The Life We Almost Had

by Amelia Henley

  I didn’t know what to say. He’d only take the piss if I told him that if I could, I’d give her everything, I’d unhook the moon. Unscrew the stars that didn’t shine as brightly as her. I’d give her the entire universe. If I could.

  ‘Yeah. She’s all right, I suppose,’ I said, lacing up my trainers.

  ‘Don’t fall in love, you big twat.’ He shoved me hard on the shoulder.

  I didn’t tell him that I already had.

  Anna was breathtaking in a long turquoise dress that floated around her ankles; ethereal and angelic and too good for me, a scruffy oik who hadn’t even packed a pair of trousers or shoes. No wonder Roxanne had berated me for my lack of fashion sense.

  ‘For old times’ sake.’ I tucked a pink bougainvillea into her hair. ‘Ready, Señorita.’ I crooked my arm and she tucked hers through mine.

  We split the bill after too much paella and Limoncello and plum tart – our final dinner mirroring our first. Anna always insisted on paying her own way. While she used the bathroom in the restaurant, I bought a bottle of house red and the waiter threw in two plastic cups.

  Anna linked her arm through mine. We automatically headed towards the cove. We didn’t speak. It was the last time we would tread this route together and I wanted to savour every moment.

  At the end of the walkway, Anna’s eyes flickered to the padlocks, the way they had every evening since our first.

  ‘I have something for you. For us.’ From my pocket I pulled out a lock and a marker pen.

  ‘A love lock!’ She looked at me uncertainly.

  ‘A friendship lock.’ Her face fell and I mentally kicked myself. ‘Anna, I…’

  Don’t fall in love, you big twat. Josh had said. He was right. It was the wrong time for me. For her. Impractical.

  Shit.

  ‘It’s a lovely thought, Adam.’ She took the lock from my hand. ‘To symbolize our… friendship. What should I put?’

  ‘How about just “Adam & Anna”?’ Our names fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

  Anna took her time, writing in cursive script, before clipping the lock onto the chain.

  ‘Adam…’ Her eyes met mine. They glistened with tears.

  I felt helpless. Useless.

  ‘Anna, I…’ I stroked her cheek with the back of my fingers. She gave a tiny shake of her head before forcing a smile.

  ‘Last one onto the beach buys breakfast tomorrow at the airport.’ She sprinted away from me, leaving me fumbling with the wine and glasses before I could follow.

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair!’

  Ahead of me, she laughed. The stretch of her arms, the vibrancy of her dress, reminded me of the bird I had unchained. For a nanosecond I contemplated leaving her there and then. Preserving this as my last memory of her. Happy and free.

  Instead, I chased her. Making a production of swiping my hands towards her but each time letting her slip through my fingers.

  Eventually, we flopped onto the damp sand. I unscrewed the bottle of wine and we raised a silent toast.

  Unlike previous evenings we were quiet. It wasn’t the time for talking.

  After we’d drained the bottle of wine, we flopped back on the sand. She rolled onto her side to face me. My thumb stroked hers and somehow that was enough. We didn’t make love. Not that time. We’d tried that on the beach and decided we were better off in the apartment. It really wasn’t as romantic as it looked in the movies. Sand gets everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It was an experience neither of us were in any rush to repeat. We must have dozed because when we woke, the sky was turning from black to grey to pink. My eyes held hers, imparting all of the things I wanted her to know. All the things I couldn’t say.

  The static of hope crackled in the air, invisible to the naked eye but palpable nevertheless. I brushed it aside.

  It was time to say goodbye.

  Chapter Seven

  Anna

  The turquoise maxi dress I had bought from the tiny boutique in the hotel reception fitted me perfectly, worth the last of my euros. It was our last night and I could hardly bear it. During the past ten days Adam had built up my confidence brick by brick and I was afraid my newly found self-esteem would crumble to dust once he’d gone. We hadn’t discussed whether we’d keep in touch. I didn’t want to. Soon, he would be travelling the world, meeting new people and if his texts tapered off, it would hurt all over again to think he had forgotten me. I’d rather say a clean goodbye and be left with the illusion that he was thinking of me.

