‘What are you doing?’ she asked, still standing in the same spot as she surveyed the suitcase half packed on the bed and the wardrobe almost bare.
Harrison had been in bed when she’d risen, and now he was throwing clothes and belongings into his suitcase with a methodical-looking urgency that scared her.
‘Harrison?’ she asked, closing the distance between them and placing her hand on his shoulder.
He spun around, and she had the strangest feeling that she was looking at a stranger. He couldn’t look her in the eye, and she could see how upset he was. It was written all over his face.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Charlotte.’
‘Sorry for what?’ she asked, confused. ‘What are you apologising for and why are you packing?’
‘I can’t do this,’ he said, his voice barely a whisper as he ran his fingers through his hair. ‘I thought I could, but I just can’t.’
‘Us?’ she asked, incredulously. ‘You’re trying to tell me that you can’t dous?’
He turned and threw more things into his case, but she pushed his shoulder, forcing him to turn around;demandingthat he turn around.
‘Why are you doing this? What’s changed?’ She looked around the room as if she’d missed something, as if there would be something glaringly obvious blinking at her and telling her what had gone wrong in the short time she’d been gone. ‘I don’t understand.’
This time his eyes slowly met hers. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte. I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not ready for this. I’m going back to London. I just…I can’t do this.’
‘ToLondon?’ Her eyes widened. ‘Earlier this morning we were in bed, we had an amazing time last night at the opening, I thought we were…’
He shook his head and zipped up his bag as she stood, helpless, in the middle of his room. ‘I can’t face losing anyone else again, and every time I look at you…’
Charlotte swallowed. ‘You see your wife?’ she whispered.
‘No, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘I mean, it is, but…’ He tipped his head back, like he couldn’t find the words he needed, or maybe he’d hoped to disappear when she was in the shower so that he didn’t even have to face her.
‘I thought this was the start of something special, but you know what? You’re just like everything else good in my life. Eventually, everyone I love leaves me. I should have seen this coming.’
Harrison reached for her, but Charlotte pulled away and stepped back, shaking her head.
‘No, you don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘You don’t treat me like you love me and then just up and leave.’That’s what my mother did to me. She made me think that she loved me, and then she disappeared as if I’d meant nothing to her at all.
Charlotte’s skin burnt with the shame and hurt of it all, like someone had set fire to her. She wrapped the robe even tighter around herself, feeling like such a fool, hating that she’d let herself fall for him.
‘Just tell me,’ she asked, her throat choking up with emotion. ‘Would you have left without saying goodbye? Were you trying to pack before I came out of the shower?’
‘I would never have left without saying goodbye,’ Harrison said. ‘But I can’t do this, Charlotte. I can’t open myself up and risk losing you. I couldn’t live through that again. I’m not ready now, and I don’t know if I ever will be.’
‘But what if it’s worth it? I know what it’s like to lose someone, to have that person disappear from your life, but don’t we have to at least try? Isn’t that what life is about, trusting that the next time will be different?’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, Charlotte, but I just can’t.’
She quickly brushed her eyes, not wanting to cry but finding the tears impossible to stop. They were falling furiously now, and the fact that Harrison had tears in his eyes didn’t make her feel any better. Because he was the one choosing to leave. He was the one who was breaking her heart. He was the one doing this to them.
‘Just go then,’ she said. ‘If that’s what you want, just go. Please.’
‘I didn’t mean it to end like this,’ he said.
‘And yet you’re doing it anyway.’
Harrison stood and she turned her back, waiting for him to go. She listened to the thud of his suitcase as he pulled it fromthe bed, but it was the crack in his voice that really sent a knife through her heart.
‘Stay here as long as you want, the room is paid for,’ he said. ‘And I am sorry, Charlotte. I do wish things could have been different for us.’
Charlotte listened to him leave, waited until the door had opened and shut and she’d heard his footfalls down the hall, before she slid to the floor, crumpling forwards until her forehead touched the carpet. And then she cried so hard that her body trembled and her lungs gasped for air.
