“Fuck you, Bo, and get the fuck off my property too.”
* * *
She let Willa pass out on her bed. Her best friend had gone to sleep full of abject apologies and protestations that she hadn’t meant to do it, but Bo had only shrugged.
“I know you didn’t mean to. It isn’t your fault.”
“It is, but I didn’t mean it.”
“No, Wills,” Bo insisted. “It’smyfault. I’m the one who said that terrible thing. It was bound to come out some time, and tonight was as good a night as any. I hurt him, he hurt me. It’s a fitting end to it all, actually. Completely and horrifically apt.”
“He hurt you? What do you mean?”
Bo shrugged. “Remember the two trespassers?”
Willa had closed her eyes. “No.”
“You’ve had too much wine.”
“Sorry.”
“One of them was Raphaella. Max’s ex. She was talking to her friend about Max and I overheard them.”
“Oh. What’d they say?”
“That Max thinks I’m brainless and talentless. That he isn’t serious about me. Oh, and that I’m just a fling.”
Willa’s eyes had flown open at that. “Bastard.”
Bo had only shrugged again though. She’d felt empty, beyond feeling anything other than the reality of everything. She’d never considered herself pragmatic before, but now, she knew that was just what she was. It was another new adult emotion, this time born from utter and abject disappointment, and underneath it all was the feeling that she deserved everything she’d gotten. She’d been cruel, Max had been cruel, and now they were both left feeling that cruelty.
“Maybe he is. What does it matter now? After tonight, he can add one more word to that awful list of what he thinks of me: bitch.”
“You’re not a bitch, Bo,” Willa had told her, her eyes closing once more.
Bo had sighed. “Maybe I am. The look in his eyes . . .” Bo shuddered to remember it. “The look in his eyes made me felt like I was.”
Willa had fallen asleep soon after, and Bo had lain beside her, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Every time she closedher eyes, all she could see was the hurt in Max’s eyes when he’d learned what title she’d bestowed upon him. It made her feel sick to the stomach to remember that pain, the sadness and hurt confusion that had crossed his face. Bo winced when she thought about how Willa phrased it, winced when she realized Max now thought she merely tolerated him because he was good in bed. The worst of it all was that it wasn’t even true. ShelovedMax. She’d fallen completely and spectacularly in love with him, and with that love was a love for his personality as well as his looks. She loved the lips that were slightly too large and wide for his face. She loved the messy hair that always looked slightly dirty and was always falling in his eyes. She loved the glasses that were always slipping down his nose and the watery blue of his eyes. Yes, Bo loved everything about Max, and nothing about him had needed toleration, not when everything about him was so wanted by her and her heart.
She loved him, and it broke her heart that he would never know that for certain now. It broke her heart that he would never know just how important he’d become in her life. Broke her heart that all he would remember about her was the unkindness of that flippantly made early remark and not the depth of her emotion towards him. He’d seen it in her eyes but never heard it from her lips, and that hurt her.
It would never do. She needed to see Max, to at least put one thing to rights with him. Yes, she’d called him Mr Two out of Ten. That was true, Bo admitted to it, and there was nothing she could do to take it back. She wouldn’t even try to insult Max’s intelligence by suggesting it hadn’t happened, that it hadn’t been said. She needed to tell him the things she hadn’t said though. Needed to tell him she loved him, so that his lingering feeling towards her wouldn’t be one of outright resentment.
But he thinks you’re brainless and talentless,her mind reminded her.You’re just a fling to him, so what do you carewhat he thinks of you?What do you care how you leave things with him?
She did care though. He’d been cruel to her and she’d been cruel to him, but Bo still cared. She would always care, she suspected. So, even though she knew he wouldn’t want to listen, even though she knew he wouldn’t want to hear it, she was going to tell him at least one truth.
I’ve not done much in this relationship to be proud of,Bo realized.But I can at least leave it knowing I was always honest with him. That I never lied to Max or misled him or anything like that. So, even if he hates me, I’ll still be honest with him.
Sitting up, Bo slipped out of her bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping Willa next to her. Not that she could’ve disturbed Willa, even if she wanted to. Willa was sleeping so soundly a 747 could have taken off next to Bo’s summer house and it wouldn’t have woken her.
Bo pulled her dressing gown over her pyjamas, before throwing on an old pair of gardening Crocs. It wasn’t the sexiest or most attractive of outfits, but Bo couldn’t give a flying fuck about how she looked at that point. She wasn’t going to see Max to seduce him or anything like that anyway, so it didn’t matter what she wore. Not that Max even cared how she looked. Whatever she’d been wearing, however she looked, he’d always been happy to see her. Bo winced anew when she realized that Max had never been shallow about her looks, whereas she . . .
She padded up the garden quietly, hoping and praying that all of Max’s guests for the evening had gone home. A cold thought suddenly struck her. What if Raphaella had stayed? What if she and Max had . . . had ended up in bed together? That was the sort of next-level shit people did when reeling from hurt and heartbreak, right? Texting exes. Calling exes. Falling into bed with exes. Not that Max was heartbroken, but still. Bo knew she’d hurt him and that Raphaella had been there, willing andavailable to act as a soothing balm to Max’s injured pride. For a moment, Bo stood in the garden, unhappily frozen, hoping to God she didn’t vomit all over the dividing hedge. The thought of Max sleeping with anyone else was abhorrent to her and made her want to lose what little food she’d eaten. It made her want to claw at her own skin and tear at her own hair and she was rigid with fear that she would enter the house and find Max and Raphaella curled up on his bed, a place she, Bo —just the fling,she reminded herself cruelly — had never been.
She took a deep breath, willing herself to get it together. Maybe Max was in bed with Raphaella. Maybe he was in bed with somebody else. Maybe he was alone. It didn’t matter in the end, because Bo was still going to knock on the door and get him out of that bed anyway. She had to do this. It didn’t even matter to her if his house was still crawling with guests, because she was going to talk to him anyway. And if he slammed the door in her face, she would wait until the morning and try again. She would keep trying, in fact, until she’d told him the truth: that yes, she’d said that horrible thing, but also, that she loved him dearly. A love she felt without any hope or expectation of return.
She didn’t need to knock however, because the sliding door to the kitchen was open. She stepped through it, hardly noticing the mess of the kitchen, completely ignoring the piled-up plates, wine-stained glassware and mounds of uneaten food. She wasn’t there to berate Max for his untidiness, was she? She had more important things to worry about than the state of a kitchen which wasn’t her own. So, she moved from the kitchen to the hall and was about to go up the stairs towards Max’s bedroom when she heard it, distinct in the night air: a piano playing. Bo knew the sound like she knew herself. Recognized it after a summer of hearing it in her heart and in her dreams. She knew who was making it too: Max. Max was awake and playing his piano.
