by Louise Bay
I blinked and filled my lungs. “I need you to listen. Not reassure me, not try to convince me I’m wrong, that I actually feel differently. I need you to hear what I’m going to say.” I flicked my gaze toward him when he didn’t answer. He was staring right at me, his eyes tight, his brows pulled together in anxiety. His face held all his effort to stay silent, to give me what I wanted.
“We’ve moved too fast, Luke. You are literally hours out of a long-term relationship that looked like it was heading toward forever. I have been in love with you my whole life—I want this too much. I want you so much that, for the past few days, I’ve been content to be carried away with this.” I swirled my hand between us. The fear of what I was doing climbed up my spine and snatched my breath. I just had to get through the next few minutes and then it would be done.
“I need to be either nothing to you—”
“Ashleigh, you could never—”
I raised my hand at him, stopping him speaking.
“Nothing . . . or everything. And right now, I don’t think you’re in a position to be making decisions about what or who is everything to you. I need to know this isn’t about you holding on to me because you need something to hold on to. That it isn’t about you being uneasy about all the changes going on in your life right now.” I sank my thumbnail into my finger in the hope that it would distract me from the pain in my heart. “I know you, Luke, and you like things to be ordered and predictable. And I don’t want to be a security blanket for you. I want to be your lover, your partner, your best friend—the woman you can’t live without. Not because it’s easy, but because life would be less exciting without me, less joyous, less sweet. Not because you’re used to me; not because you know me and it’s comfortable.”
I smoothed my palms over my skirt. I’d said what I needed to.
Silence pulsed through the space between us, and I tilted my chin up to look at him, anxious about what I would find on his face. It was as if he’d frozen to the spot, still holding himself back.
I rose from the bed and his hand shot out, grabbing mine. “Can we not talk about this?” His tone was pleading. “I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t know what it means.” He linked his fingers through mine. “Are we done?”
“For now.” I tried to keep the tightness in my chest from escaping into sobs.
“What does that mean, for now? Fuck.” He pushed his hands through his hair, clearly frustrated.
“I just . . . I think you need some time—”
“I don’t need time. I need you.”
I took a deep breath. How long had I waited to hear that? Was I really going to walk away?
“Okay, I need time.”
“How long do you need?”
I knew if I gave Luke boundaries, our relationship would simply become a task on his list. If I told him what I needed, how long I needed, he’d diligently work through the to-dos I created and wait. It would be all about me, when I needed it to be about him. My worry wouldn’t dissolve in a set period of time. I needed him to experience life without me, work through the change, the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty, get past it, enjoy it and then decide it was me that he wanted. Not as a cure, or a convenience, but because he was in love, with me.
“I need to know that you’ve sorted your life, and that you still pick me. That I’m not just convenient.”
“Ashleigh, you would never—”
I couldn’t listen to his counter arguments. “This is what I need. You asked me and I’m telling you. Make new friends, date. I don’t know, get a dog, a new car. Get on with your life. See what it’s like. Show me that I’m a conscious choice for you.”
“Date?”
My stomach cramped at his question. What was I thinking? This was going to be horrific. The last thing I wanted was for him to find someone else, but if he did, then at least I knew we weren’t meant to be. If I took what he was offering now, I would spend a lifetime wondering if he was ever really mine. I’d become insecure and needy—a shell of myself.
“Yeah, date.” I looked out my bedroom window. I needed to leave or I was going to buckle, tell him it was all a big joke. I squeezed his hand, consciously trying to capture the feel of his skin against mine so I could replay it later when I was lonely and longing for him. I pulled my fingers from his and headed toward the door. “I know this is hard.”
He jumped out of bed, pulling on his boxers. “Jesus, Ashleigh. Are you scared to be happy? Don’t you feel this between us? Why are you walking away as if we’re nothing?”
I couldn’t turn and look at him. “Luke, you are everything to me. That’s the point. We’ve so quickly slipped into this that it feels like it could be over tomorrow. And if I let myself fall any deeper, it might just kill me. This way it’s only been a few days and we won’t lose our friendship.”
“We’ll never lose that, Ashleigh. I promise you.” His voice cracked and the sound tore right through me.
“Don’t make promises you don’t know you can keep. I need this, Luke. Please.”
He sighed, and it took all my willpower not to turn and comfort him.
“If you need me to prove my feelings, then this is what I’ll do. Because you are what I want, Ashleigh. What I need. My feelings won’t change.”
My heart ached. I wanted to say me too. But something kept me from forming the words.
Luke
“So you didn’t go into the office?” Haven asked. She’d come home to find me staring into space. I’d left Ashleigh’s flat and headed back to Haven’s with the intention of jumping in the shower and heading to work. I hadn’t been able to face the day surrounded by Ashleigh’s scent, her words, her doubt. When I’d arrived, I’d sat on the bed, just for a second to gather my thoughts, and when I next looked at the clock half the day had gone.
