The One

by John Marrs

  Chapter 59

  NICK

  The fairy lights pinned around the window gave the bedroom a warm, buttermilk glow but they didn’t help Nick to relax or calm down.

  He felt more tightly wound up than he could ever recall. Moments earlier, he’d made a scene and stormed away from the dinner party he and Sally were hosting, after assassinating the characters of Sumaira and Deepak. Now, he lay on his bed, propped up against the headboard, and took another swig straight from the wine bottle he’d brought up with him. He checked his mobile to see if Alex had texted, and at the blank screen he threw the phone down on the bed in a rage.

  ‘You said “him”.’

  Nick was startled by Sally’s sudden appearance in the doorway. He hadn’t heard her enter their bedroom. He wondered if their guests were still downstairs or if they’d left.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Downstairs, when you were tearing a strip out of our best friends. God knows why you did that.’ She gave a small hysterical laugh. ‘You said, “Nobody in the world exists right at that moment apart from you and him.” You were referring to Alexander, weren’t you? When you went to that appointment, you felt it, didn’t you? All that stuff you said about love being like a tsunami … You’ve fallen in love with him.’

  Nick said nothing. He couldn’t bring himself to raise his head to look Sally in the eye. He’d already lied to her enough of late.

  ‘I’m a fucking idiot.’ She laughed. ‘Have you been seeing him?’

  Again, Nick didn’t reply.

  ‘Of course you have,’ she continued. ‘All those late nights at work, the weekends where you and your boss were supposed to be laying out new campaigns and strategies. You were with him, weren’t you?’

  Nick nodded reluctantly.

  ‘So you are gay.’

  ‘I don’t know what I am or what this is, Sally.’

  ‘But you have feelings for him.’

  Nick paused before saying, ‘Yes.’

  ‘And does he have feelings for you?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘You mean you’re unsure?’

  ‘We haven’t discussed it.’

  Sally laughed again, a dangerous glint in her eye. Her voice was getting louder and louder as she questioned him. ‘How come, because you spend all your time screwing and not talking?’

  ‘We don’t do that.’

  ‘You really expect me to believe you?’

  ‘No, but I’m telling you that nothing has happened between us … nothing like that.’

  ‘But you’d like it to.’

  ‘I don’t know what I want.’

  Nick was telling the truth. The line between what he felt for Alex emotionally and physically were starting to blur, and there had indeed been times where he had imagined what it might be like to be intimate with him. He’d even watched a couple of porn clips on his laptop to see how same-sex sex worked, and while he wasn’t turned on by it, he wasn’t repulsed either.

  ‘Even if it’s not physical between you two, it is emotional and that’s the equivalent of an affair.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nick muttered, and held his head in his hands.

  ‘How could you do this to me?’ Sally cried and sat on the end of the bed, staring at the exposed brick in front of her. ‘You know I grew up in a family where all my parents did was lie to each other about fidelity and you know what honesty means to me. Then you do this—’

  ‘I didn’t start it,’ Nick interrupted. ‘You were the one who wasn’t happy with the way we were. You were the one who kept scratching and scratching until you created a sore and now I’ve picked at the scab and this has happened. You should have left things the way they were.’

  ‘But I was right not to because we weren’t Matched! We were in love but deep down we both knew there was none of that “fireworks” stuff like you spoke about earlier. We don’t have the “explosions” like you have with him.’

  ‘We could have been happy if you’d just left us as we were and we hadn’t done that test in the first place,’ Nick said, resigned to her anger.

  ‘Then you should never have seen him again!’ she yelled.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like to meet someone you are Matched with because you don’t have that!’

  Sally’s anger was brimming at the surface and she opened her mouth to retort, but then stopped herself. She dropped down to the floor and began to cry, her body wrapping itself into a protective ball.

  Sally was the backbone of their relationship, and he’d never seen her like this before. Nick was scared that he’d broken her. He placed his hand on her shoulder, but she recoiled from his touch, just like he’d done to her earlier.

  ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Yes you did,’ she replied. ‘And you’re right: I pushed you into this and now I don’t know how to make it stop.’

  ‘Neither do I.’

  Sally wiped a tear from her cheek and took a shuddering breath. ‘There’s only one way this can go, Nick, and although it kills me to say it, for my own sanity, I have to let you go. If it was another person you weren’t Matched with, then I’d put up a fight. But I can’t battle with genetics. It’s a war I’m never going to win.’

  Nick felt tears streaming down his face. ‘What are you saying?’

  Sally took a deep breath before she spoke. ‘You should be with Alex and not me.’

  Chapter 60

  ELLIE

  It was at Tim’s suggestion that they spent Christmas Day with Ellie’s family in Derbyshire.

  She’d dreaded the thought of being stuck in slow Christmas traffic for much of the 130-mile journey, so, as a special treat, she had Andrei drive them to a private Elstree airfield where a waiting helicopter flew them to a school playing field close to her parents’ home.

  For the last five years at least, Ellie had invented a variety of excuses not to spend the festive period with her family, concerned that after the initial flurry of excitement upon her arrival, she would run out things to talk about. But Tim had helped her to understand that to feel part of something she had to be part of it too.

