“How are they, your mum and dad?”
Max met them a few times—those occasions when he came to Shoreley, and twice in Norwich, when they visited me at uni. Each time, he was the perfect boyfriend—attentive and polite, but not overly smooth, never trying too hard. I thought back then that maybe Max’s particular gift in life was making people fall in love with him.
“They’re good. Still working.” Mum’s a primary school teacher, and Dad’s in middle management at an insurance company—though there’s been talk of redundancies lately, which is never great news for someone in their fifties. But I’m not going to bore Max with all that now.
“Still head over heels in love?”
“Ah, sickeningly so.” I smile, set down my fork, pick up my coffee. “And do you remember my sister, Tash?”
He hesitates, probably reluctant to admit he doesn’t, not properly.
“I think you only met her a couple of times. But she’s doing really well. She works in marketing now. Married, with a son.”
“Crazy,” Max says, like he’s struggling—as I have been, over the past few weeks—to get his head around the passage of time, to become reacquainted with everything he’d thought was firmly in the past.
“Tell me about your last girlfriend,” I say, sipping my coffee.
His expression remains open, unfazed. “All right. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you break up?”
“Our lives were going in opposite directions. I like it in London, but she wanted to give it all up to start a yoga retreat abroad somewhere.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. We were polar opposites, really, personality-wise.”
“Do you ever think about what might have happened if you’d gone with her?”
Max finishes his espresso and laughs. “Yeah, I’d have caught the next flight back to Heathrow.”
I smile.
“And you? Why did you and your ex split up?”
“Lack of fire in the belly,” I say, which is a generous way of sayinga bit lazyandthat amount of online gaming’s not healthy for anyone.
I don’t mention, of course, that I thought of Max often while I was with my ex. Sometimes late at night, while he snored beside me. Occasionally out at dinner, as he was asking for a knife and fork to replace his chopsticks. And once—I was ashamed of this—while we were having sex. It was all I could do to stop from calling out Max’s name.
Eight
Stay
“I think it’s good,” the man with the tomato-colored face says, doubtfully. “It’s just not to my taste, I suppose.”
He shrugs and looks at me apologetically. As my heart thunders away in my chest, I am about to tell him it’s fine, that I completely understand, when Emma—the girl with long blond hair sitting opposite me—says, “Sorry—good writing’s not to your taste?”
“I meant,” says Tomato Face, “I don’t really readromance.”
“But this is a writing group,” Emma counters. “You can’t only be prepared to critique dystopian thrillers.”
I’m sensing there might be history between these two.
“I don’tonlylike dystopian thrillers,” Tomato Face snaps. “I like crime, and fantasy.”
His evident irritation rings around the room where we’re sitting, which abuts the vestry of a church in Shoreley town center. It’s far too big for the six of us, really, with its high ceilings, enormousstained-glass windows, and unnecessary levels of reverb. Though the weather outside is warm, the air in here is cool in the way that churches are, rich with the limey, mineral scent of centuries-old stone. There’s a long fabric hanging on the wall opposite where I’m sitting, which readsTRUST IN THE LORD’S PLAN FOR YOUR LIFE. It reminds me of a particular religious studies lesson I had at school, when our teacher had just said something similar, and someone put up their hand and asked why we should try hard at anything, if God already had a plan for us. Our teacher’s response was that God knows where you are going, but how you get there is up to you.
For so many years, even after we’d broken up, that was how I felt about me and Max—that we were destined to be together, no matter how circuitous the route we’d take to get there. I’m surprised to realize I don’t feel that way anymore.
