To reply to her.
Or not to reply to her.
He had been asking himself the same question continuously for weeks now. It had become second nature to him. More so than breathing. More so than eating. But every time he went to give an answer, he stopped himself.
It had been a mistake to open her email. He’d told himselfa thousand times not to do it. Wasn’t thinking about her painful enough?
Pain.
How naive he’d been to think he’d known it before.
‘Jacob! Is everything OK up there?’
The voice startled him, even though every fifteen minutes on the dot, the same call would echo up the stairs.
‘Fine,’ he replied, pushing himself out of his chair and making his way back to bed.
Another day, and the ache in his chest and the clouds in his head were growing stronger with every passing minute. What he would give to be back on that beach in Goa. What he would give to be anywhere but here right now.
‘Jacob?’ His mum was louder now, more urgent. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine!’ he called back, as loudly as his weary body would allow. Then he whispered to himself, ‘Everything is just fucking fine.’
Olivia
Olivia checked the time; she still had ten minutes before her next meeting. The board presentation was looming, and Phil was going into overdrive. Not only did he need to make sure the slides were OK, but also that Olivia wasn’t going to have another one of her ‘episodes’, as he so kindly put it.
‘Olivia, you good to go in a few?’ he bellowed from his office.
‘Yeah, give me five.’
She reached for her phone and clicked open her emails.
Nothing.
It had been a month since her email to Jacob, and she’d still heard nothing back. It had taken every bit of strength not to message again; what had Cece told her? Life was too short for playing games. And if he wanted to play silent, then he could do that on his own time.
Cece … Goa … Her entire time away now felt like a very distant and surreal dream. It hadn’t taken long for her to settle into the swing of things back home. The grey skiesand even greyer landscape seemed to suck every drop of Indian sunshine from her memory. Work had thrown her straight back into the thick of it once she’d returned from leave, Phil wasting no time in getting her back to busy again. In one way it was a blessing – there was less time to dwell when you had no time to eat, let alone think – but in another way, it was a cruel reminder of Jacob’s words during their argument. Was this what she wanted for her life?
She clicked on her sent items and reread her message to him. Even if he replied telling her never to contact him again, at least she’d know he was alive.
Nerves ran their ice-cold fingers down her throat and began to tighten their grip around her ribcage. The unspoken fear that she had been carrying around with her for the last couple of weeks had reared its head once again. What if he was hurt? What if he needed help? Olivia closed her eyes and felt the frustration surge through her.
He’s an adult and not your responsibility.
She clicked out of her inbox and straight into her junk mail. It was a ritual she’d adopted every time she searched for his reply, and there was no point in breaking the routine now.
She flicked her eyes back up to the time; three minutes to go.
Plenty of time.
‘No, I don’t want to get filler in my face, thank you …’ She scrolled down the long list of trash messages. ‘And yes, I would like to be a crypto billionaire, but I doubt you will help me get there, DreamMoneyMaker.com …’
Suddenly Olivia stopped.
From:[email protected]
Subject:Hello
