The Pieces of You and Me

by Rachel Burton

  ‘Who is she?’ I demanded. ‘Do I know her?’ Please don’t let it be one of the girls from school. Please don’t let it be Camilla.

  You touched my chin then, turning my head gently towards you. You’d stopped smiling.

  ‘She’s you,’ you said so quietly I could hardly hear you. ‘She’s you, I hope.’

  It took me too long to realise what you meant. We sat there, on that bench, by that familiar stretch of river where we’d swum as children, by the stretch of Common where my dad taught us to fly a kite. I didn’t say anything. I knew it was my turn to speak but I felt as if the memories were falling in on me, weighing me down. I wanted to be a kid again. I wasn’t sure that I liked growing up after all.

  ‘I love you, Jessie,’ you said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re my best friend, you always have been, but now we’re older it just feels different.’

  ‘You want me to be your girlfriend?’ I asked. It sounded such a childishly simple explanation for the complex emotions I was feeling at that moment. It felt like the time you asked me to marry you in the playground.

  ‘Yes,’ you said. ‘I want you to be my girlfriend. I’ve wanted nothing else for months. I was just waiting.’

  ‘Waiting for what?’

  ‘Until we were both sixteen,’ you said, blushing slightly. I suddenly realised how serious you were.

  I felt as though I was at a crossroads. I didn’t feel ready to be anybody’s girlfriend yet. I was scared that this would change everything forever, and we would never get back what we used to have. But I also knew that we’d already outgrown what we used to have and that if I said ‘no’ now it would hurt you so much you’d walk away, and I’d never see you again. Looking back on that moment I never really felt as though I had a choice. That moment had been fated since we were born.

  ‘Jessie?’ you said, your face a question, and I nodded. I wanted to say yes, that it had always been yes, but all I could do was nod.

  And then you kissed me. It was clumsy and awkward; there was too much tongue and you tasted of toothpaste and cigarettes, and something else that was almost animal. But it felt like the best thing that had ever happened. A wave of warmth washed over my body as you pulled away from me, smiling.

  ‘I think we need more practice,’ you said. You looked so happy and relaxed suddenly and I realised that I couldn’t remember the last time I saw you relax. I thought it was the pressure your parents put you under to achieve so highly, but suddenly I wondered if it was something else causing you so much distress. How long had you been holding all of this in? How long had you been waiting for me?

  I don’t know how long we stayed there on that bench that evening practising kissing, finding the ways that we worked together. It didn’t take long to get the hang of it – we always knew how well we fitted, like jigsaw pieces clicking into place. We both lost track of time, and the next thing we knew was the thump of a pair of hands landing on our shoulders, the sound of your mates whistling at us.

  ‘So this is where you are,’ John said, grinning at us. ‘We’ve been waiting for you in the pub for ages.’ Nobody said anything about the kiss then. I knew though, that they’d wait until later, until I wasn’t there, to rib you about it. Everyone started to walk away from us except John.

  ‘Are you coming to this party then?’ he asked. I didn’t know anything about a party. I was always the last to find out anything. I suspected, since you hadn’t mentioned it, that you had no intention of going anyway. You hated parties.

  You’d known John almost as long as you’d known me, and I saw a look pass between you, one of understanding, the conclusion to a conversation that I wasn’t party to. I had the feeling that you and he had already spoken about this, that finding us kissing hadn’t come as much of a surprise to him.

  ‘Maybe we’ll catch you up,’ you said. John, not usually so easily dissuaded, nodded and walked away, everybody else following.

  You draped one arm around my shoulders then, and pulled me towards you. With your other hand you got your cigarettes out of your pocket, knocking two out of the packet and lighting them, handing one to me. I rested my head on your chest as I had done a million times before but again it was different. I could hear your heart beat, feel your breathing and the warmth of your body, and it all felt so different to the last time we sat here smoking at Easter. How could three months change so much?