  Always thinking of me.

  The way I knew I would think of him.

  I painted on a pink gloss smile, determined not to ruin our last few precious hours together with melancholy and regret.

  I didn’t regret anything.

  It was best for both of us to go our separate ways. Imagine if I asked Adam to stay and he said yes and he resented me for it one day – and that’s if he said yes.

  If.

  Such a small word but it contained so many possibilities. My mind couldn’t help time-travelling to a future where Adam and I were married, two children, a rose-covered cottage, but it was nothing but a daydream. Even if we wanted to see each other again, how would it work? We lived four hours apart and in truth, we might not feel the same about each other once back in the real world. I gazed out of the window at the speck of glittering sea visible between apartments. This was not the real world. This was not my real life.

  For the first time in days I opened Facebook. At the top of my news feed was an update from my ex – Living the Dream – and a photo of him and Sonia raising glasses of fizzing champagne as they shared a meal. His plate was laden with meat and roast potatoes. On hers, a salad. I felt… I enlarged the photo to see if I was mistaken, but I wasn’t. I felt nothing but relief that I was no longer trying to be someone I wasn’t. Without hesitating I clicked Unfriend because I knew with certainty that we were never friends, not like me and Adam. That was how a relationship should be: honest and fun. In the future I wouldn’t settle for anything less.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Nell burst from the bathroom. A tiny white towel wrapped around her middle, arms and legs golden.

  ‘Moving on,’ I grinned, turning off my phone.

  ‘Glad to hear it. You’re okay then, with this being the last night?’

  ‘Yes.’ I was sad but glad I’d met Adam. ‘Nell, are you sure you don’t want me to have dinner with you tonight?’

  ‘Nah. I couldn’t get in the way of love’s young dream.’

  ‘It isn’t love.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Nell stood behind me. Her eyes found mine in the mirror. ‘There’ll be a way to make it work, Anna. If you want to.’

  If.

  ‘It’s been lovely. Just what I needed. A holiday romance.’

  ‘We both know it’s more than that. You’re not the type for a quick fling. Life’s too short, Anna. You know that. Don’t let him slip through your fingers.’

  ‘It’s a rebound. I should have been married now.’ But she knew me better than that.

  ‘Anna.’ Nell waited until I put the mascara wand back in its tube. My gaze met hers. ‘I never once saw you look at that tosser the way you look at Adam. It’s the first time I’ve seen you smile properly since you lost your dad.’

  In the mirror her eyes glistened with tears. Mine did too.

  Dinner was paella for old times’ sake. During the meal I turned over Nell’s words in my mind. Should I fight for Adam? For us? I just didn’t know if he felt the same. He was quieter than usual on our walk to the cove. We both were.

  ‘Anna,’ he said as we reached the fence. ‘I’ve got something for you. For us.’ He pulled a padlock out of his pocket.

  ‘A love lock!’

  ‘A friendship lock.’ He said and then I understood. He was letting me go. Disappointment was a bitter pill but I forced a smile, imprinting our names upon the padlock before clicking it onto the fence. I felt him watching me. I raised my head. He was standing in front of a
backdrop of sea. The setting sun casting a burned orange halo around his head. No matter what, I would never forget him. No matter what happened tomorrow and everything after this August, I still had this. Him. Now. I was going to savour every last painful minute. It wasn’t an evening for sadness. One thing I’d learned during my time with Adam was that it felt good to be happy. We’d laughed so much together and I was grateful for that. Suddenly I was thankful for the time we’d had, the time we still had, rather than dwelling on the ending of us.

  ‘Last one on the beach buys breakfast tomorrow at the airport,’ I called out, racing ahead, trailing my joy behind me like a kite.

  Once I’d let him catch me, we sat drinking cheap wine that tasted like vinegar. As the sun dipped and the sky darkened, I was comfortably drunk.

  We lay entwined, my fingers creeping under his T-shirt, feeling the softness of his stomach. Tracing the birthmark on his forearm that resembled a map. Wanting to remember it all.

  Everything.