I shook my head. “I called them. I’ve kept an eye on my emails. Things will wait.” I would have been a mess at work. Better to feign illness than to turn up and give my clients reason to sue me for negligence. My head felt like a pinball machine as I jumped from being angry at Ashleigh for having so little faith in me, in us, to planning how I was going to win her back, then jumping again to an overwhelming feeling of loss. Perhaps Haven could help me make sense of it.
Haven looked at me, concern in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be so down on your relationship yesterday. I just got spooked. Do you want me to speak to her?” She watched me fill the washing machine with laundry. I’d been able to do nothing all day but think of Ashleigh. I hoped that if I could no longer smell her on my clothes, it would clear my mind, and I could figure out a way to get her back.
Haven looked at me, sheepish and guilty.
“It’s not your fault. I knew she was likely to have a meltdown—I mean, come on, it’s Ashleigh—but I thought I could talk her through it. I thought I knew her.”
Haven narrowed her eyes. “Ashleigh?”
It took me a beat to realize what she was asking. “Yeah. That’s who she is to me.” Ashleigh had been right. My realization about her and my feelings for her had been sudden. In only a few days she had gone from being Ash—my sister’s best friend, the person I asked to be my plus one if I didn’t want to take my girlfriend, my family—to Ashleigh, someone who made me want to lobby Parliament to pass a law ensuring she had to be naked for the rest of her life. Someone who when she touched me, I felt the press of skin for hours afterward and yearned for it for hours beyond that. Someone I wanted to protect from the darkness, show the light. I wasn’t sure whether it was because we’d known each other for so long, but even though Ashleigh and I had only been together a few days, it felt different, deeper—more profound than anything I’d experienced with anyone else.
I thought she’d felt the same.
“Did she say anything? Has she called you?” I asked, desperate to know how I could make it all better.
“No, I’m sorry.” I could tell by how nice Haven was being that she was worried. Being with
Jake had softened her edges, given her confidence, but it hadn’t made her a pushover. She was still capable of giving me a good hard arse-kicking when she felt the need arise.
“She said that she wants to know that she’s a conscious choice for me. But how can I do that if she’s not with me? She’s worried she’s just . . . I don’t know, available.”
“Is she right to be concerned?”
I’d been trying to answer that question all day. “Yes and no.”
“Fucking lawyers. Give me a straight answer.”
I scrubbed my hands across my face and squeezed my eyes shut. I wished I were having this conversation with Ashleigh. I wished she’d given me more time this morning. “She knows me, right. So yes, I like constancy in my life. I cling on to things that maybe I shouldn’t to create permanence. It was probably the reason I was with Emma for as long as I was.” There was a dull thud where my heartbeat should be, as if it were cloaked in fog. “But no, that’s not what my feelings, or should I say my change in feelings, toward Ashleigh are about. I don’t know, Haven. I feel like someone took my blinders off and Ashleigh is a new person to me now. I mean she’s still Ash, but she’s mine now, too. Or she was.”
“So tell her that. She’s risking her family, being with you. You have to convince her you aren’t going to break her heart. But she’s right, you have to be sure she’s who you want.”
Ashleigh had been clear. She needed to see that she was my choice. “I’ve never been so sure. There’s no going back for me. I just need to provide her with some evidence. But that’s okay, because that’s what I do, right? I build cases, uncover and present the facts. I just don’t know how to do it yet. But I’ll get there.” I had to. Losing her forever wasn’t an option. “How did Jake win you back?”
“By loving me. By giving me time and being there to catch me despite me pushing him away and losing faith in us both.”
So that was it. I had to give her space, show her I’d had time and opportunity to think of every conceivable version of my life, and that I still wanted her at the center of it.
I’d prove to her that she was my choice.
My only choice.
I went to bed early, telling Jake and Haven I was tired. I wasn’t. I had plans to make. A strategy to formulate. I glanced around, my overnight bag slung in the corner, clothes spilling out the top. A bunch of notebooks from work that I’d brought home on Friday were lying on the dressing table. This couldn’t be my life. I pulled out my laptop and logged on. I grabbed a notebook.
Step one: Find a place to live.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was actually eager to move out of Haven’s home. Perhaps it was partly because it was what Ashleigh needed from me, but all of a sudden, I relished the idea of moving on. As much as I loved my sister and Jake, I didn’t want to be an appendage to their life. I wanted one of my own.
I fired up a real estate website and started to look at flats to rent near to where Emma and I had lived. As I clicked and scrolled, I realized the pictures were all from a place I’d left behind. There was no reason for me to live in that area. I was starting fresh with only myself to worry about. What did I actually want? Where did I want to be? I had no boundaries, no one to consider while making my choice. I could put a pin in the map and decide that would be the place. The possibilities were endless and in a sense daunting, but a decision had to be made if I was going to move on.
I did what I did best and buried myself in the details, working my way through different sites, firing off emails, setting up viewings for the coming days. I’d check a few places out and decide what felt right.
By the time I was finished, it was close to two, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins meant that sleep was a ways away. Was Ashleigh sleeping? Was she worried about if I would be able to do what she’d asked? I closed my eyes and imagined the contours of her body covered by her cream-colored sheets, her hair spread across her pillow, her lips parted. Over the years, we’d spent a lot of time with each other, but it was only in the past few days that I knew what she looked like while sleeping. Bold, funny, energetic Ash slept unguarded. She was soft, thoughtful—a Tennyson-imagined heroine. I logged on to my email.
