I led the way to nearby Crystal Palace Park. The wide avenue at the entrance was teeming with people and we waited until we’d passed the playground and the overflowing café before we began to talk.
‘I know I upset you,’ Justin began, ‘but I really hope that you’ll see that this is all a storm in a teacup, really it is.’
I bristled, but I’d told myself I’d stay calm, that I would hear him out. Mum’s question about whether he’d intended to hurt me or not echoed in my head. I didn’t think he’d meant to, and I wasn’t ready to throw what we had away just yet. ‘You should have told me what you were planning.’
‘There’s no point us going round and round on this point again,’ he replied, very gently, very reasonably. ‘We both have different memories of the situation, and we’re probably never going to agree exactly on what went on.’
I’d been so sure that the conversation we’d had when we’d arrived at the theatre had gone the way I’d remembered it, but Justin seemed to be so confident in his version of events that I started to wonder if he was right after all.
The main path was busy with meandering families, so Justin grabbed my hand and led me down one that took us to one of my favourite parts of the park. ‘What’s really important iswhyit happened,’ he said. ‘Whatever muddle got us in that situation, you need to accept that my motive was to do something good for you.’
‘Good for me?’ I turned my head to look at him, confused and incredulous. On what planet had leaving me centre-stage, alone, poised to fail … been a good thing for me?
‘You’re so talented, but you’ve got into such a negative headspace about playing. I just wanted to prove to you that you could do it.’
‘But I didn’t, did I? I ruined the piece!’
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ he muttered, and we walked in silence for a couple of minutes. I could tell he was thinking hard. Eventually, he stopped and turned to face me, grasping both of my hands and holding them in his. ‘What it boils down to is this … I love you, Angel. Do you believe that?’
I nodded. Even if I was very confused about what happened at the theatre, I didn’t doubt that.
‘Then why would I deliberately put you in a situation that would do you harm? Do you really think I’d do that to you?’
I looked back at him, all sorts of feelings swirling around inside me. ‘No, but …’
‘I want you to succeed, don’t you believe that? I’ve made that clear right from the very start.’
Had I let my insecurities colour everything, even what I believed he felt for me? Fear had stolen too much from me already.I didn’t want it to take Justin from me too. He was the only thing that had made my life bearable in the last six months. ‘I know you’ve been there for me,’ I said softly, ‘and I really appreciate that, but you have to realise that what you did wasn’t fair to me, no matter how well-intentioned.’
He moved his hands up to either side of my face and leaned in to kiss me softly, slowly. I melted. It was as if he could cast a spell over me, and when he pulled back and smiled at me, I knew he knew it too. ‘What I’m trying to say, my angel, is that I want to— Holy crap! Whatisthat?’
I glanced over my shoulder, saw what had startled him and laughed. A fifteen-foot metal sculpture stood on an island in the middle of a small lake. ‘It’s a dinosaur – an Iguanodon if I remember rightly.’
He was still staring, open-mouthed. ‘It’s the weirdest-looking dinosaur I’ve ever seen!’ he said, scanning the length of the muddy shore and realising there were more.
‘The Victorians put them there,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Let’s just say modern science is a little more accurate regarding giant extinct reptiles. Lo and I used to beg Mum and Dad to bring us to see them almost every weekend.’
The fact Justin had been shocked out of his big speech, that we’d started talking about something else calmly and naturally, had caused the atmosphere between us to shift. All of my anger faded away, and I focused on the one thing I really did know for sure – Justin loved me. And what couple didn’t have their share of fallings-out?
I followed him as he walked along the path, reading the signs of the various cast-iron sculptures with wonder. There were ones that looked like crocodiles, another winged one perched on a rock with a long beak-like snout.They must have seemed like monsters to the people who’d come to see them in the mid-1800s, but really they were just animals, larger and different to what we were used to, but animals all the same.
I turned to look at Justin. And this, too, was just a man. Not a monster with a nefarious plan. I could see that now. A man who’d let his passion run away with him and cloud his judgement. But wasn’t that passion one of the things I loved most about him?
‘What were you going to say?’ I asked gently. ‘Before you spotted the dinosaurs?’
Justin regarded the motley collection of half-scientific, half-fantastical creatures for a few seconds more, and then he turned back to me. ‘I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since you left the other day. About us, about how much you mean to me … I love you so much, and if this stupid fight has taught me anything, it’s that I know I don’t want to be apart from you ever again.’
He kissed me again, more passionately this time, and I leant against him, savouring him, feeling as if I’d finally come home. He looked into my eyes, the way he always did when he was about to say something heartfelt. ‘Angel, will you—’
I planted a huge kiss on his lips, cutting him off. ‘Of course I’ll come back home. I just needed some time to—’
‘No,’ he whispered against my lips as he kissed me again. No? He didn’t want me to come back? I must have looked distraught because he added, ‘Well, yes, of course I want you to come back, but that wasn’t what I was about to say …’
And, suddenly, he was kneeling on the tarmac in front of me,pulling a box from his pocket. ‘I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?’
Time stopped at that point, at the moment right between heartbeats. I stared back at him, trying to make sense of the words he’d just said, and then he picked me up and spun me around. I don’t even remember exactly how I phrased my answer, but I must have agreed because seconds later, I was wearing a massive diamond ring on my left hand.
‘Really?’ I said, stretching my left arm out so I could look at it properly. ‘You really just asked me to marry you? I’m not dreaming it?’
