It Had To Be You: An absolutely laugh-out-loud romance novel

by Keris Stainton

  It was so lovely being home that I want to make time to get home more often. Plus Mum said she’s definitely going to sell the house – she wants to buy somewhere much smaller and, she says, simplify her life. I get it. But it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to that house. So many of my happiest times took place there.

  Matt says he’s coming down to London for work next month and we’re going to go out for lunch. We’re also going to try to phone each other more often. I realised this weekend how much I’ve missed him.

  I spend much of the train journey reminiscing and feeling sad about what we’ve lost as a family, what I’ve lost, what I thought I had – or was going to have – that just wasn’t real. But as the train pulls into Euston – when I look out of the window and see all the electric pylons, the tower blocks in the distance, the graffiti on the sidings – I realise that the life I have is the life I used to dream about.

  Coming back to London still gives me a thrill. Every time.

  * * *

  ‘We’re taking you out to dinner,’ Freya says when I get home. ‘I know you’re probably tired, but we all want to do this, so tough tits.’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ I say, laughing. But it is. So I hug her too.

  ‘Missed you,’ she says, into my hair. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah. It was actually really lovely.’

  ‘How’s your mum?’

  I don’t get to tell her because Henry joins us in the kitchen and immediately wraps his arms around both of us.

  ‘Oof,’ Freya says into my neck. ‘All right, Henry, I know you’ve been dying to get your hands on Bea, but what am I? Collateral damage?’

  Henry immediately lets go of both of us and crashes backwards into one of the units.

  ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I was only joking!’ Freya says, but her voice sounds weird. Henry’s gone bright red, which doesn’t surprise me, but I think Freya might actually be blushing too. I’ve never seen her blush. It’s weird.

  ‘Gonna go and get changed,’ Freya says and legs it. Huh.

  ‘So was your mum OK?’ Henry says. His face has calmed down a little but it’s still pink. I think he’s had his hair cut while I’ve been away. It’s shorter round the ears. It suits him.

  ‘Yeah. She’s amazing. I went to work with her one day. The shop’s great and she’s really good. The customers love her.’ I’m babbling. ‘How was work?’

  ‘Fine, yeah. I told head office you were away and they sent Craig in. So he was glad of the overtime.’

  I nod. ‘Good. Great. Yeah.’ Oh god. ‘Where are we going, do you know?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Oh, only the pub, I think. The Stag. But Adam’s paying – did Freya tell you? He got a bonus.’

  Adam works in IT consulting and none of us knows exactly what he does. But he earns really good money and every now and then he gets a bonus and takes us out for dinner. I haven’t paid for a meal for days now, it must be the secret upside of your parents’ marriage falling apart. Then again, I’m probably going to miss out on Christmas presents, so it will even out eventually.

  * * *

  It’s another nice evening so we sit outside the pub. When we moved here, this place was rough. Me and Henry came in one night after work and conversation stopped, like something from a Western, while everyone checked us out. And then went back to their pool and darts and staring up at some foreign football match on the TV above the bar. And then it closed for six months and reopened as a gastropub. Henry was against it at first – he said he liked the ‘authenticity’ of the original place. But then he tried the steak and chips and it won him over.

  The beer garden – or ‘patio garden’ as it is now – is lit with multicoloured bulbs hanging from the trees and heated with an open fire set into the wall. We pull two wooden tables together and arrange our chairs around and Adam goes to the bar and comes back with shots for everyone but Celine.

  ‘Bloody typical,’ she says, taking a small bottle of ginger ale from the tray.

  ‘So,’ Adam says. ‘Before we begin the festivities, Celine and I have an announcement.’

  ‘Celine’s pregnant!’ Freya says. ‘Oh wait, we knew that.’

  ‘You’re getting married!’ Henry laughs. ‘No, we knew that too…’

  ‘Shut up, dickheads,’ Adam says. ‘We’re moving to Southend.’

