The Story of Us

by Dani Atkins

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that I want you guys to get back together so badly. There’s been so much awful in our lives, I just want there to be a happy ending.’

  ‘Maybe this story just doesn’t have one,’ I said sadly. ‘You can’t force me to change my mind about Richard, or forgive him, or trust him again. Nor can you thrust me into a one-night stand, hoping it will make me appreciate everything I once had. I know what I had, and I also know that for now, those feelings have gone.’

  ‘But not for ever, surely? In time …’

  I reached for the car door and opened it. ‘Richard isn’t a bad man,’ I said, finally acknowledging the truth that had been following me around like a shadow for days, ‘he’s a good man who did a very, very bad thing.’

  I was nervous as I drove, which if I stopped to think about it was kind of ridiculous. The meeting was my idea; it was long overdue and important things had to be said. The choice of venue… well, that one wasn’t down to me.

  I parked my car in the small car park, glancing around at the numerous empty bays surrounding me. Good. No one else was here. At least we could talk undisturbed. I pulled on a warm jacket and wound a long soft scarf around my neck before getting out of my car. It was late April, but still cool.

  My feet crunched noisily on the gravel path. There were rows of bright red tulips lining the path, standing and swaying in the slight breeze like a military guard of honour marking my route. I smiled a little at the fanciful notion and then sobered as I rounded the corner and saw that I was almost there. My heart began to beat faster and my mouth suddenly felt way too dry to summon even a greeting, much less speak of all the things I knew would have to be said today.

  I left the path and watched my boots instantly disappear from view in the grass which, even this early in the season, had begun to grow. I walked on, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on my feet slicing through the brilliant green blades, rather than on my destination. I drew to a halt and finally raised my eyes. I reached into the deep pocket of my jacket, allowing my fingers to fold around the item I had placed there before leaving home. I pulled it out and finally, I spoke.

  ‘Hi, Amy. I got your letter.’

  The breeze fluttered the single sheet in my hand, like a white flag of surrender. It was a good analogy. I took a step closer to the headstone and brushed away a smudge of dirt that was marring the pristine perfection of the white marble. Not that Amy would have worried. Housekeeping had never been her forte. The thought made me smile and relax in a way I had believed it would be impossible to do in this place.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit down?’ I asked Amy, as I dropped to the ground beside her final resting place. The grass was a little damp and I could already feel it seeping through the denim of my jeans. But a little discomfort was a small price to pay.

  The flowers Caroline had laid here on her last visit had withered and died, and I reached out to remove them from the place where our friend lay.

  ‘So, I bet you’re surprised to see me here today? I don’t blame you. A few weeks ago this would have been the last place on earth I wanted to be.’ The wind swirled in a small restless eddy, blowing the hair from my face. ‘I guess you probably think the same thing,’ I added, smiling slightly. I had to believe that in this world or the next Amy would have retained her sense of humour. It was one of the things I had always loved most about her. The thought pulled me up short, like a match being struck in the darkness, allowing me a brief glimpse of the truth before it fizzled out. I did love Amy. Alive. Dead. Friend. Confidante. Bridesmaid and Betrayer. I loved her regardless. I always had done, and I always would.

  I smoothed out her letter, laying it over my crossed legs. Random words and snatches of sentences caught my eye as my fingers swept over the page, flattening out the creases. … beyond sorry… biggest mistake… forgive us… I stared down silently at Amy’s last message to me. I didn’t need to read it again, I’d already memorised every word.

  ‘It’s a good letter,’ I said, directing my comment to the ground below the marble plinth. ‘A couple of spelling mistakes here and there… but I can forgive you those,’ I joked. Amy’s grasp of grammar and spelling had always been somewhat haphazard and creative. I slid my fingers across the grass until they grazed against the gravestone marking her existence and departure from the world. ‘That’s not all I forgive you for, Amy.’

  I paused for a long moment, desperate to hear more than just the rustling leaves or my own breathing. I didn’t believe in ghosts, or the hereafter, but I would have given anything at that moment to see her, hear her and touch her. I closed my eyes and saw her face in my mind; she was smiling and her beautiful blue eyes were alight with laughter and life.

