The Art of Letting Go (The Uni Files)

by Bloom, Anna

  “Hold on. I actually have to put it on first,” I protest, unsuccessfully trying to squirm out of his arms.

  “Save it for Round Two later,” he murmurs against my ear.

  So I do.

  It is completely perfect. It is also completely unreal.

  When it’s time to go out and explore, we find a great pub, the sort of place where everyone stops and stares at you as you walk in, and you have to be careful about where you sit in case you offend a local by deeming to put a butt cheek on their special chair.

  We locate a small corner table to sit in (nobody glares at us so we assume it is a safe zone) where we proceed to drink countless pints of beer and eat about fifteen packets of crisps a piece. It's really just as well I am not going to the gym again as James would have been able to see those fifteen packets sitting on my hips from a mile away.

  Advice for Valentine's Day

  Never ever talk about feelings when drunk on Valentine’s Day.

  Later we walk under the cover of darkness along the Cobb, hands held loosely together, stepping in time with one another. We walk in silence listening to the sound of the waves as they crashed on the wall below us. It is all deeply romantic until we make the catastrophic mistake of talking.

  Talking about feelings after that amount of beer is NEVER a good idea.

  “So what is this?” he asks, pulling our entwined hands up between us and motioning his head to them.

  “What do you mean?” I have a bad feeling about this and decide to play dumb.

  “Well, what is this, Lilah?” He says my name in that low way of his and my mouth instantly becomes dry.

  “Um, I thought we were playing it by ear?”

  “Really?” He sounds a little surprised. “This is you ‘playing it by ear’?”

  “Well, yeah, I thought that is what you wanted.”

  “No, Lilah. What I want is you, but you are not giving me anything to work with.”

  “What?” I try not to shout. “Nothing to work with? We just spent two hours in bed together!”

  I'm pretty sure this is not the conversation Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot had whilst standing on the Cobb together.

  “That’s what I mean. You give me all the physical stuff but you don’t want to give anything more. You don’t want to make me any promises, or give me more of yourself.”

  I want to scream at him "Yes, I do!" but I hold my tongue in check.

  Instead I say, “I don’t know what else to give you. What future can we possibly have when we both know that you are leaving soon? I honestly don’t know what you want.”

  He is staring at me intently. “I just want you to tell me what we really are to each other. I have realised that I feel much more for you, than you do for me, and if that is the case then I should know, so that I can move on.” His voice breaks a little on the last word, like he has something stuck in this throat. It must be the same thing I have stuck in mine.

  What? He thinks that he feels more than I do?

  What? He wants to move on?

  I want to shout at him and tell him he is insane.

  I think he is getting angry as well. He is holding his whole body tight like he is no longer sure how to move it.

  “Lilah, I am beginning to think that we are just glorified fuck buddies.”

  Holy cow! I can't believe he just said that to me! I am going to explode. I can feel the steam building.

  “How dare you say that to me!” I practically scream.

  He holds his hand out to grab me, obviously realising that the words were far harsher that he intended.

  I spin away from his touch. “I never wanted to meet you, Ben. I had no intention of ever starting something with anyone. But I met you, and I fell completely in love with you. Except you’re the one who ruined it, the night you let that bitch into your room.”

  It’s a low blow, even in my rage-induced, alcohol-enhanced craziness, I know it is.

  “Oh, we’re back to that again, are we? How many times do I have to tell you that nothing happened? You even told me you believe me. I think you’re just trying to hide your feelings behind a flimsy excuse. What are you hiding from, Lilah?” He says my name softly stepping towards me, hands sliding along my arms to meet my hands.

  “What are you hiding from?” he repeats softly. “I would be anything for you, and do anything for you, but you just keep me emotionally shut out.”

  “Do you think I find any of this easy?” I ask.

  Maybe he thinks I am a completely emotionless bitch.

  “No, I didn't say that.” The blues search into my soul.

  “I don’t think that I can live my life like this anymore.” I am shouting again. “I don’t think I can carry on living my life to Taylor Swift anymore. I am twenty-six, not a teenager, but since I met you it’s all I feel, all these crazy emotions that spiral out of control all the bloody time.”