  ‘No!’ I say, before I can stop myself. Everyone looks at me. ‘I mean, I’m happy for you. If you’re happy?’ I look at Celine and she nods. ‘But I’ll miss you so much.’

  ‘It’s time,’ Celine says. ‘I know I said I couldn’t do it, but we can hardly raise a baby in that one room.’

  ‘Why have you stayed so long?’ Freya asks them. ‘You must’ve been able to afford somewhere bigger for a while.’

  Celine shrugs. ‘It’s fun. I love living with you lot.’

  My eyes fill with tears and Adam bumps my shoulder with his arm. ‘It was only ever meant to be temporary. But we got attached.’

  I shake my head. It’s way too early in the evening for me to be crying in the pub.

  ‘We did look into buying somewhere here,’ Adam says. ‘’Cos Cel wasn’t sure about the whole family at the seaside thing—’

  ‘But we looked at what we could get for our money here,’ Celine interrupts. ‘And what we can get there and… there’s no contest. And you can all come and visit.’

  ‘We definitely will,’ Henry says.

  ‘Of course we will,’ Freya confirms.

  I picture Celine and Adam and a baby in a big house by the sea. Everything’s changing.

  I pick up my glass of god-only-knows-what and hold it out to the others, who hold up their glasses too.

  ‘To happy endings,’ I say.

  Adam snorts.

  ‘And new beginnings,’ Celine adds. We crash our glasses together.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to look into that thing with your stepdad,’ Dan says, once we’ve been seated.

  We’re in The Diner again. I wasn’t sure about meeting here because it’s where we had our first date, but it was easy enough for us both to get to and I knew it was nice and also it means I can leave and get the Tube and be home pretty swiftly. After.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I tell him. Even though if he had looked into it, he could’ve given us a heads-up and we wouldn’t have been blindsided. But then again, I’m not sure any of us would have believed it.

  ‘I emailed a mate about it, but he didn’t get back to me. He always was a bit of a shiftless git, to be honest.’

  He’s holding the menu up in front of his face and half of me is glad, while the other half wants to pull it down, say ‘I’m sorry, this isn’t working for me,’ and do a runner.

  ‘What are you having?’ he says, smiling at me over the top of the menu.

  God, this is awful. He’s nice. He’s actually really nice. I picked him up in a park because I thought I saw him in a dream and he turned out to be nice. What are the chances? It would have been so much easier if he was an absolute dick and I spent ages trying to make him be what I wanted him to be, but no. He had to be nice. FML.

  ‘I’m not that hungry,’ I mumble, scanning the enormous menu. I can’t even seem to read anything. I force myself to slow down, put my finger on the ‘fries’ section. There are seven different types of fries. It shouldn’t be so hard to choose fries. ‘I think I’m just going to get the “diner fries”.’

  ‘You can’t just get fries!’ he says, from behind his menu. ‘You got meatloaf last time, right? Was it good? If I get that will you share it with me?’ His face pops up over the menu again. He looks open and eager and happy. It’s such a good face. I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat anything at all – my stomach’s churning – but I tell him yes, that sounds perfect.

  * * *

  ‘So have you had any news? About your stepdad?’ Dan asks, once our drinks have arrived, along with some nuts for the table. />
  I nod. ‘It’s not good. He’s been stealing from the business for ages, apparently. He’s borrowed against my mum’s house – I mean, it was their house, but—’ I stop as I see something out of the corner of my eye, outside the restaurant. It can’t have been, but… I lean forward and peer out of the window.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I hear Dan ask. ‘What’s happening?’

  I squint. Standing by a bike rack, waiting to cross the road, is, I’m pretty sure, Anthony.

  ‘Bea?’ Dan says.

  ‘Sorry, I’m just…’ I shuffle closer to the window so I can get a better view next time he turns his head. He’s looking left. He looks right and I’m up and on my feet and moving out of the restaurant before I even think.

