Her eyes flash.
“I loved you,” I say, and even to my own ears it sounds rough, unfinished. “I did. I just…I had things happening. Rugby. Contracts. I thought there was time. I thought you’d…” What? Wait? Stay where I left you? I falter. “I handled it badly,” I finish instead, which feels like the most cowardly version of the truth.
She stares at me. “That’s it?” she asks. “You loved me but you were busy?”
It sounds ridiculous when she says it.
“I was twenty,” I snap back, defensive now because I can feel this slipping out of my control. “I didn’t know how to balance everything.”
“And I did?” she shoots back. “I was here. Watching you build a life that didn’t include me.”
I open my mouth, then close it. Because she’s not wrong.
“And now you’re here,” she continues, voice shaking slightly, “and you look at me like that and offer me Christmas and nearly kiss me under my sink and expect me to just… what? Slot back into place?”
“I don’t expect anything,” I say, but even I can hear the lie in it.
Silence. The kind that presses on your chest.
“I’m not your safety net,” she says finally, softer now. “I’m not the girl you come home to when the rest of the world doesn’t work out.”
“That’s not…”
“Then what is it?” she demands.
And this is the moment. The one where I could say it properly. The whole thing. The fact that she never stopped being the baseline in my head. That every relationship since has felt slightly off because it wasn’t her. Instead, I do what I’ve always done. I pull back.
“I shouldn’t have come,” I say.
Her face changes. Not angry now. Just tired. “No,” she agrees quietly. “You shouldn’t have.”
She looks away, blinking what looks like tears springing up in her eyes. I look at her differently now. She’s not waiting. She never was. And if I want anything here, I’m going to have to stop half-saying it and start risking it. Even if that means losing her completely.
Chapter twenty-three
Freya
The tap doesn’t drip anymore. Funny that my tap is now functioning better than I am.
I stand there long after the door shuts behind Rory, staring at the cupboard under the sink. It just sits there, smug and watertight, while my heart is doing something reckless inside my ribcage.
I press my fingers to my lips. I did not imagine that, and it most definitely was not one sided. He leaned in.He leaned in.And then I pulled back. Because I am not seventeen. I am not waiting in a clearing in the woods for him to decide whether I fit into his five-year plan. I am not a placeholder. I am not a hometown comfort blanket. I am a grown woman who has survived betrayal, childbirth, funerals and PTA meetings. And yet, my stomach flips just thinking about how close his mouth was.Idiot.
I grab my phone before I can spiral further and open Clara’s chat.
Freya:If I tell you something, you are not allowed to be dramatic.
Three dots appear instantly.
Clara:I am always dramatic. Continue.
I hesitate for half a second. Then I type.
Freya:Rory came over to fix the tap.
Clara:OH MY GOD.
Freya:I literally just said…
