She needed her head examined.
The walk back to Foxglove Street was punctuated with little more than polite conversation. Courtney could barely look Travis in the eye. It was too humiliating to meet his gaze after embarrassing herself so badly.
When they reached the front gate of Rosie’s house, Courtney fished her keys from her bag.
“Thanks again for the picnic,” Travis said, his voice filled with obviously false cheer.
“Thanks again for the job tip with your former colleague,” Courtney replied, determined to salvage things by sounding at least vaguely professional.
“If you decide to phone her for a chat, be sure to let me know how it goes.”
“Will do.”
Courtney smiled, even although it just about killed her to do it. Travis nodded along the street.
“I’d better get back to the writing,” he said. “See you soon.”
“Yes, see you soon.”
He walked off, his pace brisk as he departed. For one long, aching moment, Courtney watched him go, wishing she could take back the last half hour, wishing she could turn back time and not misread his response to the hug she’d inflicted on him, wishing she could go back and keep her hands to herself in the first place so none of this would’ve happened.
Travis had been good enough to give her paid work when he had no obligation to, had been good enough to put her in touch with someone who might have a proper job to give her, and had been kind enough to become her friend, too.
But after their botched hug and disastrous non-kiss in the park, not to mention the awkward walk home they’d just endured, Courtney couldn’t escape the feeling that whatever friendship had been growing between the two of them, she’d just completely blown it.
Travis had practically run off, hadn’t he? He couldn’t wait to get away from her. Courtney couldn’t blame him. She’d crossed a line, and although they’d pretended nothing had actually happened back there on the park bench, they both knew differently.
Courtney unlocked the door to Rosie’s house and stepped inside the cool hallway, grateful to be out of the afternoon heat. After unpacking the picnic waste, popping the uneaten fruit into the fridge and storing the crispy cakes in the tin in the cupboard, she filled a glass with water and went upstairs to the guest room.
Sinking into the bed, she sighed with relief as her body relaxed into the soft mattress. The walk to the park in the spring sunshine had wiped her out, and the cringing embarrassment she felt after her botched hug with Travis made her toes curl with humiliation. All she wanted was to lie in the sweet coolness of the guest room and let her body rest while she tried to erase the memory of the mess she’d just made.
How could she have got things so badly wrong? How could she have misread the look on Travis’s face and made such a cataclysmic error?
Maybe you’re just really awful when it comes to judging men and their romantic intentions,whispered a nasty little voice inside her head.After all, you ended up pregnant by a man who turned his back on you the moment he found out a baby was on the way. Compared to that, almost kissing a man who isn’t remotely interested in you that way is just par for the course where you’re concerned, isn’t it?
The nasty voice inside her head was hurtful, but it wasn’t wrong. Courtney wondered if she just had some fundamental flaw that made it impossible for her to get things right when it came to matters of the heart.
A dull ache settled in her lower back, adding to the pain in her swollen ankles and sore hips following the walk to the park and back. She should’ve known better than to push things, and now she was paying the price.
In more ways than one.
As she dozed off to sleep, the baby kicked. Courtney laid a hand across her bump and thought of her child. Only a few more weeks to go until she met her tiny baby.
With that comforting thought pushing out all the other anxious musings and regrets that were threatening to keep her awake, Courtney drifted off, grateful for the escape from her swirling thoughts.
As sleep tugged her under, she dreamt she was walking along Foxglove Street in the sunshine, pushing a gorgeous pink-trimmed pram in which her beautiful baby lay, looking up at her with bright eyes the colour of cornflowers. Courtney’s heart swelled with love for her child, her joy overflowing.
But when she looked up from her baby’s sweet face, she realised she was all alone on the silent street. She looked around for her cousin Rosie, but couldn’t see her anywhere, nor Zara, nor her aunt and uncle. She looked around for her mother, and then felt the sharp stab of loss when she remembered she had died and was gone forever. Tears welled, hot and salty, rolling down Courtney’s cheeks like rivers.
A sudden flicker of movement in the distance caught her eye, where the street curved around a corner, and there she saw someone hurrying off in the other direction.
Travis.
In her dream, Courtney called out to him, waved her hands in the air. But Travis didn’t turn around, didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. He just kept walking off into the distance until he vanished from sight. Watching him disappear filled her with sadness and terrible longing like a homesickness for which there was no cure.
The baby started crying, and Courtney lifted her from the pram, tried to comfort her, but nothing she did soothed her child’s upset, and she only cried all the louder.
You’re a terrible mother and you’re a failure,bellowed a disembodied voice inside the dream, a voice that sounded like her own transmitted through some ancient analogue radio set.You’ve ruined everything and you deserve to be alone.