  Once their clothes were unpacked in Ellie’s old bedroom, they joined the rest of the family for Christmas Eve drinks at the local pub, and the following day they celebrated Christmas Day at home. It was much like the Christmases she had enjoyed as a child, only now the family had extended to include partners and excitable nieces, nephews and grandchildren. It was a far cry from Ellie’s last Christmas, where much of it had been spent in the office working on the coming year’s growth strategy reports.

  With a traditional lunch finished, the kids were busy playing a combat game on a console Ellie had bought them, while her parents were fast asleep on the sofa. Ellie cleared the table and carried the dirty dishes towards the kitchen. She paused for a moment under the architrave of the doorway and watched Tim and her sister Maggie, where they were washing dishes at the sink, taking on the parts of Kirsty McColl and Shane McGowan as ‘Fairytale of New York’ played on the radio.

  The conversation with her head of personnel, in which Kat had said she’d once interviewed Tim for a job, was playing on her mind. But as Ellie watched him interact with her family with such ease and confidence, she knew it was wrong to doubt him. She was no longer willing herself to fall in love with her Match – she was already there.

  She wished she hadn’t sidelined her family for so long, especially as Tim no longer had one of his own after losing his mother, his one and only relative, to cancer.

  Ellie wasn’t sure if it was the warmth of the central heating or the platefuls of food in her stomach that made her feel like she was glowing, and she didn’t care to question it. For so long she’d wondered if it was possible to have it all, and if she even deserved it. Now, looking at the people she loved the most, she knew the answer.

  By the morning after Boxing Day, Tim and Ellie were strapped into their helicopter seats and on their way back to Lon
don. Tim had insisted they stay at her townhouse for a few days instead of his Leighton Buzzard home, but wouldn’t elaborate as to why.

  ‘Christ, if this place was any more sterile you’d be able to operate in it,’ he teased when they arrived.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ellie replied defensively. The first time he’d visited her he’d also mentioned something similar. She didn’t have any photographs on the walls or knick-knacks on window sills. Tim had called it ‘utterly immaculate but soulless’, so at Christmas, she’d made sure to make much more of an effort.

  ‘Don’t you think the Christmas decorations look pretty?’

  ‘Ells, when I suggested we put some up, I meant that you and I go out and buy them. Not commission a stylist to go to Liberty and bring home a massive fake tree and a ton of baubles which she then put up for us.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that’s what you meant.’

  ‘I bet you haven’t even read the books on that case, have you?’ he continued, purposely striding towards one of the eight chunky floor-to-ceiling shelves.

  ‘Um, some of them I have.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Ellie perched in front of the case with her hands defiantly on her hips. Her eyes darted back and forth to take in the titles one by one, desperately searching for a familiar book to prove him wrong. However, one spine that she didn’t recognise caught her attention – it was titled ‘Ellie & Tim’. She glanced at him, puzzled, and he beckoned her to take a closer look.

  She picked it up and read aloud. ‘Ninety-five things I love about Ellie Stanford.’

  ‘Come, let’s sit down,’ Tim suggested and she carried the book over to the sofa.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Open it and have a look.’

  Inside, hand-written on each colourful page was a reason why Tim loved her, along with a photograph of something relating to it.

  ‘“Number one – I love the way you clear your throat when you’re pretending not to cry at The Notebook or The Fault in Our Stars”,’ she read out. ‘That is so not true! “Number two – I love the way the only shape you ever doodle is a DNA double helix” … Where did you get this?’ she asked, pointing to a picture he’d scanned of a page from one of her notebooks. ‘How long did this take you to make?’

  ‘I struggled to find ten things let alone ninety-five, to be honest,’ he joked, ignoring her question. ‘Anyway, keep going.’

  Ellie devoured each page, frequently laughing at the pictures Tim chose and wondering how he had noticed so many of her quirks, habits and foibles when others hadn’t. He really got her, she realised.

  She turned to reach the final page. ‘And it’s for all of these reasons that I’d like to ask you …’ Ellie gasped. ‘Will you marry me?’

  She drew her hands up to her mouth and looked at Tim. She hadn’t noticed he’d slipped his hand into his pocket and removed a small black box and opened the lid. Inside, on a chiffon bed, sat an engagement ring with a central diamond.

  ‘I asked your dad’s permission on Christmas Eve and he said yes, but I draw the line at getting down on one knee.’ He smiled. ‘However, I’d love it if my Match would do me the honour of being my wife.’

  Ellie threw her arms around Tim and sobbed into his shoulder.

  ‘Shall I take that as a yes?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes!’ she bawled and slipped the ring on her finger. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  Chapter 61

  MANDY

  Mandy recognised Michelle from her photographs – and of course the naked selfies – as soon as the café door opened.

  She was immediately irked that Richard’s former girlfriend was even prettier in the flesh; her hair was now shorter and blonder, and she wore skinny jeans with a figure-hugging top. Her tan gave her a healthy glow and emphasised her white teeth. ‘Bitch,’ Mandy mumbled to herself, and subconsciously wrapped her coat tighter over her pregnant belly. As much as she was looking forward to the prospect of impending motherhood, the sacrifice of fashion for elasticated comfort clothing was getting on her nerves. She longed to slip on a pair of heels or find a pair of skinny jeans that could fit over her swollen ankles.

