‘Look at me.’ He waits until my eyes meet his before he continues to speak. ‘Answer honestly. Would you call me a failure?’
‘Of course not,’ I say. I’ve never seen someone calmer or more confident in where they need to be.
‘Well, by thirty I won’t have a house or promotion– I won’t even be qualified for my dream job yet. And as great as my girl is, I can’t see us getting married till I’ve graduated, so I probably won’t have a fiancée either. Is that OK?’ he asks.
‘Yeah, of course,’ I say.
‘So why isn’t it OK for you?’
And just like that, it makes sense. All the pieces arrange themselves in front of me, delving inside and freeing the knot in my chest. I flick through pages of goals and charts in my mind, each one revealing itself to be more superfluous than the last. I hear a voice, see his face without closing my eyes, repeating the same thing he’s been telling me since he re-entered my life.
‘Nobody asked me to do all this but me,’ I say.
Monts cheers. ‘Exactly! Couldn’t have put it better myself.’
And I couldn’t either, because none of those were my words. They were the echo of a man who will barely talk to me now. A man who saw all this months ago and tried his best to coax me through seeing it for myself.
‘You all right?’ Monts asks, leaning to catch my eye again.
‘Yeah, sorry. Thank you,’ I say. ‘Honestly, this was exactly what I needed to hear.’
The boys return with more booze, top up my glass and get back to their banter without missing a step. But I can’t focus, can’t think of anything but Aiden and just how badly I’ve screwed this up. He saw through all my worrying and tried to help me before I even knew I needed his help. And now he’s gone, thanks to me and the conclusions I jumped to because I was too scared to let him in properly.
I make it through the night, the next morning, the hug goodbye with Anton, with thoughts of Aiden pushed as far back as I can manage. But as I sit on the train home, back to life, backto London, there’s one thing that dominates my mind, clear as day.
It’s time for a change. To take a leap that’s been years in the making.
Time to believe in myself.
The Edge
Days until the Summer Splash– ZERO
Days since I’ve seen Aiden– 37
Days since I made my choice for today– 31
Days I’ve considered backing out and keeping things as they are– 31
‘The train would have been so much faster. I don’t think I can be in this car for another minute!’ Pippa whines as she rolls down the window of our stuffy taxi, dramatically fanning herself with her hand.
‘We’re almost there.’ I don’t even bother to hide my disinterest.
‘How would you know? Your eyes haven’t left those papers since we got in the car.’
‘There’s a lot to be done,’ I say, circling vital words with my pen. ‘We’ve got two, maybe three hours before the first guests start arriving.’
I booked a taxi weeks ago for an 8 a.m. pickup, but Pippa insisted that was wildly unnecessary. One ‘casual convo’ with Maxwell and some BS about ‘surge pricing’ later, and I was forced to push the time back to ten o’clock. I wanted to fight back, or find a workaround for myself, but Aiden sent a curt little text insisting that I needn’t do either.
I’m driving up early, no need for both of us to. Just get there when u can.
Then he amended all pre-11 a.m. actions to just include him.
‘I’m surprised you didn’t stay up the night before! Thought Evie would have handed over her deed to you by now.’
I can’t help but look up at her, dragging my eyes from the colour-coded Gantt chart Aiden prepared to keep track of today’s tasks.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I ask.
