by Sophie Hayes
John and I had been together for three years and even though our relationship had clearly run its course, splitting up was still hard. So I was grateful that Kas was always there, at the other end of a telephone, to help me through it. He was like a big brother as well as my best friend and he seemed to understand my doubts and suspicions. He made me feel as though I’d done the right thing in leaving John, and whenever I was miserable about it, he reminded me how good my life was going to be now that I was ‘free’.
In reality, however, I was 21, had never really lived on my own, hadn’t made many friends independently of John, and was frightened by the prospect of having to start my life all over again, alone. After Serena met her boyfriend, we’d more or less stopped going out together in the evenings. So I was grateful when Natasha, a friend I’d made at work, suggested a night out at a bar that had just opened. After that, she and I started going out together regularly and suddenly the future looked less bleak and lonely; life seemed to be full of possibilities.
And then, just a few months after John and I had split up, I fell in love.
Usually when I meet someone I’m attracted to, it’s an instantaneous thing: I look at them and bang! – I’m smitten. And that was exactly what happened when I walked down the stairs at a nightclub with Natasha and the guy working behind the bar looked up at me with big, brown eyes. While Natasha bought us some drinks, I stood beside her with my back to the bar, trying to breathe normally and hoping that the sound of the music was muffling the heartbeat that I could hear thumping loudly in my head. Eventually, Natasha turned and handed me a glass and I said to her, ‘That is the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen in my life. I have to know who he is.’
It was quite early in the evening so the club wasn’t yet heaving with people as it would be later and Natasha surveyed the dance floor with growing scepticism. Raising her eyebrows in mock bemusement, she pointed at a boy who was throwing his arms around like a demented windmill and asked: ‘Who? Him?’
‘No,’ I hissed at her. ‘Not there. The boy at the bar. The one who served you. No. Don’t look round!’ But it was too late, and as she turned her head to examine him, he looked up at her and smiled. Natasha smiled back at him sweetly and then scanned the room for a moment, pretending – unconvincingly – that she’d been looking at everyone. When she turned back to me she said, ‘He’s certainly good-looking,’ laughing as she added, ‘Oh I see! You’re really serious.’
We’d planned to have just one or two drinks in that club before moving on to meet up with friends at another. But when the most beautiful boy in the world leaned across the bar and started talking to us, all I could think was, I don’t want to leave. Why did this have to happen tonight? So, when Natasha touched my shoulder and I turned to see her tapping the face of her watch and nodding towards the stairs, my heart sank.
‘Okay, well, we’re going now. So … Well … Goodbye,’ I told the barman, flushing crimson with embarrassment at the thought of how awkward and stupid I sounded.
‘What do you mean, you’re going?’ he asked. ‘You can’t be leaving already.’
‘Well, we have to meet some people and …’
And then I was walking up the stairs with Natasha, stepping into the cool night air and feeling as though I was about to burst into tears. What if he’s the man of my dreams, I thought. And I’ve just turned my back on him, walked away and let him go? What if I never see him again? I started to feel as though I was going to have a panic attack, which was only averted by Natasha reminding me that, as he worked in the club, he would in all probability be there almost every night of every week.
When we returned the following Thursday, he saw us as soon as we walked down the stairs and by the time we’d reached the bar, he’d already poured two drinks. He handed them to us and said, ‘You’ve come back!’ and for a moment he looked directly into my eyes before turning to Natasha and smiling. But she just waved her hand, laughed and said, ‘Oh, don’t mind me. I’ll just stand here and enjoy my cocktail!’
As soon as he spoke to me, my heart started to crash against my ribcage and my mind went completely blank. I tried to think of something to say, but all I eventually came up with was ‘Hi’. Luckily, though, I said it at exactly the same moment as someone further down the bar caught his eye and, with an apologetic shrug, he moved away, while I turned to Natasha and cried, ‘Oh my God! I can’t even talk to him. What shall I do? I don’t know what to say.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ she told me, grinning as she lifted my hot, damp hand off her arm. ‘Just take a deep breath and smile.’
And to my surprise it really was as easy as that. When he’d served the customer, he came back, and with our heads almost touching across the bar, we began to talk as though we’d known each other all our lives. Although his English was good, he spoke with an accent and when I asked him where he was from, he told me to guess.
‘Albania,’ I answered immediately and he almost dropped the glass he was holding.
‘How can you possibly know that?’ he asked. ‘No one has ever guessed it before.’
From that moment, we became a couple. We went on our first date two days later and it was as though we had always been a part of each other’s lives – me, the over-cautious ice queen who rarely spoke to men and didn’t trust them when she did, and Erion, the kindest, gentlest, most beautiful man I’d ever seen. It sounds corny, I know, but it was as though he was the missing piece of a jigsaw I’d been searching for. John had filled the empty gap for a while, but had never really fitted the space like Erion did.
And it seemed that Erion felt the same. On our first night out together, he told me, ‘I never notice anyone who comes into the club, but from the moment you walked in, all I could see in my mind were your eyes, just looking at me. I kept thinking, What if she never comes back? What if I never see her again? I couldn’t bear the thought that I might have missed the opportunity to get to know the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with.’