Monday, September 12
Dear Ashleigh,
You’ve been in my every thought today. I miss you, but I want you to know that I’m beginning to understand what you’ve asked me to do and why.
I’m going to look at flats tomorrow. I wish you were coming with me. You could help me choose. But you’ll see it soon enough, one way or another.
Believe in me. Believe in you.
All my love, Luke.
My mouse hovered over the send button. Was it too pushy? Did she even want to hear from me right now?
Eventually, I pressed delete and logged off.
Less than twelve hours after finding it on the internet, I stood in the middle of a furnished flat in the center of the city. It was the second one I’d seen. I’d skipped out of work early in order to progress step one on my plan.
Floor-to-ceiling windows spilled natural light into the flat—very different from the place I’d shared with Emma.
“You can see the river from outside,” the agent said.
I slid open the balcony door and stepped out, peering over the wall. It was quiet and high and away from the hustle and bustle of London, despite being right in the middle of things. It was exactly the opposite of the flat I’d shared with Emma and the one I’d seen before this one. Our place had been a Victorian conversion in West London—and a forty-five minute journey into work. This was a ten-minute walk to the office. Emma had loved the original features and the garden at our place. To me a garden simply meant I had to cut the grass or pay someone else to do it. But I’d been happy to go along with whatever made her happy, grateful I didn’t have to make the decision. Now I had to choose, and I found I preferred this sleek, modern, purposefully built flat in the center of town, with no commute and great views. It didn’t require me to do anything. I could just move in and . . . live.
Would Ashleigh like it? I suppose I couldn’t make this decision with anyone else but myself in mind. That was the point, wasn’t it? This was what she wanted from me. To see the decisions in front of me, weigh each one carefully, then pick. Every hour I spent away from her, my focus was getting clearer.
Back inside, I ran my hand along the cool marble of the breakfast bar. Could I see myself reading the paper here?
“There are two bedrooms,” the agent said as I followed her through the flat. She pointed out the master and then the guest bedroom. “There’s a desk in there so you could use it as a study.”
Perhaps it was difficult to picture myself living here because I’d never lived on my own. It struck me that I might get lonely. I could host a Sunday dinner. The dining table seated six, so we’d all fit. Seeing my family here would help me settle. “I can rent from month to month?” I asked. I guess I could try it and see how I liked it.
“Yes, you just need to give thirty days’ notice after the first month, so a minimum two-month stay.”
“I’ll take it.” There was no point in delaying. I needed to take the plunge and move forward.
The agent’s eyes widened.
“And it’s okay if I bring some additional furniture. A sofa . . .” My old brown leather sofa was the only thing I would take from the flat I’d shared with Emma. I loved that thing. It had been my first big, adult purchase, and it had seen a lot of beer, banter and girls. Where I went, the sofa came with me.
“I don’t think that’s a problem. When do you want to move in?”
“You can’t make it happen quick enough.”
The agent grinned. “Let’s go back to the office and get you to sign the paperwork, and I can give you the keys.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and grinned.
Progress.
Twelve
Ashleigh
I stared out the window of the café where I’d lun
ched with Luke just a few weeks ago. It was raining and the windows had begun to fog up. I wiped the glass with the sleeve of my uniform so I could see the raindrops on the outside more clearly. It was like I was watching the inside of my heart. Damp, gray and miserable. Was Luke thinking the same thing? Was he hurting as I was? I wanted to call him, just to hear his voice. To let him tell me that everything was going to be okay. My brain knew that I had to give him space and time to figure out what he really wanted. My heart thought my brain was an idiot.
Adding to my pain was that I couldn’t talk about it with Haven. I didn’t want to create conflict when there was none, but I didn’t want her to tell me I’d been a fool. Not for hoping that a relationship with Luke could work, or for pushing him away. My two best friends were suddenly people who I couldn’t reach out to. The separation felt physical, slicing through me like a million tiny blades.
And then of course there was the guilt. I’d had two patients ask if I was okay. Jesus, that made my stomach tumble. I was distracted, feeling sorry for myself and surrounded by people in their last few weeks of life. How incredibly selfish was that?
“Hey, Ash.” A voice from behind interrupted my self-pity. I was considering whether or not I had the energy to greet the person speaking to me when Richard came into view. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded and forced the corners of my mouth up in an unconvincing smile. I’d not seen much of Richard since we’d broken up. That wasn’t unusual, and it hadn’t been long. He had probably been on nights. My shifts were more predictable, mainly eight to four with the odd Saturday thrown in. Who said there wasn’t a bright side in palliative care?
“Can I join you?” he asked.
I wanted to say no. I wanted to be left alone with my head full of misery, but Richard was too nice to say no to.
“Sure.” I sat back in my chair, my uneaten sandwich in front of me, as I watched Richard set down his tray, his eyes flickering between his food and my face.