‘Fuck me, Abi. Where’s my sparky girl gone? This isn’t you. You don’t wait around. You grab every opportunity by the balls.’ She stopped talking but I could see the wheels turning in her head. It caused a glassy-eyed, far away look that wasn’t just caused by the alcohol. ‘Do you love him?’
I stood up and backed the chair into the wall as I got myself a glass. Alcohol would help loosen up the knots in my shoulders. She held out the bottle and pressed her mouth together as I poured a large one.
‘Stupid question,’ she said as she answered it out loud. ‘I can tell with all the moping you’ve been doing.’ I raised an eyebrow above the glass in agreement. ‘Why don’t you surprise him? Get on a train and just turn up.’ She shrugged her shoulders like I wasn’t trying hard enough, not understanding the situation we had found ourselves in.
I sighed deeply. ‘It’s complicated. I’m not sure how things are. His mum is getting worse. He’s got so much to deal with and to get his head around. I can’t just turn up, not when things are so uncertain.’
‘Write that letter and tell him you’ve had enough. He needs to make his bloody mind up.’
‘You’re not helping!’ I shouted.
‘He’s a bloody idiot leaving you like this. What kind of a man does that?’
‘Don’t do that. Don’t talk shit about him. For a start, he didn’t leave me. He left to care for his mum. That’s what kind of man he is.’
‘I understand that, Abi, but at the same time, he didn’t have to end your relationship. He’s not the one dying, is he?’
I ignored her tactless comment and took another gulp of wine.
‘So carry on writing your letters.’
‘I will, thanks. Are you leaving now?’ I held up my glass in mock cheers.
‘Bravado should have been your middle name,’ she pouted. ‘You’re finding it so hard to write the letter because you aren’t telling him what you really feel.’
‘I don’t want to add to how crap things are for him at the moment,’ I replied as I rattled the pen on the table.
‘Pretend I’m Jamie.’
‘What?’ I said, almost choking on my wine.
‘Pretend I’m Jamie. If he was here right now, what would you say?’
I thought for a second. ‘I would tell him that I’m disappointed for so many reasons. I’d tell him I don’t want to lose him, but I understand. It’s just…I tried to ring him, Mum. He didn’t answer. I’ve waited for him to ask me to go to see him, but the invite hasn’t come. I thought he’d need me.’ Then the tears started and I gasped between sobs. ‘I want to tell him everything! I need to tell him how hard this is.’ Mum pulled my head to her shoulder and started stroking my hair back from my forehead. ‘I miss him so much. I just want to hold him.’ A mixture of tuts and shushes left her mouth. ‘What should I do? Give me some advice, Mum. Anything.’
‘You want my advice? Make him jealous. If he loves you and wants to make things work, when the time is right, he won’t like the thought of you out enjoying yourself.’
‘No, that’s a crap idea.’ I was losing patience. ‘I can’t do that to him. He’s there to care for his mum, not shag around. He isn’t like that,’ I said, shaking my head.
‘All men are like that, sweetheart. Believe me; I should know. Drop into your letters that you’ve had a few nights out and drop a few hints that men have been interested. Even go as far as to tell him you’ve met someone else.’
‘I’m not doing that. That would kill him.’
‘Would it? How do you know he isn’t doing that himself? Handsome young man like that.’
‘Stop it!’ I shouted, covering my ears with my hands. ‘He’s caring for his mum. That’s his main priority.’
‘He’s still going to have needs. Only so many times a man can wank off before he misses the real thing.’ Her words didn’t help. The actions she was making with her hands helped even less.
‘Just leave it, Mum. As per usual, you’re talking rubbish and not helping one tiny bit.’
‘I’m trying to help.’ I wanted to scream as she refilled her glass. ‘See it as a test. His reaction will tell you what he wants, sweetheart. We’ll deal with it together, good or bad.’
I tried not to let her words get to me, but it was fucking impossible. How long did I let this go on for? The constant waiting and hoping for a way back into his world was only leading to heartache and a worrying penchant for chocolate washed down with Pinot grigio.
