The last time my parents saw Max was a whole decade ago—they’d been to visit me at uni in Norwich, not long into my final term. When Max and I got back together this April, it had felt too early to reintroduce them, and soon after that came the revelation about Tash. I’ve been half-pondering the idea of inviting him back to Shoreley with me this Christmas, but that kind of chutzpah needs military-grade preparation, and I haven’t yet had the headspace to think it through.
It makes me sad to know that what happened will always taint us, a stain created by carelessness that will never quite scrub clean. On the face of it, my family have accepted Max and me, but I worry that—over time—a natural distance will open up between us all, if I sail off into the sunset with Max, the man who did a thing none of us can actually bear to talk about.
My phone buzzes. I glance down at it: Jools. She’s ranting about Vince again, who, after she broke it off with him last month, has been struck with the revelation—which had previously eluded him—that Jools is the love of his life, that he wants them to be exclusive (what a guy), that he wants them tomove in together.
I mean,says Jools’s message,the absolute RAGING CHEEK of him.
“What will you do?” Max says.
“Hmm?” I look up from my phone, then feel bad, setting it down on the little gold table next to me. It is his birthday, after all.
“If Jools moves in with... What’s his name again?”
“Vince. Vincent.”
“Yeah. I mean... would you stay in the house?”
“Oh, she won’t move in with him. He’s just crying because she dumped him. He virtually confessed to having been seeing other people right up until she ended it.”
Max smiles, and for a moment, I can’t quite interpret his expression. “Humor me.”
A beat. “About what?”
“Well, say Joolsdidmove out... would you consider moving in with me, for example?”
I stare at him. Is he saying what I think he’s saying? I admit it has crossed my mind, the fantasy of living with Max—reaching out to touch him every day when I wake, sneaking into the shower together before work, hearing the turn of his key in the lock after a long day. Doing those twee coupley things that feel stupidly exciting the first time around—cooking supper together (fancy pasta, always fancy pasta), clearing space in the wardrobe for my things, play-fighting over the remote, buying trinkets we both love for the home we’ll make together.
All the stuff we’d been planning to do a decade ago, before everything went wrong.
“I’ve been trying to hold off asking,” Max says, smiling down at his glass like he’s making a speech at a wedding. “But... I’d really love it, Luce, if you’d move in with me.”
“God,” I breathe, trying to tread the line between excitement and restraint. “I’d have to see how Jools feels. They’d need to find someone else for the room, and—”
“Is that a maybe?” Max says, his gray eyes gleaming.
“Yes,” I say, breaking into a smile. “It’s definitely a maybe.”
He gets to his feet, crossing the space between us and tipping his glass to mine. In this moment, we could be back in Norwich, in the students’ union bar clinking plastic pint glasses together, madly inlove and planning our future, our whole lives ahead of us. I shut my eyes and fantasize—just for a second—that I’m back there, before anything went wrong, when the world seemed to be full only of possibility, an abundance of good things.
“Well,” Max is saying, “that’s a reason to celebrate, don’t you think?”
Pulling myself back to the present, I laugh. “How much more celebrating can two people do?”
He gently takes the glass from my hand before leaning down, putting his lips against mine, and tugging on the cord to my dressing gown. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”
—
A couple of hours later, I wake with a jump, my skin slippery with sweat. I blink into the blackness, trying to remember where I am. For a moment I think I am back in Sydney, in a strange hotel room, and that Nate is by the bed, leaning over me.
I try to call out, to shout for help, but my breath is a knot in my throat.
I fumble for a light, half falling out of bed, then make my way over to the window, where I rip the curtains open. Part of me is expecting the room to flood with daylight, that I’ll see the ominous sight of the Sydney Opera House looming in front of me.
But outside, it is dark, except for the diffuse amber glow of Hyde Park Corner at night, backlit by a colorful jumble of Christmas lights. I swear and shut my eyes, try to calm the leaping sensation in my chest.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I spin around. But it’s only Max, of course. I draw another deep breath. “Sorry. I’m just... I thought I saw...”
He pulls me into a hug, and we are quiet for a couple of moments. I try not to fixate on how still and soundless this room is, about howmuch I want to flick the TV on, or play some music. I’m suddenly feeling almost unbearably hot, too. But these windows don’t open. I have no way to escape.
