I do it without thinking, the lyrics coming out of my mouth as if they’ve been lined up, waiting for their cue.
Three more questions, this time directed at him. It’s almost as if we’re having a conversation via the words of this song. There’s a small gasp from the crowd as I reach the chorus and somehow hit the high notes, my voice soaring out over their heads to fill the room. Somewhere back there I know my friends are cheering me on, but I keep my attention fixed completely on Alex, who smiles up at me, never moving from the spot, never dropping his gaze as I sing just to him; singing as if there’s no audience, no pressure, and, most of all, no Rebecca waiting somewhere in the wings.
But I’m not thinking about Rebecca, or what’s going to happen once the music stops. All I’m thinking about is the way Alex is watching me as I’m something he finds special; as if Iamsomething special to him.
So I sing as if I believe that too; all the way to the end of the last chorus, which is when the audience suddenly reminds me they exist by erupting into applause. At the back of the room, Chloe is climbing up onto a table, cheering. Rita and Gerald are on their feet, hugging, and Alice leans hard on the horn of her electric scooter, adding to the chaos.
But I only see Alex.
“That was amazing,” he mouths up at me, his words lost among the cheers. “I knew you could do it!”
Then he holds out his arms, and I throw myself into them for the second time this week; only this time, rather than instantly putting me on the ground so we can make a run for it, he catches me and twirls me around before our lips meet in the kind of kiss that I used to believe only ever happened in movies.
But no: apparently they happen in real life, too, because here we are, arms wrapped around each other as we stand in front of the stage, kissing like no one’s watching … and then suddenly pulling apart in horror as we realize that, actually,everyone’swatching. Literally everyone in the room.
“Oh my God,” I say, clapping my hand over my mouth as Alex finally releases me. “Oh my God, I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” His brow creases in confusion, his green eyes filled with questions. “What are you sorry for?”
“For this,” I say, my eyes filling with tears as I back away from him.
Then I turn and sprint for the door.
Thirty-One
Alex finds me by one of the pools, in a neat little reversal of the scene a couple of nights ago, when I chased him onto the beach.
This is different, though.
Back then — all of two days ago — I followed him because I wanted to know his secrets; particularly the one that made him decide not to mention his extremely recently broken engagement to me.
But now I know.
I know he’s engaged. I know he lied to me when he said they weren’t still together. And I know she’s here right now; somewhere in this very hotel, where he just kissed me for a second time, when he had absolutely no right to.
Which, now I come to think of it, makes me all kinds of mad.
“Where is she?” I ask, whirling around to face him. “Where’s your fiancée, Alex? Is she still up in your room, waiting for you? Did you lie to her, too, when you came to find me?”
Alex rakes one hand through his hair, making it stand on end. We’re standing by the side of the pool that’s furthest from the hotel, andalthough there are still plenty of people milling around the complex, this area is much quieter, the distant sound of the karaoke merging with the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the pool.
“She’s gone, Summer,” he says at last. “Rebecca’s gone. That’s what I was coming to tell you. But when I got to the bar, you were up on the stage, and, well, I guess I got a bit distracted.”
He smiles in a way that I’d normally find disarming, but, under the current circumstances, I just find suspicious.
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” I ask, finding it easier than listing all the other questions I’d currently like answers to: like why was she here in the first place, and how does he feel about her? Most of all, I want to know what her being ‘gone’ means forme;but I can’t bring myself to ask it just yet, so I allow my original question to stand.
“I meangoneas in ‘not here,’” Alex says helpfully. “Probably at the airport by now, if she’s not there already. I called the taxi for her myself, and I watched to make sure she got into it. So she’s gone. And she’s not coming back.”
He reaches for me, as if he’s about to take my hand, but I step quickly back, narrowly avoiding falling into the pool.
“She washere, though,” I point out, somewhat unnecessarily. “In your room. I mean, you can see what that would make me think, can’t you?”
Alex nods. “I know what you thought,” he says quietly. “But you were wrong, Summer. I didn’t lie to you. Rebecca and I aren’t getting back together. Thatiswhy she flew out here,” he adds, in response to my unasked question. “To apologize — or so she said, anyway. But I didn’t accept her apology, and I’m not taking her back, either. She knows that. I think she knew it before she even left the UK, but she was getting a lot of pressure from her family to try to sort things out, and she went along with it. I told her she shouldn’t have bothered.”
He rubs his eyes wearily.
“And she just accepted that?”
