What Might Have Been

by Holly Miller

  “But you’re my sister, Tash,” I say, surprised that I’m managing to stay relatively composed. “Do you know what it means that you did that to me?”

  “Believe me, I do, and I’ll never stop questioning why I did what I did.” Her eyes fill with tears, her voice cracking and wobbling. “But I want you to know . . . I’m not going anywhere. You can be as angry as you need to be, and I’ll never stop trying to make it up to you.”

  “If it wasn’t for Dylan—”

  “If Dylan ends up being the only reason we stay in each other’s lives, then . . . well, he’s even more of an angel than I thought.”

  I think about Nate, about how I’d probably never have met him if Tash and Max hadn’t got together that night. I consider telling Tash about him now—describing my experience in full and chilling detail, to make her feel even worse. She doesn’t know. I’ve never told her. Only Jools knows the truth.

  But I won’t. I can’t. Somehow, I can sense that blurting it all out in bitterness wouldn’t bring me satisfaction.

  “I’ve not been able to stop picturing it,” I say instead, pulling my arms tight to my body. “You and him.”

  “I know,” she whispers, wiping her eyes. “I was the same, with Andrea.”

  “Please don’t compare that with this. It’s different.”

  She breaks my gaze, then releases a breath, rubs at an invisible mark on her ankle. “I know. Sorry.”

  A silence descends, so uncomfortable it makes me feel queasy.

  “Have you spoken to Max?” she asks, eventually.

  “No point. I have to pick between you and him, don’t I?”

  She seems to consider this for a moment. “I don’t see why.”

  “Because I can’t have both of you back in my life. How exactly would that work?”

  “Well—”

  “Family gatherings? Exchanging presents at Christmas? Making small talk over Sunday lunch? Getting rounds in on birthdays? Come on. Be real.”

  Tash leans in, the lick of her blond bob bouncing in the lamplight. “I never thought I’d be able to so much as kiss Simon again, let alone let him touch me. But over time . . . you can get past stuff you thought was impossible, Luce.”

  “Really? Or are you just trying to appease your own conscience?”

  She swallows, hard. “Actually, nothing would appease my conscience about this. Apart from maybe the ability to turn back time.”

  I find myself staring dazedly down at her perfectly pedicured feet as a breeze skirts the windows and roof, slides between the leaves of the trees.

  There’s a long silence before she speaks again. Her scarlet lipstick is now little more than a raspberry-colored smear, like she’s overdone it on the jam sandwiches. She looks sorry, and slight, and full of regret. “You still love him, don’t you?” she says. “Max. You still adore him.”

  Now, I do start to cry. “I shouldn’t. What kind of person does that make me?” Weak, sneers a voice in my head. Pathetic. Foolish.

  “Max is the one for you,” Tash whispers. “Anyone can see it. And you’ll never know how much it kills me, Lucy, that I have might have destroyed that forever.”

  I realize now there’s nothing more to say. That it all comes down to a simple choice: move forward with my life, or stay still and let this crush me.

  * * *

  —

  The following morning, I conclude my long drive home from Shoreley by pulling up outside Max’s flat, my heart thrashing, barely able to believe what I’m about to do.

  I get out of the car and walk unsteadily up the front path and into his storm porch, where I press the buzzer firmly before I can change my mind.

  There’s an agonizing wait before it clicks. “Hello?” He barely enunciates, mumbling the word like he’s only just got out of bed.

  “Max,” I say. “It’s—”

  My words are buried in a buzz before I can finish, and in the next moment he’s standing in front of me, gray eyes wide and his body quite still, like he’s trying to remember how to breathe.

  * * *

  —

  I’m literally amazed you’re here,” he says, once we’re sitting in his living room. He’s barefoot in shorts and a T-shirt, hair careless and eyes a little bloodshot. His skin looks rough and his cheeks are pinched, like he’s spent the past three months subsisting on little more than coffee and a punishing workload, much like me.