  The road is busy, so Anthony’s still standing there and as I get closer I notice he’s taken out his phone and is glancing between the screen and the street. I have no idea what I’m going to say, but I know I have to say something. He disappeared once and there’s no way I’m going to let him disappear again.

  ‘Anthony,’ I say, once I’m almost level with him.

  He looks at me and I see confusion flicker across his face.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. He smiles. ‘Hi.’

  He looks exactly the same. He glances back down at his phone and then at the road again.

  ‘How’s things?’ he says, still smiling. I can’t believe he’s smiling at me, like he didn’t just fuck off and never contact me again.

  I stare at him. Actually, he doesn’t quite look the same. His blue eyes – the first thing I noticed about him – are small and underlined with bags. His skin is sallow and his forehead is either sweaty or greasy: strands of his dark hair are sticking to it. And then I realise something.

  ‘You have no idea who I am, do you?’

  ‘Um,’ he says, glancing left, back down to his phone, and then finally at me. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  I laugh. ‘It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine.’

  ‘I meet a lot of people,’ he says. ‘With work and—’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s fine, really. It was good to see you anyway. Have a nice life.’

  And then I turn back towards the diner.

  Why did I ever think he was a loss? Why did I ever waste even one minute wondering about him, trying to work out what I’d done wrong, trying to think if there was anything I could have done to stop him doing what he did? He actually did me a favour. And I am an idiot. Or I was. I’m not any more.

  * * *

  ‘Who was that?’ Dan asks, as soon as I sit down.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, reaching for my drink and guzzling some down. I felt completely confident while I was talking to Anthony, but now I’m shaking. ‘Ex-boyfriend. Dickhead. Sorry I just walked out.’

  ‘No, that’s OK. I was watching in case you needed me.’

  ‘You’re so lovely,’ I say. I have to tell him. I shake my head to try to clear my thoughts. My mind is racing with memories of Anthony; panting away on top of me in bed while not caring how it was for me, never phoning when he said he was going to, standing me up when I was planning to introduce him to Freya. The time we went to the theatre – to a play he said he wanted to see – and he left partway through without even telling me. I thought he’d gone to the loo and got worried when he didn’t come back. After the show, when there was no sign of him anywhere, I texted him and he replied

  Soz. Tired.

  I can’t believe I’ve been thinking about him – wondering what happened – for so long. What a waste. I can’t make that mistake again.

  ‘Dan,’ I say. ‘I need to tell you—’

  I’m interrupted by the waitress bringing our food. I’d forgotten how fast this place is. She puts my fries down in front of me and the meatloaf – and onion rings – in front of Dan.

  ‘Could we have another plate, please?’ Dan asks her. ‘We’re going to share.’

  He smiles at me and the waitress smiles at me and I feel like absolute shit.

  * * *

  We’ve finished the food and I still haven’t managed to tell him. I’ve missed half of the stuff he’s said because my brain has just been swimming with the words I need to say to him, getting louder and louder.

  ‘Want to go and get a drink in Covent Garden?’ he says, once we’ve paid.

  Again, he looks so bright and enthusiastic and I can’t say no. I should tell him now, here. I should tell him and go straight to the Tube. I can be in my bedroom watching something comforting – Moonstruck, maybe – in half an hour, if I’m lucky.

  ‘Sounds good,’ I say, like a fool.

  We walk up Neal Street and pass the shop where Dan bought me socks last time we were here. Anxiety curls in my stomach. I have to tell him tonight.

  ‘Before I moved to London,’ I say, as we walk, ‘I read something about Covent Garden in a book or a magazine – I can’t remember where – and I had this picture of it in my head: a square, surrounded by tall buildings, reddish buildings. At least one of them was a hotel – it had an awning out front, you know? Quite fancy?’

  Dan nods.

  ‘And in the middle of the square were benches and flowerbeds, grassy areas—’

  ‘Like the square where we met?’ Dan says.

