he’d come along that night in the hope of seeing her?

  It was fine. She didn’t want him to want her. And she certainly didn’t want him, nice as he was. However, despite all her breezy inner protestations, as she’d watched him execute moves far above her skill level with a girl with a very swooshy ponytail, she’d been aware of a door slamming shut inside herself. A door she hadn’t even known had been open.

  That was the moment she’d decided to make her excuses to Gabi and head home.

  When Anna walked back inside her house, it seemed empty, even though all her possessions were still exactly where she’d left them. Nothing was missing. Except, maybe, the card that should have been on her mantelpiece, the flowers that should have been in the vase on the dining table. There was no Valentine’s fizz in the fridge, and there would be no laughter and warmth between the sheets of her bed when she finally crawled into it later on.

  She missed him so much.

  Most of all, she missed his touch. Not just the sex—that would be easy to get, if she were so inclined, a physical need to be met like hunger or thirst—but she missed those little moments of contact that only came with familiarity and intimacy. She missed having someone to snuggle up with on the sofa. Someone to kiss her goodbye in the mornings. Someone to fall asleep on during a train journey home after a night out in London. All seemingly tiny, inconsequential things. Except they weren’t. It had taken losing them to make her realize how essential they were.

  Anna tried to ignore the feeling that she was an empty shell, nothing else inside her but this ache for something she couldn’t have. She tried to distract herself by pottering around, slipping off her shoes, hanging up her coat, putting the kettle on to make herself a cup of herbal tea she didn’t really want. But the void inside just throbbed.