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“A few of the families tried to take me under their wings, obviously feeling sorry for me, inviting me to their tables at dinner and to sit with them around the pool, but I felt like an interloper, a charity case. I had no one to talk to, no one to share the moonlight, the music, the entertainment with, and it was the most depressing holiday I’ve ever been on, so I haven’t been anywhere since.”

I face Owen. He doesn’t look my way, but I can tell he’s listening intently.

“No matter how positive and sunny I may appear, I still can’t seem to find someone who wants to stay with me, who thinks I’m good enough to spend the rest of their life with. Do you know how soul-destroying that is, to know that no one wants to be with you?”

Silence envelops the car, and Owen grips the wheel. I’ve gone too far, said too much. It wouldn’t be the first time.

He turns to me. “Yes, I do. I know exactly what that’s like.”

33

Owen

She’s going to say it. I’ve left myself wide open, and I’m just glad it’s when I’m pulling up outside her apartment.

“Well, maybe we should be together, then. The two rejects.” She laughs, but it’s strained. I want nothing more than to say, “Yes, sure, let’s date for real.” But I know where the end lies, and I don’t want that for her.

“Alice, I like you,” I begin, and her head drops. My heart whimpers because she’s heard this so many times.

“No, it’s fine. I get it. I’m too loud, too weird, too talkative, too messy, too insecure, too… well, just too me. Don’t worry. I’ve heard it all before.” She pats a dozing Paul, who’s blissfully unaware of the heaviness of this conversation.

“Hey, that’s not what I was going to say at all. If you’d let me finish, I was going to say that I like you, and it’s because I like you that I can’t take things further, because a future with me isn’t the future you’d want, and I can’t do that to you.”

Her eyes fill with disappointment, and I know she’s fighting the urge to ask me why—what future, and what’s so bleak that I’d resign myself to being alone for the rest of my days.

Instead, she says, “It would be nice to make that decision for myself.” She rests her hand on Paul’s head. “Hey, buddy, I’m sorry, but this is my stop.”

Alice picks Paul up and passes him over as she retrieves her bag from the floor of the car and then lets herself out.

I don’t want to leave things this way. I don’t like how this evening has spiralled, but I have no way of unwinding it, no way of rescuing something that should’ve been nice and enjoyable. I remind myself that this is why I don’t involve myself with people, especially people I have feelings for.

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow.” Alice smiles weakly, and I’m torn between putting my foot down and getting the hell out of here and climbing out of the car and wrapping her in a huge bear hug.

“Yeah.” I place Paul back on the passenger seat and clip him into the seatbelt as Alice shoves her bag onto her shoulder.

“And thank you for inviting me tonight. I had a great time. Your friends are lovely,” she adds, and I’m lost now in the niceties of social interaction where people don’t say what they mean but say what’s expected, so I retrieve the cue card and say my bit.

“Thanks for coming.”

“Anytime.”

She closes the door, and I watch her walk up to the main entrance of her building. I want to roll the window down, to shout at her to come back, to tell her she’s worth so much more than me and that’s why I can’t be with her. I want to tell her how dismal her life would be with me and how she doesn’t deserve that. She has so much to give, and I have nothing, even when I want to give her everything.

34

Alice

How has tonight ended up feeling so heavy? It’s as if my legs are carrying the weight of the conversation I’ve just had with Owen as I drag myself up the stairs to my apartment. How has this fake-dating lark started to feel so real, even though Owen has just said we can’t ever be together?

It had just come out—the suggestion that we should date for real. Honestly, I was shocked when I said it, but it’s another prime example of my mouth running away with me. I haven’t thought of Owen in that way since I’ve got to know him, as we’re such polar opposites. Yes, he’s attractive, and I’m attracted to him, but compatibility-wise, we’re on opposite ends of the scale.

But tonight, he’d been so different, so funny, charming, witty, and full of energy. I barely recognised the Owen who was sitting at Smithy’s dinner table. I want to see the Owen I saw tonight all the time. There’s a happy Owen in there somewhere, and whatever happened to him has pushed that happiness away, smothered it in the grey cloud he appears to be walking under. If only he would walk away from it and step into the sunshine, which begs the question of why he won’t. Is it because he can’t?

This brings me back to his wife—the bitch. What did she do that changed him so bitterly, so drastically? I’m sure that the Owen I saw briefly this evening is the true Owen. The Owen I see at work, the one I left in the car park after our shopping trip, and the one who just told me he’ll never date again is the Owen his wife made… and then left behind.

Reaching the floor of my apartment, I wonder if I’m looking at things from the wrong angle. Maybe his wife didn’t do anything to him. Maybe it’s something a whole lot worse.

Romana said he had no hope.