What Might Have Been

by Holly Miller

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she says quickly, not quite meeting my eye. “If he’d had a long-term affair, that would have been different. But I’m hardly perfect myself. I’ve done my fair share of . . . crappy things in the past. I guess I just tried to remember that . . . people make mistakes, you know? Good people can do bad things sometimes. Life isn’t black and white. It’s a million shades of gray, except nobody seems to accept that these days.”

  “So what you’re saying is, don’t be too hard on Caleb?”

  “Well, hear what he’s got to say at least, then go from there.” She looks up at me, eyes suddenly shining with sentiment. “I love you, Luce. I’m so lucky to have you.”

  To my surprise, she starts to cry. It must be the emotion of talking about Simon and Andrea, so I go over and wrap my arms around her, kiss her hair, and tell her I love her, too.

  * * *

  —

  Shortly before lunch, the door to Pebbles & Paper jangles, and Caleb walks in.

  It’s been a slow morning—so far, I’ve sold only some deckchair-shaped candles and a handful of greetings cards—and I’d just got to the point of starting to scribble notes for my novel onto the back of the complimentary gift wrap.

  “Hey.”

  I swallow as I try to work out if he looks as though he’s spent the night having sex with his estranged wife. He certainly seems tired and wrung out, like he needs some coffee and a plate of food.

  “You’re barred, you know,” I remind him, as a sort of joke. (It’s true—he actually is. On my first day, Ivan handed me a sheet of paper bearing the names of six people no longer welcome in the shop, one of whom was Caleb—though quite how Ivan expects me to ascertain the full names of the offenders on sight, I have no idea.)

  “I literally could not care less.” Caleb stands where he is in the middle of the shop, next to the sheepskin soft furnishings, hands stuffed into the pockets of his charcoal wool coat. His hair looks damp, and I realize with a thud that he must have had a late start. “How are you?”

  I nod, slowly. “Okay. You?”

  He nods back, his expression somber. “Can we talk?”

  “I get off at one.”

  “Meet me at the beach hut?”

  “All right,” I say, realizing as I do that he could be about to break my heart. That he might tell me he slept with Helen last night, that they’re getting back together, that splitting up with her and being with me has all been a horrible mistake—a mere bump in the road on his journey through married life.

  * * *

  —

  When I get to the hut after my shift, Caleb’s lit the stove and boiled a kettle. I sit wordlessly down on the seat opposite him, and he passes me a coffee.

  “You had a good night, then,” I say, my voice heavy with resignation.

  “What makes you say that?”

  I shrug. I know I risk sounding petty, but I can’t help myself. “One o’clock’s pretty good going.”

  He just nods, like he’s conceding some sort of point, and sips his coffee. “It was . . . a weird night.”

  I don’t say anything, just watch him and wait. I’m not going to help him out here—he has to start talking, to be straight-up with me about whatever went down between them.

  He pauses for a long time before elaborating. “Helen . . . wants me to move back in with her, in London.”

  My stomach becomes a fist. “Oh.”

  I feel his gaze barrel into me. “Lucy, you need to know, I told her straightaway that I was in love with you. That that’s never going to happen.”

  Relief radiates through me like some sort of narcotic. Still, I can’t help thinking there must be more to the story than that. “That sounds like a pretty quick conversation, though. What took you till one o’clock?”

  “She was upset. We went back to the cottage.”

  I picture them there together, in the tiny wonky living room I’ve grown to love. Did Helen crack open a bottle of wine, put his favorite music on to tempt him to reminisce? Maybe under that coat she was wearing a dress he always liked. Or worse . . .

  “But you’re separated,” I say, exasperation flickering inside me like a failing lightbulb. “You moved out, you live two hours from London now. Have you been . . . ?”

  “Have I been what?”

  I frown, clamp my hands a little tighter around my coffee cup. “I don’t know—giving her a different impression, or something? I didn’t think you were in touch.”

  “We weren’t. I promise, this came totally out of the blue.”

  “She just . . . changed her mind about being separated? Just like that?”

  “She says she’s been seeing a therapist about . . . the kids issue. She thinks she’s ready to face the idea of a future without them, now.”

  I feel my heart climb up my throat and into my mouth. “Caleb.”

  “What?”

  “Were you two . . . on a break?”

  “No.” His eyes widen in alarm. “We’d split up. The next step, as far as I was concerned, was divorce.”

  I shake my head. “So now what?”

  “I told her nothing’s changed. That I love you.”

  Despite his reassurance, I feel guilt pressing irrationally against my chest—as though perhaps I’ve come between them, got in the way of something good. Maybe it’s actually Helen and Caleb who are meant to be—not us. I find myself wondering if the right thing to do would in fact be to tell Caleb to go back to her, to give his marriage another try. Isn’t that what marriage means, after all? For better or worse. The rough with the smooth. Wouldn’t that be the right thing to do?

  The words pop and fizz on my tongue. But then something far more pressing comes out instead. “She stayed over, didn’t she?”

  He waits a long time before answering. “Yes. But . . . I slept on the sofa.”

  I shake my head. “Wow.”