‘I felt that too!’ I told him. ‘I felt as though I had to know who you were and that if I didn’t find out, there would always be something missing from my life.’
Erion is still the only man I’ve ever truly loved, and I believe he’s the only man who’s ever loved me. One of the greatest regrets of my life will always be that I didn’t fight with all my strength and determination not to lose him.
Chapter 3
After my first date with Erion, I couldn’t wait to tell Kastriot all about him.
‘I’ve met someone,’ I blurted out when he next phoned me. ‘I’ve been dying to tell you. And you’ll never believe where he’s from. Go on, guess.’
Kas sounded cool as he said, ‘I don’t know. Where is he from?’ But I was too caught up in my own happiness and excitement to notice.
‘He’s from Albania!’ I exclaimed.
‘So?’ Kas seemed almost angry. ‘Why would you think that it would make me glad to know you’re going out with someone and that he’s from Albania?’
He had never spoken to me in such a sharp tone before and for a moment I was taken aback, and then disappointed by his coldness and lack of interest.
‘But I thought you’d be pleased for me,’ I said. ‘I thought you’d be as amazed as I was that he’s the same nationality as you are. How many people in England know anyone from Albania, let alone have a best friend and a boyfriend from there? Kastriot? Are you still there? I don’t understand why you’re not happy for me. You’ve always told me I can talk to you about anything and I thought you’d be happy because I’m happy.’
And then it struck me that maybe he was jealous. When he’d said he loved me in the text he’d sent me at the start of our friendship, I’d been certain he was joking – for humorous/dramatic effect – and I’d never taken it seriously at all. But now I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment at the thought that perhaps there’d been at least a bit of truth in what he’d said.
It was an idea that was confirmed a m
oment later when he told me, ‘I do want to see you happy, but not with another man. I do not want you to rub it in my face that someone else is taking you out and sleeping beside you in your bed.’
But for some reason I didn’t seem able to absorb what Kas was telling me, perhaps because I didn’t want to believe it was true. I didn’t think about him like that at all; he was my best friend and I didn’t want to accept that he might care about me in any other way because that would mean we’d lose the friendship we had. I was like a child, so focused on myself and on my own little world that I simply closed my mind to the fact that he might be hurt by my news. Because I was irritated with him for not reacting the way I’d wanted and expected him to, I didn’t text him for the next few days. When he phoned me again and was his usual cheerful, supportive self, he was the first to mention Erion, and I felt an enormous sense of relief at the idea that, having thought about it, he’d realised our relationship was purely plutonic and that we were just good friends.
If I’d tried to imagine the man I’d fall in love with, I don’t think I’d have come up with someone as wonderful as Erion. He was amazing, and when I look back on that time now, I can’t believe I didn’t recognise exactly what I had and that, instead of doing everything in my power to make him happy, I was sometimes unkind to him.
I know it sounds like a pathetic excuse to say I blame my father for the way I sometimes treated Erion, but in some respects I do. Every child wants – and has a right to expect – parents who love them, but when I was a child it seemed there was nothing I could do to make my father love me. So, eventually, I gave up trying. I told myself I’d accepted the fact that he didn’t care about me and I stopped attempting to win his affection and approval. In reality, however, I never really came to terms with the way he let me down – and I still haven’t, if I’m honest. It was more than just letting me down, though: he hurt me deeply, and then he abandoned us all and showed very clearly by his words and actions that he had never cared about any of us.
So, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I think I was always testing Erion’s love for me, stretching the bond that tied us together until it almost reached breaking point. Poor Erion must have wondered what on earth was the matter with me and why I kept pushing him away when it was clear to him – as it should have been clear to me – that what we had together was extraordinary. I was like a spoilt child, forever getting into huffs about things and telling Erion it was all over, although they never lasted longer than a day; then he’d come back and I’d cry and tell him I loved him and was sorry. I should have realised, though, that you can’t keep stamping on something over and over again and expect it not to at least change its shape, even if it doesn’t actually disintegrate into a thousand shattered pieces.
It was during one of our day-long break-ups that I started a new job, and when my co-workers asked if I had a boyfriend, I said, like Judas, ‘No.’ When Erion and I got back together again the next day, I would have felt stupid telling them I’d lied and that I did have a boyfriend after all. And, in any case, it didn’t really come up in conversation again. So whenever Erion phoned me at work, I’d text him and tell him: ‘I can’t talk right now. I’ll phone you later.’ He must have known I was lying and he must have been really hurt and wondered why. But I couldn’t help myself: there was something perverse and self-destructive in me that made it impossible for me to accept the fact that my life with Erion was happy and he loved me, although I know now that I wasn’t as horrible to him as I blame myself for being and that, in reality, we were happy together most of the time.
Although we had our own flats, Erion spent most nights at mine – letting himself in with his key after he finished work at the club in the early hours of the morning – and I slept better knowing he was beside me. He cared about me and took care of me in the way that John had tried to do in the early days of our relationship but without doing the ‘paternal disapproval’ thing I’d learned to hate. And I am ashamed that I didn’t always appreciate it at the time. For example, one morning, I had an appointment at the dentist and my mum picked me up just before 9 o’clock to drive me there. Erion had taken me to a previous appointment, but this one was early, when he’d normally be asleep after his night at the club, and Mum had offered to take me instead.
