“Beautiful idea. It’s just,” Mattie said, “after the way I behaved, I’m surprised you didn’t toss it out.”
“Plants don’t deserve that, especially fledgling ones that are still growing roots.”
Mattie put her fork down. “We’re not still talking roses, are we?”
Nell held her gaze. “No, we’re not.”
“There’s so much to say, I barely know where to start.” Mattie’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, fuck. Your Christmas present. It was in my suitcase.”
Nell caught on. “Which was in your car...”
“Which is now in the sea.” Mattie shook her head ruefully.
“I’m sure the gift was lovely, but I’ll happily go without. I’ve still got you.” Nell grasped Mattie’s hand. “This afternoon was beyond challenging. For a brief but utterly horrifying few minutes, I thought I’d lost you. If you’d been in your car when it hit the water...” She shuddered. “It would have broken me.”
“I don’t think I could have borne it if it’d been you either.” Mattie’s expression turned from grief to wonder. “You kissed me in front of your colleagues.”
“Ah, yes. Outing myself. It’s starting to become a habit.” At Mattie’s puzzled look, Nell told her about Christmas Day. “My parents are pretending I don’t exist.”
“I’m so sorry.” Mattie grimaced. “I should’ve been there to support you instead of going to Turkey. I fucked up our Christmas and?—”
“Going to Turkey was the right thing to do.” Nell pushed aside her plate so she could grasp Mattie’s other hand. “I want your career dreams to flourish. My issue is with the way you went about it. No discussion. You decided and presented it as a fait accompli, just like you did when you accepted the European correspondent role.”
Mattie’s jaw clenched and, for a moment, Nell wondered if she was going to argue the point. “To be honest, it didn’t even occur to me to talk it through with you. It was only afterwards that I realised I was still behaving in single-person mode.” She frowned. “You told me to go to Turkey, so how would it have changed things? Be brutally honest, so I don’t fuck up again.”
Nell pulled her hand away. “It left a bad taste. I felt like I didn’t matter. If you’d shared it with me, we could have made fun plans. Christmas Day in January for example, something for us both to look forward to. Instead, I was inconsequential, left feeding on the crumbs offered by watching you on TV. ”
“You watched my reports?”
“Every single one. Including the one with Zabu.” Was her jealousy leaking? Nell couldn’t help it. Even saying the woman’s name stung her tongue.
“That was work, nothing else. At all.” Mattie looked at her. “I’ve never cheated on any of my partners, and I absolutely wouldn’t with you.”
“I believe you,” said Nell. “But can you imagine how I was feeling? You were thousands of miles away. We barely communicated. And then up pops this beautiful and intelligent doctor with whom I know you’ve had a friends-with-benefits thing. My overthinking brain did a number on my self-esteem. It wasn’t fun.”
“Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to cause so much hurt.”
Nell saw tears fill her eyes, but she couldn’t let a natural desire to protect Mattie derail her. “In every report, I saw beyond your camera face. It hurt to see you in such pain. I wanted to reach out to you, but I didn’t know if you wanted that. And then there was suddenly a wall in our way.”
Mattie dashed at her eyes with her palms. “I was scared. I was so close to falling apart that one well-meaning comment would’ve tipped me over the edge. I ghosted Simon and Shona too. And you know what?” She puffed out her cheeks. “The three of you were right all along.”
“About what?” Nell asked.
“Counselling. And how desperately I need some.” She laughed wryly. “I am the stubbornest of stubborn mules.”
Nell listened as Mattie revealed the chain of events that’d led her to having an initial fifty-minute session with a therapist the previous day.
“In a disaster zone, you can put aside the trials and tribulations of your own life and focus your energy on spotlighting extraordinary other lives. It’s so much easier to manage other people’s misfortunes than my own,” said Mattie. “If I’m honest with myself, I knew a while back that things weren’t right. That was one of the reasons I came to Devon last summer, but my time in Turkey was the ultimate wake-up call. I need to get my head sorted, and to find a way of properly managing it rather than the half-hearted fashion I attempted before. That means dealing with my self-destructive tendencies, such as relying on alcohol.”
“That’s brave. And I’m glad,” said Nell.
Mattie fiddled with the silver ring on her right index finger, twisting it around and around. “What I’ve already realised is that I never properly grieved after losing my mum. I thought I was managing fine, but I was using work as a crutch to protect myself.” She sucked in air, as though it was in short supply. “In the spirit of learning how to be part of a couple, I should give you fair warning that there’s a long journey ahead for me. It might not be pretty at times, so if you want to take a step back with us until or unless I get myself sorted, I’ll understand.”
Nell’s chest ached at the uncertainty and vulnerability in Mattie’s voice. She shot over to her side of the table and cupped her face in her hands. “We’ll do it together.”
“We will?”
Nell stroked the length of Mattie’s nose, her high cheekbones, her proud jaw. “We will,” she said quietly.
