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Turning on my heel, I slip away, wondering how long I’ll have to hang out around Owen’s office for me to “accidentally” bump into him.
23
Owen
Yes, I’ve been avoiding Alice.
I feel bad because she hasn’t done anything wrong, but I had a case of the wobbles on Sunday after buying the suit. Things just cut too close to home and brought back too many memories I’d rather forget.
But that’s also a lie, because I don’t want to forget all of it.
When Pippa and I first met, life was great—exactly how I thought it would feel when you fall in love with someone and realise they’re the person you want to spend the rest of your life with.
And I was happy with that, even standing at the altar in a light grey suit that didn’t match the bridesmaids in their duck-egg blue gowns. I was more than happy.
Until life threw one massive curveball our way, one I was determined to dodge or catch or do something with, but Pippa wasn’t.
“This isn’t what I signed up for.”
Her words still sting, cutting right to the bone as we stood in the house we’d bought together while she ended our three-year marriage and the five years before that we’d been together.
Eight years.
You think you know someone after eight years, but it turned out I didn’t know her at all.
I’d wanted to yell our wedding vows at her.
For better, for worse.
In sickness and in health.
To love and to cherish.
I’d meant every single word when I said them to her at the altar.
It’s taken me three years to realise she hadn’t meant them at all.
Since then, I’ve been avoiding women. All of them. They don’t say what they mean and don’t mean what they say, and even if they did, it wouldn’t change who I am.
And then last week, along came Alice, shattering my quiet, comfortable existence by asking me to help her. And like a fool, I agreed without considering the complications and repercussions that might come with such an endeavour.
Because, inevitably, there have been repercussions.
Like opening up to Alice about my life, looking forward to her meeting Paul and Smithy and Romana, and inviting her to my garden at lunchtime. And, more catastrophically, picturing Alice without that gold dress on and imagining what I’d do to her if I were the one pulling down her zip.
My computer screen locks, as if reminding me I haven’t done any work in the last twenty minutes.
It’s half past two, the perfect time for a cup of tea.
Mug in hand, I leave the confines of my office, only to walk straight into Alice as though my thoughts have conjured her.
Her eyes are wide, one hand flying to her chest as she immediately launches into an explanation.
“I wasn’t standing outside your door,” she says as I take a step back. “That was a lie,” she corrects herself. “Of course I was standing outside your door. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have walked straight into me. What I meant to say is that I wasn’t spying on you or listening at your door. I was just getting ready to knock on it. The door, that is.”
I sigh.
Life, it seems, is intent on delivering Alice to me, even directly outside my office.
