‘Ms Miller?’
‘Um, can you send him up?’
‘Will do. He’s on his way.’
I stand on my side of the lift doors and wait as I hear the mechanisms roll somewhere in the shaft of the building.Oh my God, what do I do now?But I could hardly turn him away when he was standing right there, next to the concierge. Ben knows I’m here. And isn’t this what I wanted? A reconciliation? Maybe it won’t be so bad.
The lift doors open and Ben doesn’t step out. He smiles – that devastating smile. His sunglasses are on and it’s like being catapulted back to day one, to the stairs in our hallsof residence when he arrived in his leather jacket and easy manner and just blew me away.
‘Hi,’ he says when I don’t speak.
‘Hi,’ I reply, which is hard to do when I haven’t breathed for a few seconds. I look at him and take him in, and he does the same to me. Then the lift doors start to close and Ben darts out.
‘Shit,’ he says. ‘That wasn’t very smooth.’
I laugh because it’s funny, and because it’s Ben. He holds his arms out to me and automatically I move into a hug, which becomes a long hold. I don’t know how it happens, but I relax into him and he does the same, and for a moment it’s like it always was.
‘Ben,’ I say as we pull apart. Looking into his almond-shaped blue eyes is a killer and I need to move away. I didn’t think this would happen. I didn’t think I’d be blown away yet again, on seeing him. I thought I’d feel disappointment once more – the same as how I felt when I left, and when Ben didn’t want anything to do with me in the hospital – but I don’t and I hate myself.
‘Hi,’ he repeats with a sad smile.
‘Hi,’ I say again at a normal level, now that I can just about breathe.
His hand reaches out and he winds some of my hair around his fingers. He watches his own movement and it’s entrancing, this action. It’s intimate. Too intimate.
I gently take my hair from his fingers.
‘Fuck – sorry,’ he says.
‘It’s fine.’ It sort of is, even though it shouldn’t be.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he goes on.
‘I’ve missed you too.’ But I realise now that perhaps I haven’t. I haven’t missed Ben because of how it all went so downhill. But I missed what might have been, if it hadn’t. I miss the friendship we might have been able to forge.
‘Why are you here?’ I think what I really want to say is, ‘Howare you here?’ and so I do.
He takes a deep breath. ‘I took Ollie’s planner from his bag when he was outside, trying to pump up his bike tyre. I knew he’d written your address in there.’
My eyebrows rise. ‘OK. At least you’re being honest.’
‘Yeah. I didn’t tell him I did it. And I didn’t do anything about it until today.’
‘When did you do this?’
‘Just after he saw you. I’ve been wondering for ages what I should do – if I should call you, message you. If I should stand outside andbe passing by and happen to see you.Or if I should ring the bell and see what happened. This morning I got up and decided to go for it.’
I swallow, nerves dissipating now. I want to see to the end of all this. I want to know how this pans out. I want to know what happens in the future: in a year’s time, a month’s time, next week, tomorrow, the next ten minutes, the next ten years. I’m frustrated, now that Ben’s here, that I can’t tell which way this will go or how it will affect us both.
‘Do you want a coffee?’ I ask, trying to ignore my existential crisis and bring myself back to the present.
He shoves his hands in his jeans pockets, angles his chin down and looks at me from under his eyelashes. I wonder ifhe’s aware what every single movement he makes looks like to me. ‘Sure, I’d love that. Thanks for letting me in.’
‘Bit hard not to, really. You were standing next to the concierge when he was talking to me, I assume.’
‘I was. My heart in my throat, waiting to see if you were “in” or not.’
‘As if I’d have said no!’
