She sits silently for a few minutes.
“I’d like to try.”
“Try what?”
“This thing.”
“Are you talking about your novels?”
She looks timidly at me, nodding. “But I don’t know where to start. I just wrote a few things down and threw them on the Internet.”
“What do you want to?”
“I want to do that,” she says, cautiously. “I want to write, to invent things… I want to bring everything in my head to life.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Absolutely.”
She smiles proudly.
“Could you help me work out how to do it?”
“I’d love to.”
She turns her gaze back towards the field, trying to mask her embarrassment. I do the same, shifting my eyes ahead of me at the very moment that Niall looks over towards us. He lifts his hand to me in greeting and I mirror his movement, before he flashes me a small smile and goes back to his team. Meanwhile, I go back to tormenting myself with the thought of him, of us; of the last thing we said to each other.
“He’s not so bad, you know,” Skylar says, breaking our silence.
“No, he’s not.”
“He just needs people to put their faith in him.” She turns to face me again. “Just like you’re doing with me.”
Jordan
Iyank up the zip of my hoodie and pull my cap down on my head, trying to protect myself from the rain. I quickly cross the road and jog towards the Chinese restaurant which sits around the corner from my house. I’m preparing myself for a depressing, lonely dinner for one, sitting in front of the TV. I tried to call ahead and ask them to deliver my order to me, but they told me they were too busy and that it would’ve taken an hour. It would’ve made no sense to wait.
After this morning – the game finishing in a tie, Tyler’s conversation, my chat with Skylar, and Niall’s sad eyes – I just want to wrap myself up in a blanket and stuff my face with food. I want to watch romantic films back-to-back, with Caramel curled up on my lap, then maybe go to bed with a good book – one of those sad, painful novels that would leave me sinking even deeper into my own misery. A weekend of self-pity is just what I need before I can start to feel better again. This is exactly what I did after my marriage broke down – although it took much more than just one weekend, and I don’t plan to meet the same fate now. I mean, what did it all mean? A few dates, a couple of nights of sex, some laughter, a few kisses, some stupid jokes. They’re all things I can forget, lock away in my mind as if they never happened. I need to stop feeding this ridiculous feeling in my stomach. I can’t fall for it again; I can’t give another guy my heart just to watch him chuck it away once he’s done with it.
I push open the door and shake the rain from my jacket, approaching the counter and waiting to be served. I order a hearty dinner for one. They tell me it should be ready in about ten minutes, so I step aside for the next customer and head back towards the main part of the restaurant, which is full and buzzing – just like it is every Saturday night. I decide to dedicate my wait to one of my favourite hobbies: watching people have dinner. I see a lot of familiar faces, happy couples chatting away as they eat – probably discussing their next holiday, or deciding what to watch on TV – before my eye falls onto the last couple I could ever have prepared myself to see tonight.
They’re talking, almost non-stop. Well, Steven is, anyway. It’s strange – he barely spoke with me. I was always the chatty one. He never held my hand when we were out for dinner, and he never looked me in the eye, like he’s doing now, with her.
I should look somewhere else; now is definitely not the time to be dragging up the past. Especially not when I’m already suffering so much from everything that’s going on in the present. But I can’t help it; I try to reason with myself, to work out where I went wrong. I need to know why he never gave me a chance to make things right.
He lets go of her hand and she stands up, probably heading for the bathroom, and I watch her cross the room: she has one hand resting on her stomach, her expression proving that she has something wonderful on the way. I feel like my heart is about to shatter into a thousand pieces once again, all because of the same man.
Before I can realise what I’m doing, I cross the room, too, but in the opposite direction. I rest my hands on the back of the seat at the exact moment that Steven’s eyes land on me.
“Jordan? What are you doing here?”
“Why?” is all I can ask him.
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s… She’s…” I’m trying so hard not to cry, but pain is lapping at me. It’s screaming; so loud that I’m worried everyone in the restaurant can hear it.
