I giggle, confirming that my voice is, in fact, still working.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “I was just thinking how bizarre it is that the wildest night I’ve had in months was spent with a bunch of pensioners.”
Alex reaches over and switches off the night, plunging the room back into darkness.
“It’s not something I had on my bingo card,” he admits. “None of this was, though. This whole trip has been totally different from how I imagined it.”
I really want to ask him if he means good different or bad different, and if the wistfulness I think I can hear in his voice is because he’s thinking about her — about Rebecca, and how she should be the one lying in bed with him, rather than me. But the room is growing fuzzy and I can’t be sure whether I’veaskedthe question or justthoughtabout asking it, so I allow my eyes to close, and tell myself I’ll worry about it tomorrow.
For now, it’s time to sleep.
Twenty-Nine
Iwake up curled around Alex, my arm wrapped tightly around his waist, and one leg draped over his body. I’d be mortified, but both of his arms are around my waist, and his face is buried in my hair, while my head rests on his shoulder, so it looks like I’m not the only one who’s prone to … sleep cuddling.
Is that a thing?
Because it’s anicething, if so, but it also feels like a potentiallydangerousthing given everything that currently stands in the way of Alex and I getting together. So I cautiously untangle myself, doing my best not to wake him, then ease myself out of bed, ignoring the pounding headache that arrives on cue to remind me of last night’s ill-advised drinking session.
Scanning the room, I see my clothes and handbag lying on top of the dressing table (the clothes have been carefully folded, in a way that strikes me as veryAlex…), and tiptoe over to grab them. Before I leave, I pause for a minute by the bed, looking down at him.
As I might have predicted, Alex is even pretty when he sleeps. I have a horrible feeling that I spent most of the night with my mouth open, drooling on the pillow, but his lips are closed in a perfect pout, and his dark lashes fan out over his tanned cheeks, fluttering slightly in his sleep.
I always knew he was gorgeous, but now that I know he’s alsonice, I find myself suddenly determined not to just accept that I’m never going to see him again after this holiday. Why shouldn’t I see him again, after all? Brighton isn’tthatfar from Margate. And people move. Or have long-distance relationships. Even people who called off their wedding just a few short days ago, like Alex.
Well, I assume they do, anyway. Let’s face it, I don’t exactly have a lot of evidence to support this theory given that Alex is the only person I know who split up with their partnerat their actual wedding. But those people must exist, right? And they must eventually go on to meet other people and live happily ever after with them; so why shouldn’t that happen tous? I could be the ‘other people’ he goes on to meet. He could be the person I live happily ever after with. I could move to Brighton. He could move to Margate. We could both move somewhere that isn’t BrightonorMargate. Maybe if we —
Alex yawns and rolls over in his sleep. He looks dangerously close to waking up, and I’d really like to at least have brushed my teeth before the next time he sees me, so I back quickly out of the room, and let myself into my own. My mind is buzzing with possibilities as I throw myself into the shower, then into some fresh clothes. The main thing, I decide, as I try to run a brush through my tangled hair, which still hasn’t recovered from its trip to the windy beach last night, is to talk to him about all of this, like the grown adults we are. Maybe not about the ‘moving to Margate’ thing — or even the ‘living happily ever after’ bit, because I can already picture the look on his face if I said that,and I wouldn’t blame him in the slightest, because it would sound straight-upinsane.But we should at least talk about thepossibilityof this being more than just a kiss on the beach one night. That seems like a reasonable thing to do, doesn’t it?
The more I think about it, the more I agree with myself. So I finish brushing my hair, put on some lipstick, then go to knock on Alex’s door. We’ve slept too late to make breakfast in the hotel, but maybe we could go out somewhere — ideally somewhere far from the overly-invested eyes of the Godfolk and Chloe?
Yes. That’s what we should do.
I knock on the door, and stand outside it, trying to think of a way to put forward my suggestion that will strike the right balance between “let’s have some totally no-strings-attached pancakes together” and “Let’s have a serious talk.” It’s harder than you might think, but it turns out to be a moot point anyway, because there’s no answer. I knock again, wondering if he’s still asleep, but again, there’s nothing but silence on the other side.
Where is he?
“Hola.”
I turn to find a housekeeper standing behind me with her cart, waiting to get into Alex’s room.
“I think he must still be in bed,” I tell her, stepping aside — but when the woman uses her keycard to open the door, I can clearly see that the room behind it is empty.
Oh.
That’s… strange.
I go back to my own room, feeling deflated. I know we’re not heretogether— either as lovers or just as friends — but I still somehow thought he’d have come to find me before heading off for breakfast… or wherever he’s gone.
Wherehashe gone, though?
I sit on the bed for a while, working my way through the small pile of complimentary chocolates the housekeeper keeps leaving for me, before gathering my stuff and heading down to the pool.
Alex isn’t there either, and neither is anyone else I recognize. There’s a message on my phone from Chloe consisting of a full screen’s worth of ‘sorrys’, followed by a single line telling me she’s gone shopping — apparently there’s a giant ZARA in a mall near here — so I spend the day on my own by the pool, too hungover to feel like going out to explore. I tell myself this is fine — this is exactly the kind of thing I’m always complaining I never get the time for back home, in fact: uninterrupted me time, with no one to answer to except myself. It’s something I’ve spent years telling myself I want, but now that I have it, I just feel a bit lonely and sad. I’m even missing the company of the Crone Crew, who I suddenly realize I’m also going to miss when we all go home again tomorrow.
Maybe Chloe was right. Maybe Idoonly want the things I can’t have? Because when Rita and co were here, being loud and occasionally inappropriate, I remember feeling vaguely annoyed that they wouldn’t leave me alone; but now that they’re nowhere to be seen, it’s obvious to me that they were just being kind and trying to include me. And when I first met Alex, I thought he was the most annoying man who ever lived, but now I’m looking up every time someone walks past my sun lounger, my heart racing with hope that it might be him.