  One end of the sofa is strewn with documents and open files—piles of Land Registry reports and oversized papers that look like title deeds. His laptop’s open next to them, and there are a couple of large Starbucks cups on the coffee table.

  The room is warm from the morning sun, light striping our skin through the angled shutters.

  “Me too, actually.”

  He laughs, even though what I’ve said isn’t remotely funny, and puts up a hand to rub his chin. His usually clean-shaven jawline is grainy with stubble. He looks slightly more muscular too, than the last time I saw him—not much, but enough for me to notice, like he’s been putting in extra hours at the gym. “So . . . how come you are?”

  The truth is that missing him has just become too hard, but I won’t tell him that. “I spoke to Tash,” I say.

  A cautious nod. “How’d it go?”

  “We’re going to try to . . . work things out. For Dylan’s sake.”

  “That’s really great, Luce.” His voice is full, sincere.

  “So . . . how’ve you been?” I ask, sipping the tea he’s made me.

  He rubs his jaw again. “Not great.”

  “How’s work?”

  “Busy. You?”

  “Same. I haven’t stopped, these past few months.”

  “Helps, doesn’t it?”

  I try out a smile. “Yep. Thank God we didn’t work together.”

  He smiles back, but in a way that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Actually . . . I don’t really want to talk about work.”

  I nod, because neither do I.

  “I miss you, Luce. I meant what I said in my message. I’d do anything to have you back in my life.”

  A small storm of tears starts to gather behind my eyes, but I make an effort to hold it back. “Tash told me . . . Simon cheated on her, a few years ago. They . . . went to therapy, sorted everything out.”

  “Do you want to go to therapy?” he says quickly.

  I shake my head. “I can’t think of anything worse.”

  Max leans forward, forehead crumpled in earnest, the deep gray of his irises seeming somehow to intensify. “So . . . ?”

  “It just made me think that maybe we have to . . . make a choice. A conscious decision to live with what happened, and try to move past it. If that’s what you want.”

  He closes his eyes momentarily, as though, in a twist of irony, a jury’s declared him not guilty of some terrible crime. “That’s all I want. It’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about.”

  The relief when he says this feels like hitting air after being underwater.

  Max comes over to the sofa, sits down next to me, and takes my hand. “I realize I don’t deserve this. Or you.”

  I look down at his fingers wrapping mine. I can feel a pulse passing between them like a current. “I know you’re sorry. And I know how bad Tash feels, too.”

  “The only thing I care about,” he whispers, putting his face to the base of my neck, his breath dancing over my skin, “is that you feel able to trust me again.”

  “We have to take it slow.”

  “As slow as you want.” His voice wavers like he’s going to beat me to the tears. “I’m just so happy you’re here.”

  * * *

  —

  We’ve talked all day, not even pausing to eat, and it must be late now because it’s dark outside. My mouth is dry and tacky, a heada
che taking root inside my skull.

  Max has closed the shutters. The living room is lit only by a single floor lamp, and I’m struggling to fully make out his features or the expression on his face, since he’s sitting back in the armchair near the fireplace, a couple of meters between us. But I can decipher the inflections of his sentences, the pauses he leaves between words, sentiments all of their own.

  “Do you want to talk about Tash?” he asks at one point, because we still haven’t.

  “No,” I reply, honestly. “You?”

  He shakes his head. “No.”

  From outside the bay window drifts the rattle of a taxi idling, then a door slamming, followed by a snatch of laughter that I want to grab on to, try to absorb somehow. I’m not actually sure if I’ve laughed properly since May.

  “You were right earlier,” Max says, swilling tea that must be cold by now around the bottom of his cup. “About making a choice. A conscious decision.”

  I nod. “I used to think you were . . . The One, you know? My soulmate. That we were destined to be together, or something.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m not sure I believe in that anymore. Maybe . . . we’re a good match, but it’s still down to us what we do with that. Not fate, or destiny, or some higher power. Maybe what actually happens is, you meet someone, you fall in love, and you do everything you can to make it work.”