  ‘Oh Amy, I miss you so much.’

  Amy waited patiently for me to hunt for a tissue in my bag before I felt able to continue. I blew my nose noisily, and then crazily apologised out loud to my lost friend and her neighbours. No one seemed to mind.

  ‘So, I came here today to tell you it’s okay. It really is. I know you thought I already knew about… about what happened with you and Richard. But I guess you probably know now that he never told me anything. You can see everything from… over there… can’t you?’ I was stretching my own beliefs to the absolute limit here, but for myself as much as Amy, I had to trust that somehow and somewhere she could hear my words.

  ‘Things are much clearer now, now I’ve had time to think them through. I know you never for a moment intended to hurt me… or Richard… in any way. You’d never do that to me, I know that. But it happened, and I think I know why. You loved him, didn’t you? You loved him too.’ Somewhere I imagined the spirit of Amy gasping at my revelation. ‘Perhaps I always knew there was something… just a hint maybe, that you liked him. Well, maybe more than liked. Not that you ever acted on it when we were dating. But when I left, when I told Richard that I thought we’d reached the end of our story. Well… I can’t blame you. And I was gone for so many years. Years he spent waiting for me, and all the time you were waiting for him.’ A small sob escaped me, sounding raw and broken. ‘God what a waste. What a mess we made of everything.’

  Amy didn’t argue.

  ‘And then, after all that time, he finally saw you. The real you. How did that feel, Amy? Did you feel guilty because of me? You shouldn’t have. I’d told him I was never coming back. I never wanted him to wait for me. But he did, didn’t he? I wish you’d had someone to share it with. But you couldn’t speak of it to anyone, could you? Not even Caroline.’

  A magpie swept down from the sky, startling me when it landed on the grass beside me. One magpie, just one: one for sorrow. The black-and-white intruder fixed me with a long and knowing stare, and just for a second I imagined it understood everything I was saying. Stupid. I shivered and the spooked bird took to the sky once more before disappearing into the trees on silent sweeping wings.

  ‘And then I came back. I hadn’t wanted to, I think we all knew that. But Mum needed me… and Dad needed me more. And Richard was there, and it was all so easy, and comfortable, to slide right back into things all over again. That must have really killed you, mustn’t it—’ I gasped in shock as I realised what I’d said.

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologised to my friend and those in the surrounding plots. ‘Terrible choice of words. But I know now how much it must have hurt you. You were so close, so almost where you wanted to be, with the person you always wanted to be with. And then, it was all gone. Snatched away from you.’

  I paused, wondering if I should continue with what I was about to say. Amy had always been a good listener, and these days her ability to keep a secret wasn’t even in question.

  ‘I know mistakes can happen when you follow your heart, like they did that night with you and Richard. I understand that… because it’s happening to me too. Well, not exactly the same thing, of course, but I’ve got myself tangled up in something that’s not going to end well. It can’t. And now I understand a little of what you must have been feeling. B
eing close enough to touch the thing you want, and knowing all the while that it’s never going to be yours.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any advice for me on this one, have you?’ I asked her sadly, as a single tear trickled down my cheek and landed with an audible plop on Amy’s letter. The solitary sparkling jewel of moisture had settled, of all places, squarely over her looping familiar signature. It felt like a sign, but if it was, I didn’t know what it meant.

  I smiled sadly. ‘Guess I have to figure this one out on my own, huh?’ I asked my silent friend.

  Slowly I unfurled my legs and rose to a crouch beside Amy’s marble headstone. I reached out and gently traced the gold edged carving of each letter of her name with my fingers, as though I was saying goodbye in Braille. I leaned in and laid my lips against the cool marble of her name, feeling closer to her at that moment than I had done since the night when we’d lost her.

  ‘Everything is all right with you and me, Amy. There’s absolutely nothing you need to worry about. Sleep peacefully my beautiful friend.’

  THE END

  PART FOUR

  I looked away from the mirror when I heard the opening of the bedroom door. Caroline’s head popped through the gap.

  ‘Hi, sweetie, how are you doing?