  He is staring at me.

  “What do you mean living to Taylor Swift?” He has a slight lip curve so I guess he thinks this is amusing.

  “Don’t you hear it? All the time? Everything we do, there is a teenage angst-ridden song for. Thing is, Ben, we are not teenagers and we both have big life-changing decisions to make. Well, you’ve made yours, but I still have to make mine.”

  “You know I would stay for you, don't you?”

  His voice is very low, like he is scared to say the words out loud. His lips are kissing my forehead.

  “I know you would,” I whisper back, “but I don’t think you should. I am just not worth it.”

  He gives a tsk and pulls me in close until his lips are on mine.

  “You asked me how I felt emotionally,” I say after a while.

  “Yes,” said through lips that are still on my cheek.

  “I feel like you are my best friend.”

  He looks at me in shock. “Is that all?”

  “No, you don’t get it. I have never ever felt that before, that someone knows me better than I even know myself—good or bad. That someone is part of my soul and that they are an integral part of me.”

  “I feel that, too,” he whispers against me. “I am just so sorry I fucked this up.”

  “You didn’t. Maybe this is all we are meant to be. Perhaps we need to work with what we have.”

  I am lying. I am lying so badly that I'm surprised the earth has not opened up and dragged me down to the pits of hell.

  I don’t want to work with what we have, I want more, and I am greedy for more. Then comes the deathblow.

  “Do you think that if we are going to do the whole best friend thing we should stop having sex so much?”

  Kill me now. Please.

  “Yeah, probably.” I want to pull my tongue out with pliers.

  “Well, I will be sad not to see the red underwear.”

  “Maybe we could start the whole best friend thing tomorrow, and just for tonight still be star-crossed lovers.”

  It’s cheesy, but it gets a grin from him and he sweeps me up tight into his arms.

  “That sounds like a deal.”

  We turn and start to walk back to the hotel.

  “Lilah,” he says as our hands are swinging between us.

  “Does Taylor have a song for tonight?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Lying again.

  Though he can't hear it, Taylor is singing "Back to December." And I want to go back to December, too.

  Valentine’s Day. The day I downgraded the love of my life to my best friend.

  15th February

  I am never ever, ever going to celebrate Valentine’s Day again, as long as I shall live. I shall make a blood oath or something so I never forget.

  I st
ill can’t quite believe it.

  I am most definitely back under my duvet, which is where I plan to stay for the foreseeable future.

  17th February

  “I don’t really think he and I can be your best friend at the same time. I am not very good at sharing,” says Meredith, poking her head under my duvet.

  “Meredith!”

  “Well. Best friend, my arse. You speak out of your bum half the time, Lil.”

  “Oh, shut up, and pass the vodka.”

  “Just saying. You could fart and it would make more sense.”

  18th February

  Lectures = Yuck

  Library = Yuck

  Dorm = Yuck

  Acting like best friends = Yuck

  19th February

  I think I may do something a little different today after lectures. I might branch out and attempt to feed myself. I have not cooked ‘successfully’ other than toast since the Christmas turkey fiasco, and I think maybe I should have a go at self-sufficiency. Ben in his new best friend only role is still cooking for me. Excellent! But I am starting to worry that come the Easter holiday when he is away I may starve. Even if I manage to survive that, I will still most definitely starve next year.

  I am going to go to Putney and get some stuff from Waitrose. I wonder if Meredith fancies a trip to the supermarket?

  Later.

  Or I might just go to the pub instead. I am sure crisps are perfectly substantial for dinner.

  We had gone to Waitrose (with all good intentions) and I had made the big mistake of trying to take a shortcut to the freezer aisle, unfortunately the shortcut had been down the baby aisle.

  “Do you think frozen prawns are as good as fresh?” I asked turning to look at her. I found her staring at the packs of Pampers lining the shelf in front of us.

  Then she turned to me and cried. And I cried, too.

  In all the bloody drama of Ben and I, and the whole ‘let’s pretend to be boyfriend/girlfriend’, followed by ‘let’s pretend to be best friends’, I had completely forgotten that my real best friend had just lost a baby. Well, I had not forgotten as such, let’s be honest, who could? But I had been fooled by her happiness over the engagement that she was okay. Not so okay.