  ‘Do you want to go to this party?’ you asked after a while.

  ‘Whose party is it?’

  ‘You know,’ you replied, dropping your cigarette on the floor and scrubbing it out underneath your boot, ‘I have no idea.’ We giggled together, both knowing full well we weren’t going to the party.

  ‘Shall we go back to mine?’ you asked instead. ‘There’s beer and Mum and Dad are still in France.’

  I looked up at you. ‘If we go back to yours can we keep practising kissing?’

  ‘Do you think we need more practice?’ you asked.

  ‘Lots,’ I replied …

  11

  JESS

  ‘Where’s lover boy?’ Gemma asked the next morning when I came down to breakfast at the hotel we were all staying in. I hadn’t been expecting to see her there. I’d presumed she’d be having breakfast in bed with her new husband.

  ‘Where’s Mike?’ I asked.

  She waved a hand at me, gesturing for me to sit down, and poured me a cup of coffee. ‘Oh, he’s sleeping off his hangover, which is even worse than mine. Don’t worry about him. Now tell me everything.’

  ‘Gemma, there’s nothing to tell.’

  ‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s a lie.’

  She was right, of course. Rupert had kissed me and I hadn’t been able to think about anything else since. I had pulled away from the kiss first, stepping back. Rupert had run his thumb over my cheekbone. He’d looked at me and I’d known he’d felt it too – that sense of time standing still, of the years falling away.

  ‘You’re amazing,’ he’d whispered, blushing slightly and looking away. ‘You know I want to see you again, Jessie. I hope you want to see me too.’

  After I’d watched him walk away I’d gone back to the Orangery, but I hadn’t gone in. I had wanted to be by myself, to decompress, to process what had happened. When I’d got back to my room, the first thing I’d done was check my phone. I can’t believe you’re here again, his text read. I couldn’t believe it either. If it hadn’t been for the text I would have thought I’d dreamt it all. But I still didn’t know, even after the kiss, if I wanted to see him again.

  I’d slept badly again and woken early, giving up on rest in the end in exchange for breakfast. I hadn’t expected to see anyone else here other than perhaps my mother, but everyone seemed to be looking remarkably awake for the morning after a wedding. Caitlin was with her family on a table nearby – she waved at me across the dining room.

  ‘Come on, tell me,’ Gemma persisted. ‘Do you have him tied up in your room?’

  ‘He didn’t stay, Gemma,’ I said sternly, putting a stop to this nonsense.

  ‘Well, where did you both disappear to?’

  ‘Honestly,’ I said, pretending to be frustrated but unable to help smiling at her exuberance. ‘Shouldn’t you have been concentrating on your new husband?’

  She shrugged. ‘This is more interesting.’

  I smiled in spite of my annoyance. ‘We sat on a bench and talked, we swapped numbers and then he went to get his train home. I was tired, so I went to bed.’

  ‘That’s all?’ she asked.

  I nodded, not looking at her.

  ‘Well, swapping numbers is good, isn’t it?’

  I made a non-committal noise.

  ‘That’s not all, is it?’ she said. ‘What are you not telling me?’

  When I didn’t reply, she picked up her coffee cup and stood up. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We need a full debrief, somewhere more private. I’ll go and fetch Caitlin.’

  As we were leaving the dining room, Mum a
rrived.

  ‘Good morning, girls,’ she said. ‘How are you all feeling?’

  ‘A bit hungover if I’m honest,’ Gemma said. ‘We’re just going to drink our coffees somewhere a bit quieter.’

  ‘OK,’ Mum replied. ‘I’ll join you when I’ve had my breakfast.’

  As we walked away towards the hotel terrace, which was empty, Gemma asked me how long I thought Mum would be.

  ‘Oh, she’ll be ages,’ I said. ‘She had all the Sunday papers under her arm and she won’t finish until she’s read all the book reviews. Her new poetry collection is being reviewed in The Sunday Times today.’