  From the roof of the beach hut, we hear the thud of a seagull alighting, triggering an abrasive chorus from other birds nearby. They sound furious, somehow. Or maybe I’m just projecting.

  “I swear to you, nothing happened.” Anguish is etched across Caleb’s face. “It was just . . . at one in the morning, there wasn’t really any other option.”

  I stare at him, my mind in limbo. I so desperately want to believe him, but . . . am I just being gullible, idiotically naïve? “I saw you hugging her, at the studio.”

  He works his jaw for a moment or two. “I know. She’d been crying, and she asked me for a hug. It would have felt . . . I don’t know. Coldhearted to say no.”

  I sip my coffee. “Did you ask her where she was staying, before you took her out drinking?”

  “She said she had a room at a B&B. And I didn’t ‘take her out drinking.’ ”

  “An imaginary B&B?”

  He nods, softly. “I guess she thought the evening would go differently to how it did.”

  “Did she try to kiss you?” Helen’s unquestionably beautiful, and apparently desperate to have him back. I can hardly bear to ask, but I can’t believe she wouldn’t have tried her luck, even once.

  He swears softly, runs a hand through his hair. “Yes.”

  I feel my stomach clench. “So when you said nothing happened, what you meant was, something happened.”

  “No,” he counters. His eyes are urgent, filmy with distress. “She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. We didn’t kiss, Lucy.”

  “God, how would you feel? If this was me and Max?”

  He looks down at his hands, shakes his head. “Well, I’d want to punch him, obviously.”

  “Constructive.”

  He looks up. “What do you want me to say? Obviously, I could—should—have played things better last night. I should have told her to go home as soon as she turned up. But . . . I never once gave her mixed signals, or
any reason to think I was even slightly interested in getting back together. I’m sorry this all had to happen, but maybe . . . Maybe she’s got closure now. I probably should have done this a long time ago, if I’m honest.”

  “How have you left it?” I say, trying to ignore the gnawing sensation in my stomach as I picture Helen making one last lunge for him on the doorstep this morning before speeding back off to London in her Porsche.

  “I’ve told her I want a divorce. Me and Helen . . . we’re over. It’s you I want, Lucy. No one else.”

  I don’t say anything. On the one hand, I want yesterday not to have happened at all—but at the same time, perhaps he’s right. Maybe she’ll have closure now.

  I think about my sister again. If she can get over Simon having had a one-night stand, then shouldn’t I be able to surmount Caleb having given his wife the brush-off—however clumsily?

  Caleb sets down his coffee, then crosses the hut and gets to his knees in front of me. “My life with you, here, is ten times what it was with Helen.” He dips his head to kiss the knot of my hands, clasped together in my lap. “This is how love is meant to feel, Lucy. What we have. You and me.”

  I know he’s right, when he says that: that this is how love is meant to feel. I’ve known it the whole time we’ve been together—that being with Caleb feels like walking into a lit room after too long spent stumbling around in the dark.

  But I still can’t help feeling a ripple of unease pass through me, like the lights might blow at any moment, and I’ll be left in the dark once again.

  Go

  Max and I don’t speak at all between leaving the karaoke bar and arriving back in Tooting. He just holds my hand in the cab, and I turn my head away from him, letting a few tears fall, smearing the window with my breath.

  How can I still feel this terrified, so many years later?

  Back at the house, we head upstairs, where I take off my shoes and Max’s coat and climb onto my bed, pulling my feet up beneath me. The heating’s on and the room is warm—which I’m grateful for, because I still feel cold from the shock of having encountered Nate’s doppelganger.

  There are people downstairs in the living room. I can hear Reuben talking over everyone, and that honking seal-laugh Sal does when she’s stoned, or drunk. They’re playing music, and the bass snakes up through the ceiling and into the space between us, along with a ripe twist of weed. Their presence down there is comforting, reassuring.

  Jools is out tonight, seeing Vince. She might break it off. After a promising start involving late-night conversations, flowers to the house, and all the hallmarks of him having good manners, it’s not been going well. He keeps telling her he wants to take things to the next level—whatever that means—then failing to reply to her messages, sometimes for days at a time.

  Max sits in the chair next to the fireplace. “What happened back there?”

  I realize I’m still leaking tears. I reach over to my nightstand for a tissue and wipe them away with a shaking hand. Max is watching me, his face distorted with concern.

  Jools is the only person I’ve ever told. A part of me wishes she were here right now, holding my hand.

  “It’s something . . . and it’s nothing. I mean it’s bad, but my mind plays tricks on me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m overreacting. I mean, I’m alive—”

  “Alive?” Max looks alarmed. “You need to tell me what’s going on, Luce. Right now.”

  So I swallow, then start to talk.

  * * *

  —

  It was nearly ten years ago. Since Boxing Day, I’d been traveling through Europe, Morocco, Thailand, and Malaysia after leaving university in Norwich, with Australia my final stop. In March I landed in Sydney, with plans to stay in Australia for a while, then move on to New Zealand and after that, North America.

  It was my first night in Australia. What an idiot.

