“No,” I say truthfully.It was you who broke my heart that day.
To my surprise, his eyes begin to brim with tears. I’ve barely had time to register them before they’re spilling down his cheeks, striking the pillow like raindrops.
Swearing softly, he sits up, then climbs out of bed and heads into the en suite. I sit up too, a little stunned. I’ve never seen Max properly cry before. Not even when he was facing me on that bridge in Norwich, rain-soaked and stricken, just before he walked away.
You were the one who left, Max. I thought it was what you wanted. How can you still be hurting this much?
I hear the splashing of water before, a minute or so later, he comes over to the bed again, seemingly now composed. He sits on the mattress next to me, takes my hand, works my fingers in his. “I know I owe you more than this, Luce, but... all I can tell you is that it felt like the right thing to do, back then.” He shakes his head. “That isn’t to say I don’t have massive regrets. I’ve spent so much time... thinking about where we might be now, if we hadn’t broken up.”
To hear him say all this now feels like watching a rocket soar into the sky, only to crash back down to earth moments later. Because while it’s comforting to know I’m not the only one with regrets, doesn’t that mean parting was pointless, if we’ve both been feeling this way?
I revisit my all-too-familiar fantasy of what Max and I would be doing now if he’d never ended it. We’d be living together in a beautiful flat—or maybe even a house. We’d have lots of friends, hundreds of shared experiences to cherish. We’d have seen the world, hosted the wedding of the century. We’d be cat people, definitely. And we’d be planning a family. A noisy, colorful tribe to fill our hearts with love all over again. My life would have taken an upward trajectory, rather than failing to ever really get started.
But worse than that, perhaps, is that I would undoubtedly have stayed at university for that final year, been awarded my degree. And then I would have moved to London with Max, found a proper job. By now, I’d be years into my career. I would never have gone to Australia, I wouldn’t have met Nate, and I wouldn’t have lost everything.
“Lucy?”
I shake my head. An unwelcome vision of Nate—his leering face—has lodged in my mind. “Sorry?”
“I was asking what you want,” Max says, gently.
“What I want?”
He nods. “I feel like enough time has passed to maybe... And I know I don’t deserve you, Lucy, but—”
My heart rushing forward, I lean over, smother his words with a kiss.
It doesn’t even occur to me to wonder why it would be important for time to have passed.
—
Max has to catch an early train to Leeds on Monday morning. He says he’ll be there until late Thursday, in meetings and on site visits to a high-end mixed-use development in the city center—the subject of a dispute his firm is working on, with millions at stake, apparently. But we arrange to meet on Friday night, as soon as he’s returned to London.
Back in Tooting, the house feels gloomy and lonely, rattling with street noise and the sound of intermittent gunfire from next-door’s TV. I quite like noise, normally—I find it comforting—but after a weekend cocooned in the smooth, gleaming sanctuary of Max’s flat, it’s easier to see this place for the unloved rental it is. Grimy corners and stark surfaces, peeling paint and zero water pressure, the faintest scent of damp.
I’m aching to talk to someone, but Jools and Sal are still on the night shift, and Reuben is at his girlfriend’s place in Leyton.
I make a cup of tea, head upstairs, check my phone. Just one message, from Max.
The best weekend ever. You’re amazing. Until Friday. xx
I call my sister. Predictably, she’s already in her office at work—she’s head of business development at a digital marketing agency—sipping a green juice, which I guess she’d call breakfast. She’s dressed for the warm weather in a cream blouse with capped sleeves, her bobbed blond hair immaculate as spun gold. My heart flexes when I see her, mostly because I know how much she’ll worry when she finds out why I’m calling.
“I’ve got something to tell you.”
She peers at the screen, like she’s searching for clues in the murky backdrop of my bedroom. “What? What is it? Is everything okay?”
I release a breath. The reassuring little speech I’ve prepared vanishes from my head completely. “I’m... Me and Max...”
Her face tightens. “You and Max what?”
“I think... we’re going to give it another shot.”
Her face crumples within a second. I hadn’t expected her reaction to be so immediate. “No, Luce. Please, not him.”
“Tash, it’s okay—”
“No, it’s not. It’s not okay.” For a moment, I think she’s about to start hyperventilating.