  *

  ‘He kissed you!’ Gemma asked, eyes wide open, hangover forgotten.

  ‘Well, technically we kissed each other,’ I said. ‘But I think he started it.’

  ‘I want all the details,’ Gemma said.

  ‘Gemma, listen,’ I replied. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t come back to the reception last night. I should have let you know I was going to bed at least.’

  ‘Oh, to hell with that.’ She grinned at me. ‘Just tell me everything that’s going on with you and Tremayne.’

  ‘Let her have some privacy, Gem,’ Caitlin said kindly.

  ‘Well, are you seeing him again?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said quietly. The initial euphoria of the kiss was beginning to wear off and the reality of the situation was starting to hit me. What was happening? Where would it go? Could we really salvage what we used to have, particularly as neither of us had broached the subject of why we split up in the first place? I’d been thinking about ‘what if?’ for years and yet now it was here I had no idea what to do with it.

  ‘Are you seeing him again?’ Caitlin asked. ‘How did you leave things?’

  ‘He left the ball in my court,’ I replied. ‘He said he’d like to see me again but he understood if I didn’t phone him.’

  ‘But you will phone him,’ Gemma said, signalling a passing waiter to bring more coffee. ‘And everything will be as it should be.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘So much has happened.’

  ‘Did you talk about your illness at all?’ Caitlin asked, ever practical.

  ‘I told him I’d had glandular fever,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t tell him any more than that. I did tell him about the books.’

  ‘Really?’ Gemma said through a mouthful of crisps. ‘I thought you’d rather talk about being ill than your books. What made you tell him?’

  ‘Do you remember that game we used to play? Tell me something I couldn’t possibly know?’

  Gemma and Caitlin nodded. They’d played a few rounds of the game in their time.

  ‘Well, we were playing that, and it seemed like a good thing to trust him with. He’d read both of them and loved them too.’

  ‘It’s good that you trusted him with something,’ Caitlin said. ‘Do you think you’ll phone him?’

  ‘Of course she’ll phone him,’ Gemma said.

  Caitlin rolled her eyes and refilled her coffee cup. ‘Did he mention Camilla?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about Dan?’

  ‘Dan came into the conversation but I didn’t elaborate.’

  ‘I think,’ Caitlin began slowly, warily, ‘that you need to talk about your illness and you need to talk about Camilla and you need to tell Rupert about Dan. And I think that has to take priority over any more kissing or you’re just opening yourself up to a whole world of pain.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Gemma interrupted. ‘That’s all in the past.’

  ‘Maybe, but Rupert Tremayne broke her heart once before and it took years to pick up the pieces.’

  Part of me knew Caitlin was right. That we both needed to be honest with each other this time, practical, grounded. The benefit of age and hindsight had taught me that Rupert wasn’t to blame for what happened ten years ago any more than I was, but that didn’t mean we needed to make the same mistakes again.

  12

  JESS

  ‘What do you think, Mum?’ I asked.

  We were back in Highgate, sitting in the lounge with the French doors thrown open, the morning sunlight streaming in. Mum hadn’t asked me anything about the wedding the previous day, even though she’d seen me disappear with Rupert, and she hadn’t asked me why I’d spent all of Sunday morning whispering in a corner with Gemma and Caitlin, but I suspected she had a good idea what we were talking about. This morning I’d told her what had happened. I’d even told her about the kiss.

  ‘I think you know what I think,’ Mum said. ‘I think you owe it to yourself to give him a second chance.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can forget what happened.’

  Mum looked over at me then and paused. ‘What do you think happened?’ she asked.

  ‘He left me when Dad had just died,’ I said. My voice sounded too loud, too defensive. ‘He left both of us when we needed him most. He left to be with Camilla.’

