As amazing as it had been to see her, it had also brought home to me how wrong this whole thing was. I might not want to date anyone else yet, but I had to end this thing – whatever this thing was – with Emma. I was thirty-one and she was seventeen. Just a girl.
I would tell her when I saw her in a couple of days’ time.
It was the only thing I could do.
11
EMMA
‘I think we should stop meeting up.’
I stared at Nick for several seconds before what he said sank in.
‘What, for good?’
‘Yes.’ He was looking everywhere except at me, and I felt a spark of anger flare through me.
‘You don’t get to decide that.’
Finally, he met my gaze. ‘It’s wrong, Emma. We both need to move on.’
I searched his eyes, his face. ‘Did you meet someone?’
‘What? No!’ He was so outraged it was clear he was telling the truth. But obviously something had happened, and I wasn’t letting him off that easily.
‘How did your date go then?’
He shrugged. ‘It was fine. We’re not seeing each other again. What about yours?’
‘Pretty much the same.’ I shuffled slightly closer to him and he flinched. ‘Why are you being like this?’ I said.
‘I’m not being like anything. I thought we’d agreed that we both need to move on, that’s all, and we can’t exactly do that ifwe’re still meeting up all the time. So I just think we should call it a day.’
‘Is that really what you want?’ My chest felt tight at the thought of walking away from here and never seeing him again, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
He didn’t reply for a long time and I was beginning to wonder whether he’d heard me at all. I was about to say something else when he finally spoke.
‘It’s not what I want at all. But I have to.’
I put my hand on his arm and he flinched again. Was it because of the usual spark, or was he repulsed by me?
‘Please tell me what’s happened,’ I said.
Slowly, he turned his head. His eyes were heavy with sadness. ‘I made a mistake,’ he said. I waited. He looked back down at his lap and drew in a long breath of air. ‘I went to see you.’
I felt my heart skitter, and my skin fizzled. ‘What do you mean?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I walked past the open-air theatre.’ He looked at me again and I knew what he was going to say before he said the words out loud. ‘I sawThe Importance of Being Earnest.’
‘April 1999,’ I whispered, and he nodded. I pulled my hand away from his and wrapped it round myself. ‘And now you’re freaked out because I’m only seventeen in 1999. Am I right?’
He nodded. ‘You were with your parents,’ he said. ‘You’re achild.’
‘But I’m not. I’m not a child right here, right now, where we are. Together.’ A thought occurred to me then. ‘I nearly looked for you the other day but then changed my mind because I remembered how much you were against it. But if I did find you now, I’d still be an adult and the age gap wouldn’t be weird then.’
He shook his head. ‘It just felt so wrong,’ he said, softly. ‘I shouldn’t have gone.’
A silence fell between us. If Nick really meant what he said, that he didn’t think we should see each other any more, then he had to be the one to get up and walk away.
