He slings his head briefly back against the sofa cushions and exhales. “Yeah. I feel... well,good’s probably not the right word. Positive.”
I put a hand on his leg. “Sorry. I don’t know whether to... congratulate you, or...”
He looks across at me and smiles. “You can if you like. It’s not as if I’m... you know, mourning the death of my marriage, or anything. But anyway. It got me thinking. About what to do next.”
I feel a pendulum of fear swing through me. Here it is—the conversation I’ve been dreading since he first brought it up, seven months ago now.
“I’m loving being back in Shoreley, and work’s going well, and you...” His smile shoots straight to my toes. “You are amazing.”
“But?” I say, forcing myself to smile back, even though my body’s telling me to do the opposite.
He holds my gaze. His cheeks are tinged slightly crimson from theheat of the fire. “I got chatting to someone on a job this week. He’s just got back from a round-the-world trip. And it got me thinking. I was wondering... if you’d fancy taking off somewhere.”
I swallow. “Where were you thinking?”
He hesitates, takes a bite of toast. “Haven’t exactly thrashed out all the details yet. I guess I just wanted to know if in principle you’d fancy going traveling for a bit.”
“A round-the-world trip?”
“Not necessarily.”
I feel my forehead pinch together. “So... do you mean a holiday?”
He shakes his head. “I was thinking more like... six months or so.”
A silence settles between us.
“Okay,” Caleb says eventually, laughing lightly. “I’m not sensingoverwhelmingenthusiasm here...”
I resist the urge to clamp my eyes shut and deep-breathe for a few moments. “I’m not sure.”
Another pause, the seconds ticking ominously.
“Well,” he says, “how about if we picked up where your trip left off all those years ago? We could go to all the places you never got to see.”
The rest of Australia. New Zealand. North America.
Caleb doesn’t know the real reason I cut my trip short—only that I ran out of money. Which, technically, was true. Every time he’s asked to see my traveling photos, I’ve made an excuse, gabbled something about the memory cards being in Tash’s loft.
I hesitate, trying to work out what I should say. There are plausible reasons for me not to go: I’d be reluctant to abandon my novel—being a writer is what makes sense to me, right now. Coming home each day exhausted and creatively spent, but kind of high on it, feels almost spiritual some days, like... I’ve found myself. Some people, like Caleb, might want to travel halfway round the world to do that, but I’ve doneit right here in my hometown. And what if I got longlisted for that first chapter competition (I eventually entered at the last minute, following unrelenting pressure from Ryan and Emma)?
But realistically, I know I can write from anywhere. Isn’t that supposed to be the beauty of it? And even if I couldn’t, taking six months off wouldn’t be the end of the world, would it? If I really wanted to go away with Caleb, none of these would actually be reasons, and he’s smart enough to know that.
“I think,” I say carefully, “if you want to travel, you should definitely do it.”
“Okay,” Caleb says, searching my eyes for something more. “But I’m asking ifyouwant to do it.”
Unable to articulate everything that’s going through my mind, I shake my head. “I don’t think so.”
He nods, but slowly, like he’s trying to understand and can’t. Unsurprising, considering I’ve not offered up a single reason so far for turning him down.
“I’m not saying I’d want to break up,” I say, because I’m desperate to make that clear. “We could make it work, long-distance for six months. It just depends on how you’d feel about that.”
He laughs lightly, rubs a hand along his jaw. “Er, I think I’d feel pretty crap about that. Wouldn’t you?”
I try to picture it—Caleb calling me late at night from some bar on the other side of the world, WhatsApping me from a mountain peak, sending e-mails from a hostel in the middle of nowhere. And it feels all wrong. The idea of being parted for six months sits like a brick in my stomach. But it’s been his lifelong dream to see the world, and I’m certainly not about to be the one who holds him back. I know too much about unfulfilled ambitions to do that.
“Of course,” I say, quietly, sipping my tea. “But I’d wait for you. We’d make it work.” And I know we would, because the alternative...well, as far as I’m concerned, there isn’t one. Caleb is my person. There’s no one else in this world I’m meant to be with.