  ‘Did he?’ Mum asked quietly. ‘Do you still believe that? Where’s Camilla now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, deflating a little. I wasn’t sure I believed the narrative I’d been telling myself for so long anymore anyway. Rupert always swore Camilla’s attentions were one-sided. It had been me who had doubted him back then. ‘We didn’t talk about her. Rupert told Gemma that he’d been single since before he came back from America.’

  ‘He didn’t mention her?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘And did you talk about Dan?’

  ‘Not really.’

  I heard Mum sigh. ‘What’s really stopping you from calling him?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m scared,’ I admitted. ‘I’m scared to tell him about everything that’s happened. I’m scared he might think less of me, that I’m not who I used to be.’

  ‘None of us are who we used to be,’ Mum replied. ‘He’s thirty-one now and I’ll bet life has taught him a few lessons too. And if he thinks less of you for what you’ve been through then he’s not the boy I used to know.’

  I knew Mum was right. I knew it was time to drop the old narratives of my life and try to create new ones.

  ‘Did he mention why he was in York at all?’ Mum asked.

  ‘He said he missed England and that it was a good career opportunity.’

  ‘It’s not exactly Cambridge or Harvard though is it? I think there’s more to that story.’

  ‘I did feel he was hiding something from me,’ I admitted.

  ‘Just as you are from him.’

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I wanted to tell Mum that it was different, that my holding back was somehow more acceptable than his. But I knew Mum would dismiss that for the nonsense it was.

  ‘Do you think I should call him?’ I asked instead, letting the jibe go. ‘Do you think it’s worth the risk?’

  It was Mum’s turn to sigh. ‘All good things are worth the risk,’ she said. ‘We both know he was the love of your life and I think he’s left you unable to fully commit to anyone else.’

  ‘Like Dad did to you,’ I said quietly.

  Mum paused for a moment. ‘People like Rupert Tremayne and your father don’t come around very often,’ she said quietly. ‘Rupert’s alive and well and for that you should be thankful. Take the risk, Jess, but for God’s sake be honest with each other.’

  Despite her poetry being evidence to the contrary, my mother is a huge romantic and believes in true love. My parents met late, after they were thirty. They married within a year and I came along two years after that. My father was the love of Mum’s life and she never got over his death, not really. Over the years Gemma and I had tried to encourage her to date but she was having none of it.

  ‘Your father was the only man for me,’ she’d say. ‘I’m not interested.’

  She seemed happy enough these days. She enjoyed her life and had friends and hobbies. Her poems were always in high demand and she seemed completely independent, so I left her to it.
/>   But she understood the feeling of believing there was only one person in the world for everyone, and over the years I’d often wondered if Rupert and I were the people for each other. And if we were, was I throwing away my big chance of happiness because I was too scared to tell him about what happened, about my illness, about the time after he left? Do those days even matter anymore? But Mum was right about one thing: he was carrying a secret of his own. I was absolutely sure Rupert lied to me when he told me that York had been a good opportunity. And I knew that I needed to know what his secret was.

  I took myself out into Mum’s rose garden and dialled his number.

  13

  RUPERT

  He had arrived back in York in the early hours of Sunday morning but had been unable to sleep when he got home. He had turned the events of Saturday night over and over in his mind on the train home. He thought about everything they’d told each other and everything they hadn’t. He hadn’t mentioned Camilla and he was surprised she hadn’t asked. He was sure there was something she wasn’t telling him about Dan, and that there was more to her illness than she was making out. But he hadn’t wanted to push anything and he suspected neither had she.

  He hadn’t planned to kiss her. Had it been too much? Would it push her away? But in the end, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. He knew she was hiding something, he knew that he was being economical with the truth himself, but he wanted to know if kissing her would feel the same as it used to do. It had, of course – it had felt exactly the same.

  He had never wanted to leave without her all those years ago and what she had said to him at Heathrow that morning had blindsided him, deepened the grief that was already tearing him in two. He hadn’t even known about Camilla going to Harvard as well, not until Jess had confronted him about it. She had never believed him though.