  I smiled; just seeing her familiar face calmed me. ‘I’m fine,’ I assured her, although the pulse beating visibly at my throat revealed that might possibly be an overstatement. ‘Where’s Nick?’ I asked.

  ‘Downstairs, having his ear chewed off by some cousin of yours from Devon.’

  I pulled a face. ‘Tell him I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do you want me to hang around?’ Caroline offered, glancing around the room at the cellophane-covered dress, the underwear draped across the bed and the shoes neatly lined up waiting for me to step into.

  ‘No, I’m good. Go down and rescue that poor man of yours.’

  Caroline smiled and turned back towards the door. ‘Oh I almost forgot,’ she said, walking back to the dressing table, and giving my shoulder a gentle squeeze. She pulled two small square envelopes from the pocket of her jacket. ‘These arrived a little while ago.’

  I took them from her outstretched hand and glanced briefly at the handwriting. I didn’t recognise either of them. I didn’t have time to read any more cards right now, they were going to have to join the sizeable collection downstairs.

  ‘So,’ continued Caroline, a little uncertainly, ‘see you at the church, then?’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I said softly.

  Caroline left, still looking back at me over her shoulder with undisguised love on her face. I took the two thick vellum envelopes to place beneath the paperweight I kept on my dressing table. I lifted the large glassy-smooth pebble, the one I had collected from the shore of the lake, and slid the cards beneath it. My fingers lingered for a moment, running over the silky grey veined stone, remembering…

  CHAPTER 15

  I was nervous as I unloaded the supermarket bags from my car and walked to Jack’s door. This would be the first time I’d seen him since the night of our kiss, a thing he seemed to have been able to instantly dismiss, but which had stayed with me, in graphic detail, for every waking moment since.

  He opened the door with an easy smile and an apology. ‘Hi, Emma,’ he greeted, his lips curling gently as he said my name. He took the bags from my hands and set them down on the hall floor. ‘Sorry, I’m just talking to someone on Skype, leave those bags and go on through to the kitchen, I won’t be a minute.’

  I nodded my compliance as he ducked back into the room he had commissioned as an office.

  ‘Hi, sweetheart, I’m back. Sorry about that.’ I felt a lance run through me. It started at my back and pierced straight through my heart, clipping several other vital organs on its way. I put my hand out to the wood-panelled wall to steady myself. I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, really I wasn’t, but as Jack hadn’t closed the door properly behind him it was almost impossible not to hear his next words.

  ‘No, it was just someone at the door… no, just a friend. Now what were you saying?’ I snatched up the supermarket bags and virtually ran into the kitchen. What was I doing here? I thought, dumping the carriers down on the kitchen table with enough force I was certain to have broken every egg in the carton I’d just bought.

  I had read all sorts of stupid hidden meanings into Jack’s invitation today. I’d been so sure that he’d invented this whole crazy cookery ruse as an excuse to spend one more day with me. And now, when I got here he was on the internet sweet-talking some nameless woman on the other side of the world. And it was crushingly obvious that whoever she was, he cared about her; that much was clear by the warm and loving tone of his voice when he spoke to her. I’d heard traces of that sometimes when he spoke to me, fleeting glimpses of intimacy, enough to recognise it when it was directed at someone else. So why was I still standing in his kitchen like some pathetic idiot, wearing my brand new jeans and white shirt (not too try-hard, didn’t want him thinking I’d overdressed for the occasion), just waiting for him to say goodbye to one woman and then pay some attention to me? I didn’t deserve to be treated like this. Not again, not by anyone, and certainly not by him.

  Caroline’s warning rang like a grim reminder in my head. Well, she needn’t have worried; romance hadn’t been on Jack’s mind at all when he’d asked me to come here today. Apparently, the only reason I was here was to cook his bloody dinner. He’d even directed me straight into the kitchen! I should just go, I thought, already heading back into the hall. Jack was still talking on his computer and with luck I could ease open the front door and make a dash for my car before he even noticed I had gone. I took a step further into the shadowy hall.

  ‘I’ve missed you too, honey. It’s been far too long this time, but only another five days.’

