“Get two and you can stay.” The smile was still weak, but I was glad he didn’t want me to go.
I went to the little food truck by ASDA and bought two cups of scalding hot coffee. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so I got two bacon sandwiches as well. I took the lot back to Nate, and he unwrapped his sandwich and took a grateful bite. I sipped hot coffee and looked out at the river.
“I still don’t know how I feel about all this,” he admitted, after a while. “It’s almost too much, knowing that you loved him, before me.”
“He is you,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t feel that way.” Nate had clearly thought his next words through carefully. “It feels like...Simon really did die, and...now, I’m different, I’m not the same. But, I’ve only had a few months to get to be who I am, and maybe that means I’m not as much of a person, as he was. That I’m not as good. Maybe you’d be better off with someone else, rather than with someone who’s...an imitation, of someone you used to love.”
He said it all without looking at me, and I knew he’d been thinking it through every time he’d gone out for the day, to walk, and sit and think about the situation we’d found ourselves in.
“I’m not who I was either,” I reminded him.
“But you’ve more of a life than me,” he said, “friends, Emma, people you’ve worked with. You’ve still got a tie to who you were, evidence, a link. I’m not connected to him, at all.”
I put my hand on his damp shoulder, forcing him to turn and look at me.
“I’m not asking you to be Simon. I don’t even know him anymore, I don’t remember being in love with him.” I said, “what I remember is going to AA and meeting some cocky bastard who thought he could kiss me right out of the gate. Who knew what I was, and wanted to get to know me. Who never gave up on trying to work me out.”
“And what if that was all to do with him? With Simon?” Nate challenged. “What if the only reason you wanted me back was because I look like him?”
I would have laughed, but it wasn’t funny, his worries were so similar to what I’d been thinking.
“You know, I was worried that the only reason you were interested in me, was because you remembered us, before,” I admitted. “But I love you, not because your face is his face, but because of the things you’ve said to me, the things we’ve done together. And I don’t think any of that, had anything to do with Simon.”
Nate didn’t say anything, but he looked thoughtful, eyes on the river, or maybe on the shopping trolley sticking out of it at an angle.
“I love you,” I said quietly, “I love Nate. And when I go home and pry these, fucking shoes off of my tortured fucking feet, he’s the one I’m going to be waiting for. And I’m going to make him chicken casserole, and get into bed with him tonight.”
I stood up, and Nate did not, but then, I hadn’t expected him to. “So, if you see him?” I said, “tell him to pick up some more condoms, because he’s getting lucky tonight.”
I left, not looking back to see if Nate was smiling or not.
When I got in, I took my shoes off, stripped out of my suit, and shoved the clothes into the laundry box. Then I got into the shower, washed off all the nervous sweat that the interview had brought me out in, and made sure all traces of the fancy deodorant were gone. I washed with Nate’s body wash, and once I was dry I sprayed myself in Lynx. I put on a pair of old jeans and a t-shirt.
I tried to keep myself from worrying as I chopped onions and boned out chicken thighs for the stew. I hoped that Nate would come home, that he would be able to get over his conviction that I loved Simon, and not him, just as I’d found my way through my depression. I’d been truthful with him, I didn’t remember Simon, so I didn’t love him. But, at the same time, it broke my heart to think that I had loved a man who now felt so alone, so worthless, that he could no longer accept that fact.
I forced myself to focus on dinner, mixing turmeric with paprika and cinnamon, adding it to the chicken and chopping up dried apricots to throw in as well. The flat smelt spicy, and it was warm inside, so much so that my hair dried quickly.
I put the casserole into the oven and then made the bed, put the TV on and watched the first channel that came up, which happened to be the news on Channel 5.
Every time I heard footsteps on the street, or the wind rattled at the door, I started and looked over, down the hall. But it was never Nate coming in. I started to get worried, nervously standing up, pacing, then sitting down. I did the washing up, then started to fill in my job centre book, before setting it aside in frustration. It was long since dark outside, and I checked the casserole, adjusted the oven temperature, then stood pointlessly in the kitchen.
It was then that I heard Nate’s key in the door.
I turned and went into the living room where he stood nervously, as if not quite sure of his welcome.
“I really thought you weren’t going to come back,” I said.
Nate lifted his shoulders in his habitual shrug. “Where else would I go?”
Hardly comforting, but I took a step forwards. “So, what do think? What do you want to do?”
Nate peeled off his outermost layer, a sopping denim jacket, and slung it over the radiator.
“I think it would be easier, if both of us where to start again,” he said, and I felt my heart fall, not from my chest to my stomach, but as if plunged down the shaft of a lift, falling floor after floor, with no sign of the bottom.
“But, I don’t want to.” Nate said, catching himself, and me.
“Are you sure?” I asked
“Yeah...I think so,” Nate was nodding to himself. “I mean, when I woke up, I had nothing, and I never really thought that would change. It was too hard, thinking that I’d have to try and share someone’s life, with nothing to give back,” he moistened his lips, “then I met you, and...I thought, just for a while I could...”
Borrow me. Like a library book, never really owned, a guest on the bedside table, it’s recipes to be tasted, tested, but ultimately forgotten. I felt so sad for him, to think that was what he would settle for. A body covered in someone else’s fingerprints.
“But then I didn’t want you to disappear. When you said you were married...I knew you were never going to be an easy option. Older, without your memory, married...and even then I decided to hold on. Because I wanted you,” he came closer to me and I could see that he’d thought deeply about this. That perhaps he had gone through something, as I had when set out to find out who I was, and found him instead.
His arms slid around me and I turned my face to his, kissing him as deeply, and as hard as I could.
Nate backed up, taking me with him, and the backs of his knees struck the bed, sending us sprawling. We pulled at each other’s clothes, stretching t-shirts out of shape and kicking our legs wildly to get out of our jeans. Nate’s body was chill from the weather outside, mine was warm and soft with relief. Touching each other, I felt stable and rooted for the first time since I’d woken up in hospital.
I wanted him, and he wanted me. We would stay together. A unit.
Twenty-four hours later.
A year later.
Five.
Ten.
There would still be NateandConnor. The two of us together, at the centre of a growing orbit of friends and co-workers. Always each other’s first loves, first friends, first family.
And, when we fought, or disagreed, or needed our space and skulked off to pubs, or to the café near our new flat, then all I had to do was remember that Nate had chosen me, and that I’d chosen him. Not once, but twice, we had found each other, fallen for each other.
I remembered the night we burnt the chicken casserole, and knew that we were going to be just fine.
A Word from Sarah,
Hello, and thanks for buying my book. I know that buying a random ebook from a nobody is a bit like buying a hotdog from the back of a van. You never know what you’re going to get. I hope that you don’t feel that this book has given you the
mental equivalent of food poisoning, and that you enjoyed it.
Because I am an unknown writer, I rely heavily on word of mouth advertising to spread the news that I have novels out. So, please leave a review on Amazon, or Goodreads, if you have the time. Tweet about the book, or stick it on tumblr (between a picture of a kitten and a picture of penis, if your tumblr is anything like mine). Or, if you’re into that whole face-to-face talking thing, mention it to your friends, co-workers, or member of parliament.
If you have the time, I really would appreciate a recommendation to a book review blog or website.
Most importantly, I would love to hear what you thought of the book, because it will probably help me with the next one.
Love to you lovely people,
Sarah.
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