He frowns. I feel his hand grip my shoulder. “Lucy, me and Helen... we weren’t right for each other.”
I nod, but I don’t really know how to respond. I’d been thinking their marriage had just come to a natural end, and now I find out that in fact they went through this huge, life-altering thing. That they wanted to start a family. What if theyhadbecome pregnant—would they still be together in London right now, proud parents to a toddler, their very own miracle baby?
I shake my head, an attempt to dislodge the image from my mind. “So... who broke up with who?”
He waits a long time before answering. “It was mutual. We realized that without the prospect of a family, we didn’t really have... anything left.”
I frown, pulling my hands up inside the sleeves of the sweater I’m wearing, which is a little too long for my arms.
I feel Caleb shift his weight against me. He dips his lips to mine, kisses me softly. I catch the woody remnants of the aftershave he wore to lunch, almost faded now, and find myself wondering if Helen picked it out for him. If it was a birthday present, a Valentine’s surprise.
“It doesn’t really matterwhywe broke up,” he says. “I mean, the point is, we did.”
I’m not sure I fully agree with that, so I remain quiet.
“And just so you know, there was nothing ‘wrong,’ ” he says. “Medically, I mean. It just... wasn’t happening.”
“Don’t, Caleb. You don’t have to tell me stuff like that.”
Another long pause. “Is it... something you ever think about?”
I turn my head to look at him, let out a tight half laugh of surprise. “Come on.”
His eyes remain wide, his expression unruffled. “What?”
“It’s weird, asking me that. When you’ve just told me... You only broke up with Helen eight months ago. It’s too soon to—”
“Okay,” he says, seeming to accept this. “But I just want you to know... I still see all that stuff as part of my future. If it’s not too much to say that.”
I swallow. “Can we please change the subject?”
“Sure. Okay.”
But for a couple of minutes, we don’t say anything else.
“Want to go swimming?” he asks eventually.
“Yeah,” I say, surprised to realize I do. There’s something appealing right now about the thought of jumping into the sea, plunging my head beneath cold water, washing away the strange tension that’s settled unexpectedly between us.
Caleb gets to his feet, offers me his hand. As I stand up, he pulls me close to him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, “if I wasn’t completely straight with you, about why me and Helen broke up. I was probably trying to downplay it because... well, I really like you, Lucy. I mean, a lot.”
“Let’s not talk about it anymore,” I whisper into his chest. “Let’s just go and find the sea.”
Go
Tash has been trying to reach me for a whole month when, finally, early on a Sunday in mid-June, she catches me as I’m popping to the shop.
She ambushes me on the street as I step outside the house, which makes me think she’s been waiting there since dawn.
I wonder if Dylan and Simon have come to London with her. I wonder what Simon knows.
It’s the first time we’ve been face-to-face since I found out, since that unthinkable night in May when my whole world collapsed.
“Lucy,” she says, like I might not have seen her standing right in front of me. She’s lost a lot of weight—so much that I’d find it shocking, if I weren’t already in receipt of a string of infuriating WhatsApps from my mum informing me Tash has barely been eating.
“Go away, Tash,” I mutter. She watched me spiral out after the breakup, questioning everything. And she’s had ten years since to come clean.
“This is crazy,” Tash says. Already she sounds like she might break down. “Please, Lucy. I just want to talk to you.”
