But he stayed.
The space between us felt charged with energy. I tried to imagine coming back here one day and him not being here. Tried to imagine him never being here again, never seeing his face again, and it made me feel overwhelmingly sad.
‘I came here,’ I said.
His head snapped round and I looked at him. The lines etched into his forehead, the dimple in his chin, and I longed to reach out and press my hand to his face. I held myself back.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I came here the other day just to see how it felt without you. I wondered whether I’d feel you here at all.’
‘And did you?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
‘I came too.’
‘When?’
‘A couple of days ago, just before my date.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I was expecting, but I felt nothing out of the ordinary either.’
‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ I’d been wanting to say it since we arrived, but Nick had thrown a curve ball into the conversation. But if he did still want to stop seeing me, I needed to tell him how I felt first. That he filled my thoughts all the time, that when I was at work talking to clients he was on my mind; that when I’d been on the date with Aaron I’d wished it was him opposite me instead. That he was the first person I thought about when I woke up in the morning and the last person I thought about as I fell asleep at night.
‘I sometimes try and picture you in the house,’ he said.
‘I do too.’
I felt him shift beside me so that our thighs were almost touching. The air crackled.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said.
‘Let’s have a date.’
‘What?’
I still didn’t dare look at him, but this was what I’d come here to say today, and I wanted to get it out before I changed my mind.
‘We tried dates with other people and they didn’t work.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I kept thinking about you the whole time, which meant that no matter what poor old Aaron did, it would never be enough. Because he would never be you. So, I thought, why don’t we have a date together. Right here.’
‘Here?’
I finally turned to look at him. ‘It has to be here, we can’t be together anywhere else. But if we do it one evening when it’s dark and everyone else has gone home then we should have the park to ourselves. And I know we see each other here anyway, but a date would be different. It would be more special.’ I looked down at where our hands sat beside each other’s on the bench and I inched mine closer until our little fingers touched. He moved his on top and linked it through. I shivered at his touch and looked up to meet his eyes. ‘So, what do you say?’
He hesitated, and I held my breath, expectant. Then he said:
‘I say yes.’
12
NICK
Until a few days ago, I’d never been on a formal date. Dawn and I had been together since we were practically children so it had never even really been something that had crossed my mind. And as I got ready for my date with Emma, I bubbled with an excitement I hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
I hadn’t told Andy about it. I knew what he’d say – that there was no point, that it couldn’t go anywhere, that I was just prolonging the agony of saying goodbye. And even though deep down I knew he was completely right, I wanted to do it anyway.
Because despite what I’d told Emma, I wasn’t ready to call this a day just yet. Not until we’d explored all options.
We just needed more time.