  I wince. ‘Kind of. And then in the middle was a stone fountain. I think it was a flower. A tulip or a rose? Petals anyway. And the water coming up from the middle. I don’t know where I got this image from, but that’s the picture in my head even now when I hear Covent Garden. But it doesn’t exist. I made it up.’

  Dan laughs. ‘That’s brilliant. I wonder how you came up with it.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I tell him. ‘But it makes me a bit sad because I always want to go there. Even now, sometimes I’ll think to myself “Ooh, I’ll go and spend the day in Covent Garden. Sit in the square with a book…” And then I remember that I can’t.’

  ‘Well, you can still come to Covent Garden,’ he says, as we cross Long Acre by the Tube. ‘It’s pretty cool.’

  ‘It is,’ I say. ‘I love the market.’

  ‘I brought my parents here last Christmas,’ Dan says. ‘My mum was in her element. Thought I’d have to pick her up and carry her back to the hotel.’

  I smile at him. ‘My mum loves it here too.’

  ‘We should get them both to come down here one weekend. We could introduce them.’

  I can’t let this go on any longer. If I don’t end it now, Dan will invite his mum down and I won’t be able to say anything and then I’ll have to invite mine and they’ll love each other and I won’t be able to say anything, and the next thing I’ll be standing at the altar, wearing trainers under my wedding dress, and looking for a Fed-Ex truck and Richard Gere.

  ‘Dan…’ I say, stopping. We’re almost at the bottom of James Street. The market building is just in front of us. It’s busy – people are swerving around where we’ve caused a standing hazard in the middle of the street – and tourists are stopping to take photos of one of those living statues: a man painted gold and sitting in mid-air. A busker on the corner starts to play: Van Morrison’s ‘Someone Like You’.

  If this was a romcom, this would be the moment for a romantic declaration. Dan would get down on one knee maybe and everyone would gather round to watch, cameras at the ready. Or I would tell him that he was the man of my dreams, that I couldn’t live without him, and everyone would applaud, even the statue. But no. That’s not what I’ve got to say. Not even close. Someone like you. But not you. Oh god.

  ‘Dan,’ I say again. ‘You’re really great.’

  He’s still smiling at me. As if he has no idea what’s coming. This is why people chicken out. This is why they start to break up with someone and can’t go through with it. But I picture Anthony, not even recognising me, even though I look basically the same. I think I might even have the same coat. And I think about Henry looking at me that night with his dark eyes and his long eyelashes. And I think about being in bed with Dan and how wrong it felt. And I take a
deep breath and I say, ‘I’m really sorry.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ‘How did he take it?’ Freya asks.

  I got home to find Freya and Georgie on the sofa watching DIY SOS. Georgie was in tears (at the show) and Freya was mainlining Doritos.

  ‘He was… surprised,’ I tell them, pulling off my shoes and curling up in the armchair. ‘Disappointed.’

  ‘But he was OK about it?’ Freya asks, glancing at me and then back to the screen.

  ‘Yeah. He was fine. He’s a nice bloke.’

  I watch the TV for a bit, but my mind drifts back to Covent Garden. Dan’s face had dropped when I told him. He looked like a puppy. A kicked puppy. I came close to telling him it was a joke (‘Haha! Did you think I was serious? Your face!’) but instead, we hugged quickly and I legged it to the Tube. I looked back when I got there – I’d half-worried that he’d come and get the same Tube and we’d have to wait awkwardly on the platform together – but he’d already been swallowed up by the crowd.

  The voiceover in my head was in full effect on the way home. Not only telling me everything that had just happened, but also playing ‘All By Myself’ at full volume. I bought a bottle of wine on the way back from the station in the hope that that would drown it out long enough for me to get to sleep.

  ‘I saw Anthony,’ I say now, as Georgie wails ‘These people are so good!’ at the TV.

  ‘What?’ Freya says, turning her entire body towards me. ‘Seriously?’

  I nod. ‘He was outside the restaurant, waiting to cross the road.’

  ‘So you didn’t speak to him.’