The dental practice was in a part of town I didn’t know, and although I thought I’d remember the way from the last time I’d been, I didn’t seem to recognise any of the streets when we got there. It was a rough area and as I directed us down the same street for the third time, some of the people standing at a bus stop turned to watch us and I could sense my mother’s anxiety.
‘How can you have forgotten the way?’ she wailed, reaching out her right hand as she spoke and pressing the central door lock. ‘This is a horrible area. We can’t keep driving round and round in circles. We’re already drawing attention to ourselves. For heaven’s sake, Sophie, think! Which way do we go?’
‘I don’t know, Mum,’ I answered. ‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t know where we are. I’ll phone Erion.’
He answered the phone on the second ring, his voice husky with sleep.
‘We’re lost,’ I told him tearfully. ‘We’ve been driving up and down the same streets and I can’t find the dentist.’
‘It’s okay, Sophie,’ he said, immediately wide awake. ‘Just tell me where you are.’
‘I don’t know where we are!’ I cried. ‘I don’t recognise anything.’
‘Well, tell me what you can see then,’ he said. ‘Just tell me what’s in the street around you.’
So I described the large, square, red-brick Victorian building with its metal-shuttered windows and the litter-strewn patch of grass beside a small tarmac-covered play area on which stood a rusty swing and a battered seesaw. Erion made a small triumphant sound and said, ‘I know where you are. Stay there and I’ll be with you in 10 minutes.’ And, just 10 minutes later, we saw his car driving down the road towards us.
‘It’s okay now,’ he said, leaning in through my open window to kiss my cheek and then smiling at my mum. ‘I will lead you. Follow me.’
‘Thank you, dear,’ my mother said, reaching across me to pat his hand. ‘We’re very grateful.’
But as soon as Erion had walked back to his car, I turned to my mother and said crossly, ‘What does he look like? I can’t believe what a mess he looks!’ He was wearing his work trousers with a vest and no shirt, his hair was standing up on end like the comb of an agitated cockatoo and I think I was disappointed that my mum wouldn’t see how perfect he really was – although nothing I tell myself now about why I said such a terrible thing makes me feel any better.
My mother was shocked and angry with me and told me, quite rightly, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. That boy worked till God knows what hour of the morning and then, as soon as you phoned him, he got up again and came out to help you. And all you can do is criticise the way he looks. Don’t be so mean!’
Erion drove ahead of us to the dentist and then waited to lead us back on to the road that would take us home. To him, helping someone he loved and cared about was a normal thing to do – something instinctive he didn’t even have to think about. But to me it was scary and unnerving because I wondered when he’d realise I wasn’t worthy of that sort of love.
I was still talking regularly on the phone to Kas and whenever Erion and I had an argument, Kas would sympathise and advise me, and it really did feel as though I could tell him anything.
Sometimes, for no reason I could understand, I’d wake up in the morning, look at Erion lying asleep in the bed beside me and think, I just want to be on my own. Then, when he woke up and started to talk about what we could do together that day, I’d tell him I didn’t want to spend the day with him and he’d look at me, his beautiful dark eyes full of hurt and incomprehension, and say, ‘Why? Why do you do this to me?’ And I never had an answer.
One day, when I got home from work and went into the bedroom to change my
clothes, there was a piece of paper lying on my pillow. I hadn’t been as nice as I should have been to Erion that morning, and as I picked it up with shaking hands and read the words that were written on it, I began to cry.
‘To my beautiful baby,’ it said. ‘Every time I look into your eyes, I can see that you don’t love me the same way I love you and I can’t do this anymore.’
I closed my fingers tightly around the paper, crushing it in my hand, and then I sat down on the edge of the bed and cried. A few minutes later, as I slowly opened my hand again and tried to smooth the creases from the crumpled scrap of paper, I knew I had the answer to the question I was always asking without ever realising it: ‘How far can I push the man I love before I push him away from me forever?’
I reached into the drawer beside the bed for a tissue and blew my nose. Then I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes, looked down at the paper again and read the last few words that were written on it: ‘I can’t be with you knowing you don’t love me as much as I love you. I’ve tried, but it hurts too much and I know I can’t do it anymore.’
I was sobbing as I pressed Erion’s number on my phone, and as soon as I heard his voice I begged him, ‘Please, Erion, I’m so sorry. Please don’t do this. Of course I love you. Don’t go. Please.’
It was what he’d needed to know, and before long he was holding me in his arms again. But, despite having had a glimpse of what my future might be like without him, I still couldn’t always stop myself from testing him, and I’d sometimes ask, ‘Do you really love me? You don’t seem to notice me anymore and it sometimes feels as though you don’t see me like you used to do.’ And he’d answer, ‘Of course I love you. I tell you this every day. How many times do I have to say it before you’ll believe me?’ But although he was patient and never spoke to me angrily or unkindly, I began to hear frustration in his voice.