I need to keep my distance. Avoid getting involved. Stop pulling them all into my orbit. It’s too selfish to meddle in all their lives like I’ve been doing.
From now on, I’m on my own and I need to figure this out by myself.
Green Park is busy with people living their best lives – or that’s how it seems; it’s amazing how much happier everyone else looks from your own misery bubble – as the sun begins to dip below the horizon.
I find myself a space on a bench, observing the lives spinning on in front of me, a thousand strangers just going about their evenings, completely ignorant to all the big questions they should be asking about the very nature of their own existence. I used to feel like this all the time. Untethered. Alone. Lost in a sea of questions too big for me to articulate, much less answer. I used to feel that no one else would ever understand me. Luckily, Cesca knew exactly how to pull me from my malaise. But Cesca isn’t here.
I spot him from over a hundred metres away, as if I have some kind of sixth sense for him. Tyler Adams is jogging, wearing a teal vest that shouldn’t suit him but somehow does perfectly. I move from the bench, hiding behind a tree as he passes, desperate for him not to see me. Why is it that even when I’m trying to avoid him, he just runs across my path?
I’m still hiding when he runs back towards me, evidently having turned around by the coffee hut. But this time he slows down as he approaches and I try to press myself further into the unyielding bark of the tree.
‘I can see you.’ His voice is gruff. Pissed off.
I turn to glance behind me, as if perhaps he isn’t talking to me.
‘Bethany?’ The way he uses my name as a question makes it clear he’s waiting for me to explain myself.
‘I … er …’ I stammer.
‘Are you following me?’
What? Why would I be following him?‘No.’ The word comes out slightly strangled.
‘Really?’ He arches an eyebrow. This is old-school cocky-as-shit Tyler. This is Tyler-fucking-Adams back the way he was in my world before I cracked the surface and discovered something softer inside him.
‘If you must know I was trying to avoid talking to you.’ I meet his gaze, trying to maintain a resting bitch face as if his presence has zero impact on me at all.
‘Right. Well …’ It’s obvious he thinks I’m lying.
‘Goodbye, Tyler,’ I say primly and then walk off before the exchange can get any more awkward.
An hour later and I’m walking back to the new flat in Lambeth, taking a scenic route through the city. I catch a flash of blonde hair and my heart flips in my chest. Cesca is sitting outside a pretty pub across the road, a glass of wine in front of her and a beaming smile stretching across her face.
I’m about to turn and walk the long way round to avoid passing too close when I realize who she’s drinking with. His eyes rise to meet mine across the busy road. His glare turns my cheeks red as I turn and run away from them. From my sister and Tyler Adams sharing a companionable drink in this twilight zone.
Why can’t I avoid them?
He turns up on my doorstep at nine thirty that evening, his face as dark as thunder.
‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ he demands as I open the door. I make a mental note to check who is on the otherside next time. I could’ve just ignored the doorbell, stayed inside the cool comfort of the flat this Bethany has decorated.
I don’t answer, just stand mute in front of him, wondering why everything seems to be going wrong and collapsing around me into absolute chaos.
‘Seriously?’ he asks.
‘How do you know Cesca?’ I find my voice, but the question seems like an odd one to lead with, even for me.
‘What?’
‘How do you know Cesca?’ I repeat.
‘We’ve been friends for years.’ He looks confused. ‘You introduced us.’
I have never introduced them.
‘IOP Awards. 2019,’ he adds.
‘Oh.’ In 2019 Cesca was dating Steffi but they had a row on the afternoon of the IOP dinner. She rang me for advice and I gave her two options. She could go for dinner with Steffi and try to work things out. Or she could come to the IOP with me. She asked me which she should do and I told her that she wouldn’t regret missing dinner with a hundred scientists, but she might regret not trying to patch things up with Steffi. In the end they’d talked it out and agreed to go their separate ways, but they were at least on speaking terms for the odd times they bumped into each other. Evidently, in this world, this Bethany had given Cesca different advice and taken her to the IOP Awards. And then – and I don’t know what the fuck she was thinking – had introduced Cesca to Tyler.