  There are some people in this world whose charm is undoubtedly pathological. Max has charm and charisma in abundance, but he also has a good heart. The best heart.

  But Nate’s charm, when I look back now, was nothing more than a chilling, brilliant performance.

  He must have followed me, I realized later. I couldn’t have made a more perfect target, walking alone from the backpackers’ hostel to the Opera Bar, where I planned to take some selfies. I was checking my phone for directions the whole way.

  Tash had set dinner up for me with a friend and her husband for the following evening, but that first night was mine to enjoy.

  It had been an overcast, humid day. The bar was crowded, thick with bodies. I ordered a drink and, after managing to bag one of the last available seats right next to the water, started flipping through a guidebook. Yes, I literally did that. I must have looked the picture of innocence. It could only have been more obvious if I’d had MUG scrawled across my forehead in lipstick.

  “Erin, is it?”

  For a moment I didn’t react, but when the shadow by my seat failed to move, I looked up. He was handsome as a movie star—green eyes, dark hair, features so perfect he almost looked unreal, like he’d been CGI’d into the space next to me.

  The worst thing was, I was instantly on my guard. I knew from the start. I knew.

  And yet, I let him in.

  I smiled politely, shook my head. “Nope.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry. You looked like . . .” He shook his head, raised a hand in apology. “Never mind.”

  And right there was his in: he looked so embarrassed, I felt sorry for him. I think he was even blushing slightly—God knows how he pulled that off.

  “Meeting someone?” I said, regretting my suspicion.

  He looked smart, date-ready, in a light denim shirt, a conspicuous watch peeking out from beneath one cuff. It was the biggest, chunkiest timepiece I’d ever seen, the kind of thing most people would need a small mortgage to afford. He grimaced, lifted his wrist. “Well, I was. An hour ago. You were my last hope.”

  I winced an apology. “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. For disturbing you. Have a great night.”

  I watched him head over to the bar, shaking his head, putting one hand to the back of his neck, making a call on his phone. Looking back—because this part remains so clear in my mind to this day—he played the role of the hapless, handsome stranger to perfection.

  After twenty minutes or so he passed by my seat again, presumably on his way home. He looked up, snuck me a sheepish expression, paused.

  “British?”

  I nodded, feeling slightly shy.

  He smiled, then hesitated, matching perfectly my timidity. “My aunt lives in Bath.” (Another genius move: who doesn’t love Bath?)

  “Oh, really? Bath’s lovely.”

  “It is.” He hesitated again, as if he were entirely unused to chatting up girls in bars. How the hell did I fall for it? “Can I . . . get you a drink?”

  I have replayed that moment over and over in my mind in the years since it happened. Say no. Wish him a good night. Get up, walk away, and don’t look back. But I didn’t, of course. I just felt flattered that this sharply dressed Australian with the killer tan and magnet eyes and kindly auntie in Bath wanted to buy me a drink.

  When I asked what he did, he even rummaged in his wallet for a business card, which purported to show he was senior management at a well-known bank. It turned out afterward, of course, that they’d never heard of a Nathan Drall.

  “Call me Nate,” he said.

  And not long after that, my memories cut out completely, like he’d knocked me to the ground with a single punch.

  * * *

  —

  I woke the next morning—at least, I assumed it was morning—with a stiff neck and a headache that felt like my skull was being dismantled. I felt disoriented, unable to place where I was.

  The room was dark, but it wasn’t the host
el. I knew that instinctively. It was too quiet, too still. Too air-conditioned.

  Something was wrong. I felt panic scramble up my throat.

  And then: the blast of a bell sounding over and over, a discordant jangle so sudden and urgent it sent my heart catapulting from my chest. It took me ten seconds or so to realize a phone was ringing.

  “Good morning,” said a smooth voice, when I finally picked up. “This is a courtesy call to advise you that checkout is eleven a.m.”

  Checkout?

  I mumbled something, then blinked and hung up, struggled into a sitting position. The pain in my head was getting worse.

  A hotel. I was in an enormous bed, the curtains tightly drawn. The room had the hushed, unventilated feel of an airline cabin. I was still fully dressed, in the same clothes I’d been wearing last night.

  A chill passed through me.

  Nate.

  Where was he? Was he still here? Why was I here?

  I switched on a lamp, scanned the room. It was large and disconcertingly messy—there were empty bottles and glasses on a coffee table, two room service trays. I had no recollection of any of it. I wrinkled my nose and inhaled, maybe for the first time since I’d woken. The air smelled of fried food, and something else. I tried to find my phone, but couldn’t see it anywhere.

  I climbed out of bed and made my way unsteadily to the bathroom, but the stench made me recoil. The sink was full of vomit.

  My panic intensifying now, I ripped the duvet from the bed, upturned cushions, flung open doors and drawers, wrenched the curtains apart. I felt almost dizzy when I looked out the window—dazzled by the sunshine, confused by the sight of the Opera House sitting calmly across the harbor like nothing had happened.

  I stepped back from the view—which ordinarily would have been breathtaking—as though it burned. My bag—which, the last time I checked, had contained my phone, money, wallet, passport, everything—was gone.