How long could I put my life on hold? How long before he lost interest? The letters were already getting shorter and less frequent. Maybe we did need something to help push the decision I was dreading having to make.
After Mum went to bed, I sat through the night, the small table lamp illuminating the room as I picked up the pen and tried to get my feelings onto paper.
Three hours later, I was still there.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Abi
Then.
Jamie,
Happy birthday for Tuesday.
I’ve spent so long thinking about if it would be appropriate to send you a gift after you said not to, but I drove myself mad anyway trying to find something perfectly you. I found myself sitting on the steps overlooking the fountains. I sat there for an hour just thinking. I thought about us. I thought about the journey we’ve taken that led me to sitting on those steps and then to this moment.
I’ve agonised over writing this letter.
When I couldn’t come up with anything I thought you would love for your birthday, I actually considered buying a train ticket and turning up on your doorstep, imagining the reunion and hoping we could pick up where we left off. The more I think about it, the more I wonder why you’ve never asked me to come and see you or why you’ve been so strong in your belief that we’ll find each other again when the time is right. You’ve wobbled from time to time, often saying that you can’t fathom why we are apart. You’ve told me you’ve hungered for me, thought of nothing else but our bodies wrapped together like we were made for each other.
Three months have gone by since you left. Three months of torture. Three months of wondering if the knock on the door would be you after changing your mind and deciding you couldn’t live without me. No knock came, no invite, no real declaration of love. I waited for a reply to my phone calls. I hoped for a weekend visit where we could devour each other, accepting that we would be saying goodbye to each other before Monday rolled round.
Nothing came. Do you know how hard that’s been?
So much has changed between us. It makes me wonder if there is still such a thing as ‘us’ anymore.
This letter is your birthday gift because I’m letting you go. I’m calling off this arrangement that isn’t really an arrangement at all. It’s nothing really, apart from vast disappointment. It’s really not fair to either of us. We’re young and we have needs. I don’t mean that in just a sexual way. I mean that as humans, we crave the touch of other people, whether that’s a cuddle from a friend or a kiss on the cheek from a family member. We need human connections more than the few lines of a letter every week. I think it’s time to accept that and move on.
I can’t continue putting my life on hold when you don’t appear to have any intention of coming back into it. I can’t keep waiting, hoping with each letter that you’ll reach out and want me.
That’s why I need to tell you that I’ve met someone else. I wasn’t looking for anything and it’s very early days, but he’s here, which is more that can be said for you.
We had the vague idea of ‘if it’s meant to be, we’ll find our way back to each other’ but that wasn’t fair to either of us, was it?
I realise now, after weeks of waiting, that we’re not meant to be.
Please take this letter as permission for you to let me go.
Abi
Chapter Twenty-Six
Jamie
Then.
‘What’s the point of letters? Tell me that. Letters are fucking re
dundant. Letters deserve a place in a fucking museum for examples of shitty communication.’
‘What’s he rambling on about?’ Mark said as he banged the fuck out of my shoulder with his shovel hands, jerking my groin into the curve of the bar.
‘I haven’t a clue. Something about letters,’ Clara replied with a laugh. ‘I can only imagine he’s suddenly realising the horror that is instant communication and its place in twenty-first century social work.’
‘Don’t get him on the subject of letters. Touchy subject,’ Mark said, scrunching his face and downing half of his pint of Guinness.
‘Do you want to say any more?’ I asked with a leave it there stare.
It had been three days since Abi’s letter. Three days of torture. Three days of drowning my sorrows in alcohol. It was the only way I could forget. I was angry at first. Angry at Abi. Mainly for taking the step forward that I had been dreading since I left.
Seeing someone else.
I was angry that she hadn’t held on, that what we had wasn’t enough to keep her with me even if it was only through a letter every week. But how could I be angry with her? Who carried out a relationship through letters? Angry was the only way to cover it. I was angry that it was the only letter she hadn’t signed with our infinity symbol. I was angry with Mum, believing that if I hadn’t felt the unwavering need to care for her through her battle with cancer, I would still be sleeping with Abi beside me. How was that her fault?
