I shake my head.
‘Why, Carys? That… I don’t want to presume what it’s like for you, but telling me meant I could understand a bit more what was going on for you. Why haven’t you told him?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m scared of being thesomething,’ I say, pointedly.
‘Come on, he won’t think that. He adores you.’ I can hear the hesitation in her faux certainty. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to diminish your fears.’
‘It’s easier to lie,’ I admit. ‘I’ve been masking for so long that I don’t know who Carys is half the time. In fact, if I’m honest, the most truthful I’ve felt is with you. How fucked up is that?’
We both laugh sad-laughs. ‘We’re both crazy,’ sighs Dolly, and she takes one of my hands, then both. ‘You know I stayed out all night.’
‘After my meltdown,’ I finish for her, unsure what to do with the swell of emotion cresting in my chest.
We stand together in the corner of the lift, heads bowed but not quite together given our height difference.
‘Thank you for telling me about everything,’ I say.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t until now.’
‘It’s a good way to leave it. With some final truths.’
‘One hell of a goodbye,’ she sighs. ‘But an honest one, if this is where we’re leaving it?’
‘I think we have to. For Patrick and Warren and your mum, and for us.’
‘Fuck, this is all so hard,’ Dolly says, and I know she’s thinking what I am – that it hurts more to say goodbye when the feelings are there. It’s just circumstance, even if it’s of our own making.
I look up into her beautiful eyes that swim with tears. My heart is breaking, but so is hers. It feels fair, that way, to both be falling apart under the weight of the realisation that this is the end for us.
‘We’re both liars, you and I. That’s why we fit so well together.’
I reach up to kiss her, and she leans into it. It’s sweet, soft.A goodbye. We both know it is. I try to drink in every inch of her, every bit of her smell and taste. How do you form a memory of someone in the moment? How do you harness every last bit of them, knowing it’ll be the final time?
There’s no way we can be friends after this. We were never friends; we were always more than that to each other, and that’s why we have to keep apart, if we’re going to have a happy life.
Dolly has to protect her mother. I won’t be the person who stands in the way of that, not any more. This whole time, I’ve been lying to myself that I’ve not been fighting for her in every barb and argument. I wanted her to notice me. Even irritation is attention. If her eyes were on me, she was still here. We were stillsomething.
And now I know I have to let her go.
When our lips break apart, we stay in each other’s arms. We have to break contact in increments.
My heart breaks further when Dolly whispers, ‘I hope he’s good enough for you.’
‘I hope so too. I think he will be.’
‘You really like him, don’t you?’
My heart saysenoughbut my mouth chooses, ‘Yes.’
She pushes an unruly strand of my hair back behind my ears. ‘Well then, tell him if he’s not a good husband, I’ll come drop kick him.’
I laugh but it’s marred with a sob. ‘I’m glad I won’t have to tell Warren that.’
‘Yeah. He’s good. You were right when you said I don’t deserve him.’
I don’t know what to say. What is there even left to say?
The lift starts moving by itself, and soon we are rising back up to the flats we share with our fiancés.