  She waved at Michelle and feigned a smile, beckoning her over to the table at the rear of the café. It had taken a week of messaging to persuade Michelle to meet Mandy. And even now, Mandy didn’t know why she wanted to meet her either, but some invisible force inside her told her to pursue it.

  ‘Can I order you a coffee?’ Mandy began.

  ‘No, I can’t stop for long. I’m on my lunch break,’ Michelle replied, politely but curtly. ‘I’m still not really sure why you wanted to meet me.’

  ‘Well, like I said in my messages, I was Matched with Richard and I wanted to know more about him. We never got the chance to meet and I know the two of you were … close.’

  Michelle cautiously eyed Mandy before she leaned forward on to the table. ‘All right then, what do you want to know?’

  ‘What was your relationship like? Did you love each other?’

  Michelle smiled at this. ‘Rich and I had an on and off relationship. I was in my last year at university when we first hooked up, and he was working at the gym.’ She paused, clearly wondering how much she should say. ‘I was pretty much in love with him, but Rich? Well, I reckon he might have been at first but then he started pulling away. In the end, I felt like he was just using me for hook ups.’

  ‘Really?’ Mandy said. She was surprised, but deep down secretly satisfied that even pretty girls sometimes got used.

  ‘Yeah, and I got the feeling he had a few of us on the go, like some of the older women he trained at the gym. They were always flirting with him, especially the married ones. I just don’t reckon he was the type to settle down and have one regular girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mandy suddenly felt very deflated. ‘Maybe that’s when he did the Match Your DNA test. He knew you weren’t the one and didn’t see any point in continuing it.’ She regretted her choice of words as soon as she saw a glimmer of hurt in Michelle’s eyes.

  ‘Maybe,’ Michelle conceded. ‘But I was surprised when you said you’d been Matched. Rich was adamant he never wanted to do the test.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘He said something like it’d take all the thrill out of the chase and that life without risks wasn’t a life at all. So there was no way in hell he’d be told who he was supposed to fall in love with.’

  ‘Maybe he changed his mind.’

  ‘Possibly, but I doubt it.’

  Mandy leaned back in her chair and stared at the table as the mental picture of Richard she’d spent months painting, with the help of Pat and Chloe, faded before her.

  ‘I guess I knew in my heart he wasn’t the one,’ continued Michelle. ‘I’ve read about how it feels when you meet your Match, and I didn’t get any of that with him. But he was a nice boy and we had a lot of fun. And can I be honest with you?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘And I’m not saying this because I’m jealous you’ve been Matched with him or anything, but if things had been different, no matter how much the two of you might have been in love, I still don’t reckon Rich was the type of guy who’d throw all his eggs in one basket. He’d have played around on you.’

  ‘Really,’ Mandy said, her tone flat. ‘Now you just sound bitter.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m not. He was just too much of a free spirit. He wanted to travel the world again and the last thing on his mind was settling down and having kids. He didn’t even like them that much.’

  ‘Didn’t like what, children?’

  ‘Uh-huh. They got on his nerves. We once had to walk out of a TGI Friday after our starters because there was a children’s party at the next table. They drove him mad. He even said – although he did admit he was ashamed of himself – that he was glad his sister didn’t have kids so he wouldn’t have to pretend to like being around them.’

  ‘Why did he get his sperm stored then? Pat and
Chloe told me all he wanted was a family of his own?’

  Michelle’s eyes suddenly widened. ‘You know Pat and Chloe?’

  Mandy nodded.

  ‘Then take my advice and steer well clear of them. They’re a couple of freaks those two. No wonder Rich never wanted me to meet them.’

  ‘Freaks? Why, what did they do to you?’

  Michelle moved closer to Mandy, her voice low and her expression grave. ‘So, you won’t believe this. A few weeks after Rich’s accident they found out who I was and that I’d been seeing him and they turned up at my house. The conversation began a lot like this one actually – wanting to find out more about Richard that maybe they didn’t know – but by the end of the night, they were offering me his sperm to have his baby. What the hell is that all about?’

  Mandy felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention. ‘They wanted you to have his baby?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Wanted? They became pretty bloody insistent. It was the most awkward conversation I’ve ever had in my life.’

  Mandy clenched her fists. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She tried to control her breathing so she didn’t break into a panic attack.

  ‘When I said no, they got a bit … I don’t know … pushy about it, and even offered me money to do it and cover the cost of everything,’ Michelle continued. ‘They’d really thought it through and said I could move in with them until I had it. It went on for weeks – calls, texts, emails … in the end I threatened to go to the police if they didn’t leave me alone and they finally stopped. It weirded me out though and that’s why I was reluctant to meet you at first.’

  ‘I guess that’s understandable,’ Mandy said, and desperately tried to justify the actions. ‘They probably weren’t thinking straight and were still grieving Richard’s death.’

  ‘Death?’ Michelle looked confused. ‘Who told you Rich was dead? He’s still very much alive.’

  Chapter 62

  CHRISTOPHER