His mother would never forgive him. Was it really fair to rip him away from his family? She’d seen close-up what rupturing a family could do. She had a perfectly good life and a home waiting for her back in London. It might be a bit lonely at times, but she had her hard-fought freedom, and she wasn’t ready to give it up. It had worked well for her all these years, and it would again.
She got dressed in the dark and found a piece of paper and a pen.
Couldn’t sleep. Too many thoughts in my head. I will ring you. Sofia x.
It was a coward’s way out, but it was too much to grapple with all at once. She’d go back to Britain with Charlotte as planned in the morning and take it from there. They could carry on as they always had, meeting every couple of months.
It was light by the time she’d carefully closed the flat door and gone down the steps in her bare feet, slinging her shoes over her shoulder. The two hundred metres to the hotel were completed in the peace of a new morning. Only the fishermen were awake, shouting over to each other as the boats pulled out of the port and onto the open sea.
They’d been given keys to the hotel’s main door, and she tiptoed in and went to her room, where she spent a dry-eyed restless few hours, longing for breakfast to begin and end, and for the car transporting them to the ferry to come and take her far away from the emotional maelstrom.
Over their breakfast coffee and cake, Charlotte was full of tales from the post-wedding partying and luckily didn’t notice straightaway that Sofia wasn’t her normal bouncy self. But it didn’t last long.
‘Is everything OK, Sof? You’re very quiet. Are you sad at leaving Adonis behind?’
The idea that she was sad about leaving him, rather than rejecting the whole other life she’d been offered, would just about cover it without having to reveal the truth. Plus, it was true: shewassad about leaving, but Charlotte didn’t need to know what she was saying no to.
The minutes until they could board the ferry seemed like hours, and even when they were finally on deck, they had to wait for all the cars and lorries to load, so it was hardly the quick getaway she’d hoped for.
At long last, she was standing with Charlotte at the front of the boat with the engines running, more than ready to watch the island disappear into the distance.
Just as they were about to leave, a commotion on the dock demanded her attention. A man in a black BMW had abandoned his car in the middle of the dockside and was pushing his way through the waiting crowd. He ran towards the boat like a madman.
Sofia’s heart turned over when she saw who it was.
Charlotte leant further over the rail.
‘Isn’t that Adonis?’
‘Oh, is it? Yes, you’re right.’ Sofia knew her nonchalant act wasn’t fooling her friend.
Of course he’d know what time her boat left. Any hopes of quietly slipping away had disappeared completely.
‘Sofiamou. Over here!’
Both women turned their head in the direction of his voice.
‘You cannot leave.’ Adonis spread his arms to the sky. ‘I love you, and I can’t live without you.’
Charlotte had heard those very same words from her own husband just two days earlier, but they’d failed to move her. Sofia had one big decision to make. She studied her friend, who had gone bright red, and gently pulled Sofia’s head round to face her.
‘OK, we only have a few moments to do this. You must answer me truthfully.’
Sofia’s eyes strayed again and again to the figure standing below her on the dock.
‘Do you love him?’
Sofia nodded miserably.
‘Could you make a life here on the island with him?’
Again, the sad nod.
‘Then stay, Sof, for once in your life, stay. Don’t leave like every other time. Gather up every ounce of courage you have and be brave, my friend.’
Charlotte pushed Sofia’s suitcase towards her.
‘Go on. Get the hell off this boat.’