  I think about what Tash said to me last night, about Simon and Andrea. Good people can do awful things. You can get past stuff you thought was impossible, Luce.

  Max seems to reflect on this for a moment or two, and I can’t tell if he’s offended, confused, or a little of both. “Can I be brutally honest?”

  “From now on, let’s only be that.”

  “Okay. Well, there’ve actually been three people in my life who I’ve had that . . . meant-to-be feeling with.”

  I nod, ignoring the brief blaze of jealousy I feel.

  “But there’s only ever been one person who I don’t want to live without.” He clears his throat. “What I mean is, I agree. I want to work this out, Luce. And I do mean work. Whatever it takes. I love you too much to let this go.”

  I glance at him, half wondering if he might get to his feet, cross the room, and kiss me, but he doesn’t. He simply looks soberly into the space between us, like we’re way out at sea, fighting to keep our heads above water. And in this moment, all I can do is hope with everything I have that we make it back to shore.

  Twelve

  Stay

  I’m in the pub with Emma—the girl from my writing group—and our tutor, Ryan. Over the past few weeks, the three of us have become friends, settling into a routine of postsession drinks to talk writing and books and our passions and life.

  “I’m serious,” Emma’s saying, driving her index finger down onto the table, as if she’s arguing with it and not me.

  I laugh. “I can see that.”

  Emma’s not laughing. “But . . . ?”

  “I’m not ready,” I say, shrugging.

  “Look.” She leans forward, blond hair dangling perilously close to her glass, the threat of a red-wine balayage alarming me momentarily. Our table’s next to an open fire-cum-furnace, so the sleeves of her sweater are pushed right up to her elbows, affording her a particularly no-nonsense demeanor. “If you won’t listen to me, at least listen to Ryan. An expert in his field, and all that.”

  I glance toward the bar, where Ryan is chatting to two young guys. I guess they’re into writing, because they seem to be hanging off his every word, like they’ve bumped into Stephen King and not publishing’s greatest has-been (Ryan’s words, not mine). One of them has a notebook in his hand, and the other is clutching a copy of . . . Oh God. It’s Ulysses.

  Summer has surrendered to autumn’s advances now, the greenery turning gold, the air thickening with damp. I always think of Shoreley as a place better suited to cold weather, despite it being somewhere people flock to in summer. To me, the town improves the farther you walk from the beach, when you reach the cobblestones and winding back streets, and the medieval houses all lean against one another like they overdid it on the mead, and everywhere is lit up by those old-fashioned streetlamps that look like they’re straight out of a Dickens adaptation. I think the town’s history is at its most beautiful draped in lights and kissed with frost, when all the windows are glowing amber, and everyone’s walking around in hats and gloves, clutching hot drinks and taking selfies beneath the stars. I’ve even surprised myself by getting excited about planning festive displays at Pebbles & Paper, pitching stock ideas to Ivan—seashell wreaths, starfish tree toppers, beach sand baubles—and suggesting we put on a Christmas shopping event, with complimentary mulled wine to tempt in the punters.

  “If you edit that chapter any more,” Emma says to me, “you’ll kill it. You’ll squeeze all the life out of it. You know I’m right. Tell her, Ryan.”

  “Tell who what?” Ryan says, returning to our table with another round of drinks on a tray.

  Ryan and Emma have been nagging me to enter my novel into a first-chapter competition being run by a major literary prize. The winner gets their chapter published in a glossy magazine, plus a meeting with a senior editor at a big-name publishing house and a top agent. The deadline’s in a week.

  Briefly distracted, Emma nods at the drinks, her cheeks pink from the heat of the fire. “You’re such a rock star, Ryan. Did you get those on the house?”

  He sits down and distributes our glasses before sipping from his pint. “Ha. I wish.”