  Eventually, we dozed on the damp sand. Our bodies always tangled together; even when we rolled over, we automatically adjusted ourselves so we were never apart. His hand on my hip. My arm stretched backwards, touching his thigh.

  Adam was still asleep when I woke up. I studied him. Committing his features to memory, an image I could revisit at any time.

  The pale sun rose, diluting the darkness, threading pink and gold through the muted sky as night leached silently into day.

  Our last day.

  Time to say goodbye.

  Chapter Eight

  Adam

  The driver hefted our suitcases into the coach hold. I took a last, lingering look at the hotel. Its whitewashed facade, the brightly coloured flowers in terracotta pots. It didn’t seem possible I’d been here for two weeks. I could barely remember the first four days without Anna. My holiday started when she had arrived.

  It felt like my life had started when she had arrived.

  I watched her climb onto the coach with Nell, and I followed with Josh. Already there seemed a distance between us. If my last memory of us had been me watching her as she had gazed in wonder at the rising sun, it would have been a lovely memory to hold on to.

  The airport was light and bright and full of too many people. We queued for check-in. We queued for passport control. We queued for coffee. Nobody was hungry.

  We sat, the four of us, until the tannoy announced the gate was open for me and Josh.

  ‘Time to go, Ad.’ Josh stood, scraping his chair back. We all rose and then there was a flurry of elbows and noses that bumped as we hugged and kissed, wishing each other a safe trip.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be goodbye,’ Nell unexpectedly whispered into my ear.

  ‘Adam. We need to shift,’ Josh said but I didn’t move. I couldn’t. What had Nell meant? Had Anna said something?

  The desire to sweep Anna into my arms and declare eternal love was overpowering. I could feel Josh glaring at me and I knew what he was thinking.

  He was thinking I was a twat.

  ‘Anna…’

  Her eyes met mine. Her lashes coated with unshed tears. There was nothing I could say to make it easier.

  The realization that I would never again feel the shape of her name on my tongue made my throat close.

  I couldn’t let her go.

  I wouldn’t.

  The announcer was calling for us to board but it sounded so far away because now the world was only made up of her and me. Josh was swatting our boarding passes against his thigh impatiently, but everything felt inconsequential.

  Everything but her.

  The thought that I could stand back and watch her walk out of my life seemed as ludicrous as trying to fight against the tide, so instead I let go of rational thought and allowed myself to sink into the possibility of what might be.

  I took her hand.

  ‘I’d like to see you. Again. I’d like to see you again very much.’ My voice cracked with nerves. ‘What I’m trying to say is that this should be the end but I don’t want it to be. The end, I mean.’

  ‘But what about your plans? Travelling?’ She searched my eyes for clarity.

  ‘The world will still be there if I don’t go for another month, another year even. Or you could come with me? It would be an adventure.’

  I held my breath while I waited for her answer.

  Chapter Nine

  Anna

  The heat hit me. I climbed out of the air-conditioned coach, jealousy twisting in my gut as a clutch of new arrivals spilled pasty and hopeful from the airport, exclaiming how gorgeous the weather was. It was unfair to the other tourists to wish that it was raining but it would have felt fitting. As though some higher force greater than Adam and me was feeling the same sorrow I felt. But above us blue skies stretched lazily; the only black cloud was the knowing it had come: the inevitability of goodbye.

  We perched on hard chairs, our carry-on luggage shoved under the table, and sipped at bitter coffee.

  I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. The past ten days had been the best ten days of my life. The thought that my time with Adam, which had felt like everything to me, might someday fade to nothing was excruciating.

  The tannoy called for Adam and Josh to board. He stood. Soon he’d be walking away from me. In my head I tried out the idea of a life without him but it was too painful. I blinked back unshed tears. I wouldn’t cry.

  I wouldn’t.

  There was a round of hugs. Kisses. And then something else.

  Amongst the symphony of airport sounds – the tinny speakers, the wheeling of suitcases, the whine of tired children – I heard it. The whisper of possibility.

  ‘I’d like to see you. Again,’ Adam said. ‘I’d like to see you again very much.’ His palm was damp in mine. ‘What I’m trying to say is that this should be the end but I don’t want it to be. The end, I mean.’