  The woman talking to him on his laptop screen said something which I couldn’t make out, and Jack responded with a low rumbling laugh. ‘Of course I will,’ he promised. I had to get out of there before he started intimately discussing the reunion they were both no doubt eagerly awaiting. I took a step and the old oak board beneath my foot creaked noisily, giving away my presence. Jack’s head spun around.

  ‘Everything okay, Emma?’ he asked, his eyes warm and gentle as he turned away from the screen to look at me. Masochistically I tried to see beyond the breadth of him to catch a glimpse of the woman who made him look and sound so full of tender affection. I could see nothing at all except a mass of pale gold hair. A blonde, that figures.

  I realised he was still waiting for a response as I stood in his hall like a cartoon character pantomiming someone stealthily trying to tiptoe away, which actually was precisely what I was doing.

  ‘Yes, fine,’ I said, flustered by having been caught. There was no chance now to make an unobserved exit. ‘I was just… just… getting the shopping,’ I improvised wildly, hoping he hadn’t noticed that the bags I was referring to were already in the kitchen. ‘I have to put some things in the fridge.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said with a slightly bemused smile. Perhaps my voice hadn’t sounded as natural as I would have liked. ‘I’m just saying goodbye here, I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  I knew a dismissal when I heard one. I walked back to the kitchen biting my lip until it actually hurt. What do I do now, stay or go? If I ran out of his house, like some pathetic heartbroken heroine, Jack would instantly know how badly I had misread everything about our entire relationship. He’d just been the Good Samaritan who had happened to be in the fallout zone when my world had crumbled apart. I was the one who had mistaken responsibility, friendship and concern for a deep and lasting emotional connection tying us together. It wasn’t Jack who couldn’t see the difference between a fleeting physical attraction and something so much more. That was all me.

  ‘Hi, I’m sorry, that was really rude of me,’ he said, walking in with the apology already falling from his lips. He bent down and lightly kissed my cheek. That was new. I
stiffened, but I don’t think he noticed for he was already crossing the kitchen and heading for the kettle.

  ‘Coffee?’

  I opened my mouth to say, ‘No thanks, I can’t stay’, and instead heard my voice replying, ‘Yes please, black, no sugar.’

  As the water boiled Jack crossed to the table and looked down at the two over-stuffed carrier bags. ‘I didn’t think you would actually bring all the ingredients with you.’

  He looked so calm and unfazed. Moving so easily from his lover to his dumb English friend that something inside me tightened and twisted uncomfortably.

  ‘Well, that was why you invited me here today, Jack, wasn’t it? You asked me to cook for you, isn’t that what this is all about?’

  He looked at me carefully, and I found my gaze drawn to his lower lip, and the way he had drawn it in, considering my question. It was a physical effort to wrench my gaze away from his mouth. Jack looked confused, and it wasn’t an expression I was used to seeing on him.

  ‘Is something wrong, Emma?’

  ‘No,’ I lied, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Why do you ask?’

  He looked uncomfortable and wrong-footed, yet another new look for him.

  ‘You seem… prickly.’

  I forced a tight smile past my unwilling lips. ‘No. Just keen to get going.’ Jack’s eyebrows rose at my words. ‘With the cooking,’ I amended.

  I knew he didn’t believe me, but I really didn’t care. I was going to go through with this silly little charade and not let him see just how much more I had thought this day was meant to be about. All I had left was my pride, and I wasn’t prepared to lose that too.

  He made the coffees while I made a great pretence of readying the ingredients I had brought, lining them up along one side of the kitchen table, as though I was preparing to be filmed for a television cook show.

  ‘Do you need me to do anything?’ he asked, as I hunted for bowls and utensils in the cupboards of his kitchen. I remembered seeing most of what I needed when I had cooked our steak dinner. I closed my eyes briefly on the memory. So much had happened since then, and none of it good. I carried what I needed back to the table and directed him to the other side of the room. If I was going to get through this at all, I needed far more distance between us. In fact the width of the kitchen was still nowhere wide enough. Well, in another five days there’d be an entire ocean between us. And then he’d be with her, whoever she was.