  “Did those lads recognize you? Were they angling for a selfie?”

  “The guy behind the bar told them I was a best-selling novelist.” He rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Christ knows how he knew.”

  “Maybe you got a bit braggy one night after too many red wines,” Emma teases, to which Ryan elbows her.

  “Must be nice,” I say, nodding over at the lads again. For some reason, I’m desperate for Ryan to have his moment. “To get recognized for something you’ve achieved. They looked pretty starstruck.”

  He grimaces. “Yeah, for about two minutes, until I told them I haven’t actually been published for seven years. Which to them, of course, is like half a lifetime ago.”

  Ryan’s told me a few times that he keeps wondering if he dreamed ever having had a book deal—that these days, the closest he gets to feeling like an author is handing out copies of his second and final novel, The Away Day, to new members of our writing group, at which point he always has to endure a spell of gentle heckling from Emma.

  Ryan looks at Emma now. “Talked any sense into this one yet?” He means me.

  “Nope. She’s more stubborn than my nan when we tried to make her wear compression stockings.”

  “Lucy,” Ryan says, like he has a million times before, “it’s ready.”

  “I just don’t feel like it is.”

  “But why?”

  I think about it. I’ve been writing my novel for nearly six months now, and although I’ve almost finished the first draft, I feel as though it’s taken me until now to really find my feet with it. I’ve been writing feverishly and greedily in the beach hut every afternoon, the hours passing by unnoticed, sometimes without looking up until it’s dark. I’ve been lost in a frenzy of compulsion and inspiration, fueled by coffee and Haribo and not a lot else. It’s made me feel more alive creatively than anything else I’ve ever done—sometimes it even takes me half an hour before I’ve cleared my head sufficiently to be able to hold a simple conversation with Caleb, the thoughts still hurtling around my mind like the spacecraft in that video game Dylan’s so fond of. But I have an almost-finished novel to show for it, and for the first time in my life, I am starting to feel like a writer. I have created something, and stuck with it, even though at times it’s felt like an impossible hill to scale. After all this time, I have
become reacquainted with my old means of self-expression, the way I used to make sense of the world and my own feelings. Writing this novel has been as cathartic as keeping a journal: I feel lighter after every writing session, as though I’ve unburdened myself, upended my mind onto the page. I guess, if I were to be really cheesy about it, I’d say writing was my therapy.

  But I still don’t feel confident enough to show anyone beyond Caleb and the group yet.

  “You need exposure,” Ryan insists.

  I sip my lemonade. “Maybe I’m not ready to be exposed.”

  “I’m telling you, you are.”

  Emma looks as though she’s about to say something smutty, before thinking better of it.

  Ryan’s not giving up. “You need to take a risk on this. I promise it’ll pay off. This could be one of those conversations you look back on when you’re a best-selling novelist. You know: ‘I almost didn’t enter the competition, but my incredibly talented writing tutor, Ryan Carwell—’ ”

  “ ‘—and my friend Emma Deacon, herself a literary star in the making . . .’ ” Emma chips in.

  I shake my head. “Why don’t you two enter, then?”

  “You can’t be previously published,” says Ryan, with a shrug I’d interpret as smug if I didn’t already know he doesn’t have a smug bone in his body.

  “Or be really, really bad at first chapters,” Emma says, wrinkling her nose. “Whereas you, on the other hand . . .”

  Ryan turns to me. “Do me a favor and become a literary sensation. And I do mean favor: I could really do with the career boost.”

  “Very funny,” I say with a smile, shaking my head.

  * * *

  —

  Caleb’s working late tonight, so after finishing my drink and promising the others I’ll think seriously about the competition, I head over to his studio.

  It’s a chilly October night, feathered with the scent of wood burners and the promise of winter. My breath becomes wisps in the air as I walk, salt clinging to my skin from the onshore breeze. The cobblestones carry a cool sheen, the air around the streetlamps opaque with the finest of mists.