Fucking hell, Dawson.
Alcohol helped. It helped me forget I was an arsehole.
Every time I downed a whiskey, it was like tipping a glass of water over the tiny flicker of spark in my heart, essentially putting it out, numbing every part of me and the pain of realising that I’d been the one to set us on the road to separation. Not Abi, not my mum, and not the cancer that was eating away at her.
The day I walked away, believing I was the good guy for letting her go, was the day we lost our way, the day I forced us to lose our way. I wasn’t the good guy who knew it would be easier for us both to finish it. I was the bad guy who just couldn’t let her go completely. Selfishly, I tried to keep a link through the only form of communication that I thought wouldn’t give false hope when I didn’t know if there was anything to be hopeful for.
Fucking, shitting, pissing letters.
‘Come on, mate. It’s your birthday. Cheer up. Have you seen how many people have turned up tonight?’ Mark said, turning to the crowd in the bar.
‘I don’t give a flying fuck. The one person who should be here isn’t.’
‘Aww, Jamie, that’s so sweet, but you need to relax tonight. Stop worrying about your mum. She wants you to enjoy yourself, ’ Clara said, putting her hand on my shoulder, which I shrugged off with a roll.
‘Pass me a fucking beer.’ I was pissed that she had totally missed the point.
I took the first swig, pulling back my top lip in disgust. Beer was never my first choice drink to obliteration. Whiskey normally did the trick, but tonight I didn’t care. I would have drunk anything if it helped me forget at a quicker pace.
I noticed Mark put his arm around Clara’s shoulders, kissing her neck and causing a flit of giggles.
‘So when did this happen?’ I asked, pulling my head back in disbelief. Mark had always had a thing for Clara, but after many near misses, they had never made it as a couple. Clara smiled and shrugged whilst Mark gave me the biggest shit-eating grin.
‘It hasn’t, but I’m hoping it will tonight.’
‘Fuck me. Even my best mates are getting it on.’ I was swaying and feeling more than worse for wear, and it was only 9 p.m. I shook my head and took off. Mark followed me to the other side of the bar.
‘Listen, you’ve got it made here. You have a great job and you’re caring for your mum. That’s always been so important to you. You have mates that give a fuck and think the world of you. Isn’t that enough? She’s obviously realised that you can’t make long distance relationships work. Why the hell should she wait for you when you have no fucking plans to go back? I’m surprised it’s taken her so long.’
‘Three months. It’s only taken her three months to find someone else.’
‘Like I said, why the fuck should she wait for someone who told her he wasn’t going to ring or text? You made no plans to see each other and had no discussions about the future. What did you tell her would happen when your mum isn’t around anymore?’
‘Do you think I want to talk about that?’ I said, slugging back the beer.
‘I’m sorry, mate. I just need you to see it from her point of view. How fair was it on her, huh? You might as well have left her a vibrator with a picture of your face stuck to it and said knock yourself out whenever you feel lonely.’
‘Fuck you. You don’t know anything about us.’
‘I know she’s had the sense to move on,’ he said, pushing his finger into my chest. ‘You can’t hold a girl like Abi back.’
I pushed him back and looked him square in the eye before stalking back to the bar ready to order a whiskey. I faintly heard him shouting something about it being a joke and that he was sorry he went too far, but I couldn’t look at him. Apart from Mum, he was the only person who had the balls to tell me the truth. I’d been side stepping it for the last three months.
Clara sat down on an empty barstool beside me. We’d been friends for years after meeting at uni when I stumbled across her eating her bodyweight in crisps in the canteen because she was homesick. She was an Irish bombshell, all flowing red hair and long legs, and I would happily admit that the main reason I sat with her that day was because I was interested in taking her back to my room and fucking her homesickness away. We seemed to have a mutual appreciation for uncomplicated hook-ups, but I never found my way into her bed. Once friendship had taken over, I didn’t want to lose that friendship for a quick shag.