  ‘But what about your plans? Travelling?’ Did he mean after he’d returned? I wasn’t sure.

  ‘The world will still be there if I don’t go for another month, another year even.’

  It was everything I wanted until he said, ‘Or you could come with me? It would be an adventure.’

  Instantly, I tried to break free of his hold. ‘I… I can’t.’ I tried not to cry. ‘I don’t feel the same way.’

  He held onto me tightly and studied my face.

  ‘Anna, if you tell me you don’t want to see me anymore, I’ll go. But if you don’t want to travel because you want to stay close to your mum, then I’ll stay.’

  My throat contracted. How could it be that he knew me so well, but how could I ruin his plans? His trip?

  ‘I want to stay. I want to meet your mum,’ he said. ‘I want to hear more about your dad. All you need to do is say yes.’

  Tears came and this time I didn’t try to hold them back. ‘Yes,’ I whispered and then louder, ‘Yes!’

  I leaped into his arms, not a flicker of doubt that he’d buckle under my weight. Knowing with certainty that he’d always catch me.

  My heart was bursting, singing with happiness and hope. Singing so loudly other passengers stopped and smiled at the couple so smitten with each other that there wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t touching a part of him. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her face buried in his neck as he spun her around. We were that couple. Unselfconscious and unashamed. In that moment our love was absolute. Our hopes for the future circular, no beginning and no end. Just the unequivocal knowledge that whatever life threw at us, there would always be an us.

  I never thought of a time we wouldn’t be together. As he spun me around, I felt dizzy with joy. Now I’m dizzy with sorrow. If we had known what lay ahead, would we have done it anyway?

  I’m not sure that we would.

  Chapter Ten

  Adam

  ‘You look like shit.’ Josh stood behind me. I was trying to shave with an unsteady hand. In a few hours I’d have to face Anna Adlington. Explain my shabby behaviour.


  I studied my reflection. Ten months ago in Spain my skin had tanned to a warm brown, now it was pale. Washed out. Dark bags bruised the skin beneath my eyes, a deep furrow of anxiety between my eyebrows. Pieces of tissue speckled my chin where I’d nicked myself with the razor, the blood seeping through.

  I felt like shit too. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept properly.

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you today?’ Josh rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘I can drive and then leave you to it. You’re knackered and it’s a long way.’

  I shook my head. Four hours. There were four hours between Anna and me. On a good day I could make the journey in three hours forty-eight. On a particularly bad day it took almost five. The distance between us was a problem. With my eyes burning with tiredness and my bones aching to rest, it seemed ridiculous now we’d ever thought that it wouldn’t be.

  We couldn’t always see each other every weekend because I had to work one Saturday in four. When we were together, Anna was often marking or planning future lessons and when she took a break it wasn’t all spontaneous, rampant sex like it should be in the first throes of a relationship. Anna living with her mum meant we didn’t get as much privacy as I’d have liked. Don’t get me wrong, Mrs Adlington – Patricia – was lovely. Despite still carrying the shell-shocked look of grief that she’d lost her husband when he was only forty-nine, and the burden of caring for her own mother who was showing signs of dementia, she was kind and funny and had welcomed me with open arms. Often Patricia would stay at her mum’s on a Saturday night, giving me and Anna some alone time but it wasn’t the same – trying to relax on an unfamiliar cream sofa that I couldn’t eat or drink on, surrounded by an unhealthy amount of cat ornaments, photos of Anna’s dad staring down at us from the walls. Sometimes I just wanted my own flat. My own sofa. Eating a chicken korma in front of the TV instead of having to sit at the table, but Anna didn’t drive and the travel fell on my shoulders, which were stiff with exhaustion.

  The ‘us’ of Alircia, who’d talked and laughed and lived, were unrecognizable to the people we had become. We had thought we could beat the statistics, and in a way we had. There’s less than a 50 per cent chance of couples staying together in a long-distance relationship, and out of those couples who don’t make it, the average time they were together was four and a half months. We’d made it to ten so that was a win of sorts.