“You’re always good company. Even if you’ll have me running round buying you chocolate and making you hot water bottles if you‘ve got period pain.” He sounded quite cheerful about it.
“You’re pretty good at all that.” He’d done that a few times. “You’ll be a great husband when someone finally locks you down. And you’ll be a great girl dad too.”
His laugh was full on and booming. “You give me better reviews than any of my girlfriends!”
“That’s because you break their hearts.”
“I don’t. They know I’m not looking for anything serious.”
“Cay, when are you going to look for something serious?”
He was quiet for a moment. “When the right person’s ready.”
“That’s cryptic.”
“Not really. Are you texting that wanker or not?”
“I am.”
“Send me a screenshot and phone me when you’ve done it. I want to know what he says and whether I need to hunt him down and punch him.”
I did send him the screenshot and phoned him back; we talked about my now ex and how he’d responded, the bulk of the messages being about how our PR teams would handle it. I called Caleb again two hours later to let him know my period had started as well, a welcome splash of blood and the familiar cramps finally putting my mind completely at ease
Caleb’s response – a delivery of a hamper full of chocolate to my room an hour later.
It was then I wished he was mine.
Caleb
It was cold. Visibility wasn’t great outside. What I’d enjoyed before – the sense of being cocooned from what was happening elsewhere in the world, feeling like a student again because responsibilities were minimal – wasn’t the same as before.
The house was sorted. Zoey and I would be moving in together shortly after I got back, furniture had been ordered, my sofa would have a new home, and I’d become a fully-fledged grown-up, no longer living in his step-mum’s spare flat, with a girlfriend and our own furniture.
I felt rather proud of myself. Level unlocked.
I just really wanted to get back home, which meant I was working at the speed of light to try and make sure everything we needed to have done was complete and then there was no reason to not be on the scheduled flight home.
Leaving had been horrible. There had been a couple of times when I’d left for a trip while Zoey had been in Puffin Bay; saying goodbye to her then hadn’t been easy. I loved her being around and because we’d never had much time for that, I’d resented having to leave her. This had felt like bad timing. It was an interruption when we really didn’t need it, a pause when we didn’t want it and speaking every day via video call just wasn’t the same as being there in person.
“How’s your girlfriend doing?” Katie, one of the other scientists, leaned over my shoulder and peered at my computer screen. “Why are you looking at rugs?”
“Because apparently they’re important and I need to choose between the green one and the teal one.” It was a difficult decision that I wasn’t qualified for in the slightest. “And she’s doing fine.”
“I’d go for the green. I think you’d get bored of the teal after a while.” She stood back up again. “So what’s the plan with you and her? When are you going to put a ring on it?”
I turned away from the screen, remembering that Katie had gotten married just before Christmas and was technically on her honeymoon because her husband was out here as a scientist too. I’d worked with them both for years now, having met her husband, Will, when we were undergrads, and we’d had a cross-University thing.
“In a couple of years. We need to get the house sorted first and get used to not just being friends. How’s married life?”
She shrugged. “The same as it was before. It’s no different apart from it feels a bit more secure and I don’t call him my boyfriend anymore. Seriously, go for the green. It’ll match the outdoors more.” She patted me on the arm and then wandered off, my phone starting to vibrate with an incoming video call from Zoey.
I picked it up and legged it out of my seat to a storeroom that no one would go in any time soon. I didn’t have my own bedroom – we were all in bunks like dormitories, apart from Katie and Will, who’d managed to score a dorm for just the two of them given they were just married, so privacy was an expensive commodity.
“Hey! You okay?” It was seven in the morning here, so eight at night back in Wales. Usually we called each other when it was around eleven Zoey’s time, then maybe again when it was nine in the morning for her. We worked shifts at the station and mine was about to start now although I had been up early. There was no sunset or sunrise here, and it was currently mid-summer in Antarctica, so we didn’t have night time as such. The first time I’d been here I’d found it fascinating. This time, not so much.
“Yes, I’m fine. Kind of.” She sounded nervous.
I settled down on an old chair that I wasn’t sure could take my weight. I reckoned it was a relic from the nineteen seventies from its style and fragility.
