It was so Kit.
I burst out laughing at that, then inexplicably started to cry.
Unfortunately, I was at work at the time. Luckily my colleagues assumed my red puffy eyes were something to do with Adrian and the aborted wedding, so I’d not needed to give them an excuse.
I really am incredibly lucky to be working with such amazing people.
They’d all been so kind to me when I got back from Japan and gave me the space and unquestioning support I needed so I could get on with my job and have some sort of normalcy back in my life.
Speaking of kindness, I’ve thought back a lot to my time at the hotel with Kit. To the compassion he’d shown me. The patience and the warmth.
He’d helped me out repeatedly, without making any kind of deal about it. And he’d been respectful about my wants and needs without letting me walk all over him.
In fact, he’d propped me up there in all sorts of ways without complaint and hadn’t once run for the hills when things got sticky and uncomfortable.
Because he has integrity.
And okay, he’s not exactly the humble type, but honestly, who cares about that really? In reality, I actually like and appreciate his self-assurance. And no-one’s perfect, right?
It occurred to me that the rambling list of traits and character strengths I’d outlined in the hot tub, when we’d first danced around each other at the beginning of the holiday, were there,in him, all along. I was just too self-centred and short-sighted to see them.
But I see them now.
And that we were good together.
Kit made me happy and encouraged me to be myself in a way that Adrian never did.
That’s what I want in a partner.
Kit’swhat I’ve always wanted. I was just too naïve to realise it.
I know it now though.
But I’ve got a horrible feeling I might have missed my chance. Mysecondchance.
Even if I have, I hope we’ll always be able to be friends. If he’s amenable to that. I wasn’t exactly friendly towards him at the end.
I half want to know and I half don’t, because I have a horrible feeling it’ll hurt more to be rejected by Kit than it did by Adrian.
But if I don’t get in contact with him I’ll always wonder.
At the weekend I take a walk to the place I’ve visited a lot in the last month. A park I’d never been to before I went to Japan, but now can’t seem to stay away from.
The sun is shining, so I sit down on a bench and take a couple of pictures with my phone of the magnificent scene in front of me: of the cherry trees, which in Japan are thought to represent not only the transience of life but also hope, renewal and new beginnings, the intensity of the dark red maple trees against the vibrant greens of the foliage, the waterfall cascading into a large pond of Japanese fish and even a peacock strutting past, reminding me of Kit and his pretend preening at the dinner table that first night we spent together.
The memory makes me smile.
This place was a gift from Japan to London and it seems more than fitting to be sharing pictures of it with Kit.
So I take a breath, attach the photos to a message and send them to the number he put into my phone, with the text:
Guess where I am right now?
Then I slide my phone into my pocket, sit back on the bench and admire the view for a while, trying not to constantly check for a response.
* * *
Kit