‘Hey, what was all that about?’
‘Nothing a whiskey won’t cure,’ I said, raising my glass and pushing it forward to her in mid-air. ‘Cheers.’
‘What do you think to me and Mark then?’
‘I’m not surprised. It was bound to happen eventually. He’s been admiring you for years. Good luck to you,’ I said a little too blandly. I really didn’t give a fuck about other people’s happiness.
‘He needs to stop thinking it’s a sure thing,’ she smiled.
‘Don’t tell him that. He’ll probably put you in a headlock to make sure you leave with him tonight.’
‘I think he’s a softy under that grizzly bear rugby charade. He has to keep up the pretence, doesn’t he? But I’ve seen him at work. Give him a toddler to act as a corporate parent to and he’s mush.’
‘He’s more koala bear than grizzly bear,’ I said.
‘You need to slow down or you’ll need a chaperone to take you home.’
‘Clara, either join me in obliteration or stop the lectures. I’m not in the mood tonight,’ I said pulling out my wallet from my back pocket. ‘I’ll order you another wine.’ The barman walked closer. ‘I’ll have a whiskey, mate. No. Wait. A jug of Pimm’s.’ A pain hit me in the chest as I handed over the money.
‘What’s got into you tonight? Drowning your sorrows? Trying to forget reality?’ Clara asked, arching her eyebrow.
‘Something like that.’
‘That means only one thing. It’s a woman, isn’t it?’ I nodded once and took another drink. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘I’m not in the mood. In fact, I think I should go home. I’m beginning to smell the alcohol escaping through my pores. That’s a good time to stop.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a girl in your life?’ Clara asked as I stood to leave. I caught glimpses of myself in the mirror behind the bar obscured by bottles of the hard stuff. I knew I had to admit that I was the one that let Abi go after holding her in my hand for so long. She had prized my fingers open and was saying goodbye.
I looked at Clara, who was taking a sip of her wine.
&
nbsp; ‘I don’t have a girl in my life,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Not anymore.’
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Abi
Now…
Almost two years after Jamie left.
After my encounter in the kitchen with Jamie, still unable to believe he was my new manager, I left the office in a flurry of upset to the sound of slamming doors. I had nowhere to be except there—the embankment.
The embankment provided still, calm waters to cleanse away the bad thoughts that had perished the good. This place held memories for all of us. It had captured conversations in the sweeping wind and pounding rain. The searing summer heat had grasped our laughter, and the first flurries of winter snow had caressed our tears. I’d been going there for years. Every emotion had been on display in the beautiful gardens, the steps on the riverbank, under the bandstand, outside the café with the girls eating ice creams to cool ourselves down in the heat, or clutching soup in Styrofoam cups to warm ourselves up from the cold.
Elle and I would complete our coursework sitting on a tartan blanket eating crisps and laughing about Elle’s crush on her practice tutor. She would stroke my back as we sat by the water, encouraging me to talk through my sobs after Jamie left. Jamie lingered here too. Laughter, passion, care and love had turned into despair and desperation on my part, clinging on to him, deep hurt causing wounds that never seemed to heal or fade.
He’s here. He’s back. He’s going to be my manager and I’m going to throw myself in the water and hope it takes me away on the high tide.
I’d stared at him all morning. I’d taken in the small talk. I’d breathed in the scent of his skin that hadn’t changed since the last time I was close to him—standing on the train platform with my arms around his waist saying goodbye.
He was dressed in a suit with a red tartan Burberry scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. He had his own style; so cool and laid back, the opposite of the nervous energy I’d seen when he’d walked back into my life that morning. He’d always looked amazing, even when he’d pull on an old t-shirt taken from the washing basket because he hadn’t got round to doing the laundry. The scarf had tormented me with its closeness to his skin. I really didn’t want to think about what that meant for my mental health. Anyone else would look like they were being slowly strangled to death, but he looked like a model with a lifelong contract.
Let Me Be Your Hope (Music and Letters Series Book 2) Page 13
