‘You’ve no idea how pleased I am to hear that.’ Callum tips his head back against the headrest.
‘How about you? Did you have some ties to sever?’ Suddenly all I can think about is Callum spending Monday Six with an ex of his and I try not to feel too jealous. After all this time incorrectly mooning after my own ex, I guess I deserve it.
‘You could say that,’ he says, looking at me.
‘I’m desperate to hear all about it,’ I reply. ‘And look, we’re flying over the Caspian Sea again. That gives us hours before we land. Where did you go? Please tell me it was somewhere more exciting than the ghost of Heathrow past.’
‘Oh, much more exciting,’ he grins. ‘I enjoyed a day trip to the very glamorous Port of Dover.’
‘No!’ I splutter. ‘Why?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes! I’m dying to know! I want to know everything about you, Callum,’ I say, before wondering if that came over as way too keen. At least I’m being honest.
Callum’s still got his head tipped back, eyes trained on me. He doesn’t look like I just scared him off. The total opposite, actually.
‘I was at this huge crossroads on a Monday ten years ago,’ he starts to explain. ‘In the middle of a messy break-up, basically. I’d been dating my ex-girlfriend for a couple of years and I’d thoughtthat she was the person I was meant to be with, which, by the way, could not have been further from the truth, I now realize. But I reckon I needed to get back there and actually live that day again, in a way, to really see what was going on. That sounds insane, right?’
‘Sounds bang on the money to me. You’re describing exactly how I felt about Monday Six Open Brackets Ten Years Ago Close Brackets.’
Callum bites his lip to try and stop himself from laughing.
‘What? Itiscatchy!’
‘Anyway, I spent the day getting the coach down to Dover with Sara.’
Sara.Sara. Urgh, that’s an annoyingly nice name.
‘And?’ I’m on tenterhooks.
Callum winces, and I’m plunged into a panic. Oh heck. What if he decided that she was the woman for him? What if his future doesn’t involve me after all? What if he was kissing me at the airport because he’s just a bit of a dick?
‘It was pretty grim to relive. Suddenly having your memories come back in technicolour is—’
‘Traumatizing?’ I offer.
‘Yes. We will need so much therapy if we ever get out of here, Moss.’
We?My heart skips a beat.
‘First time around, I’d been convinced that Sara and I had a future together. She was less convinced. That’s why we were going to Dover, actually. She was taking a ferry over to France to spend a year teaching English over there. And I was trying to convince her that I should go too, or that we should try the long-distance thing.’
He pauses, shakes his head.
‘It’s kind of embarrassing to talk about, but I want to be honest with you.’
‘I’m very much not judging,’ I say. ‘You’ve witnessed first-hand a lot of my ridiculous behaviour over the past few days.’
Callum takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. My insides explode.
‘First time around, I put my heart on my sleeve, told her I loved her and didn’t want things to end. Might have even cried a bit. It was not cool.’
‘You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.’
‘Well, anyway, Sara wasn’t having any of it. She got on the ferry and I left with a heavy heart and a promise to myself: I would never let myself get burned like that again. It was too much. I can remember getting back on the coach, leaving Dover and feeling like I was shutting down, you know? Of course, that was a whole decade ago and I suppose I didn’t even see the change happening, but it did. Slowly but surely, I let that decision take root. I haven’t fully opened myself up in a relationship since.’
‘Self-preservation,’ I say, my heart breaking for him.