  We had abandoned the trolley in the middle of the aisle and walked out arm-in-arm. Straight to the pub where we put the world to rights over a couple bottles of pinot.

  The best bit of the evening was even though we were both two sheets to the wind by the end of the night, we managed to find our own way home without calling on Ben or Tristan.

  This is good because:

  I did not tell Ben that I 'shloved' him

  I proved that I am capable of handling an emotional evening without using him as an emotional crutch.

  I did not drunkenly beg him to have sex with me. Now that we are just best friends, that would not be appropriate behaviour.

  20th February

  I have realised today that there are actually other people in our lecture room, and that they are all reasonably nice.

  Since the beginning of the course, I have been so absorbed with Ben, trying to eavesdrop on all his conversations and watching every move he makes with my crazy stalker tendencies, that I have never really noticed anyone else before. This makes me realise just how far in Crazyville I have been, not just a parking space but a full-on house and garden now. I did not even really notice the thirty or so other people around me.

  There are even a couple of cute guys, not to the same standard as Ben, but definitely on the cute side. That just shows the effect he has on me. When we are in a crowded room, he eclipses everyone else to such an extent that I do not even see the others.

  I may as well sit in a lecture room by myself for the amount of attention I have been paying to my surroundings.

  I am now making an effort to at least try and speak to other people. Emma, of the water bottle fame, seems really nice. She said that a few of the class are going out for drinks later if I am interested. I’m not sure, though.

  Maybe I should go.

  But then maybe I shouldn’t.

  I could ask Ben to come?

  Noooo!!

  I must stop thinking like this. We are friends only now. We do not have to do everything together.

  5.00 p.m.

  Library = boring.

  Maybe I should go for that drink?

  6.00 p.m.

  Should I mention it to Ben and Meredith?

  6.30 p.m.

  Okay, I am going to go. But I’m going to shout out to the others as I leave so it is an open invitation. That sounds like the best plan.

  10.55 p.m.

  That was fun.

  Okay, I am a little tiddly, but not crazy-Lilah-drunk, like I have been recently.

  When I walked in, Trev raised his eyebrow at my apparent lack of ‘crew’ but I just gave him a small shake of the head. Emma called me over to a table in the corner and I grabbed my drink and legged it before he could ask any questions about where Ben was or why he was not with me.

  Instead, Emma decides to dig the dirt a little later when she knows I have had a couple and I am far more likely to spill the beans.

  “So what happened to you and Ben then? We all thought you were love’s young dream or something?”

  Hmm.

  “Well, you know, we are really just friends.” I stop myself from saying, ‘now’ and take a deep sip of beer instead.

  “Shame, he is mega hot and seemed to worship you.”

  “Well, I don’t think he worshipped me. That's probably overstating it a little.”

  “So does he hang around outside classroom doors for all his friends?”

  “Um, I don’t know, maybe.”

  She smirks.

  “Does he stare at all his friends obsessively?”

  “I wouldn’t say he stares, obsessively.”

  “So what’s he doing now then?”

  “What?”

  “At the bar?”

  I look up to find Ben standing at the bar coolly sipping a pint of beer. What does this mean? Did he come to join in? I did shout the invite to everyone.

  For the first time ever, I am not sure that I actually want him there. I hate the way my knees gave a little shake when I see him, or how my heartbeat starts to charge the moment I know he is near. What’s the bloody point?

  Emma, who is clearly not privy to the thoughts in my head, waves him over.

  I watch him cross the room with his long strides and know I am blatantly staring open mouthed. I catch myself and force my mouth closed. He really is frickin’ hot and I can’t believe I bagged him. His confidence is really sexy. It is in every move he makes, all calm and commanding, and it makes me want him in the worst way.

  I shake the thought away.

  Not good thinking dirty thoughts in a packed bar.

  He sits down, but not next to me, as if he doesn’t want to encroach on my space. He then joins in the conversation some of the guys are having with ease. This is the thing with Ben; he always finds it so easy to get on with everyone. Not like me, who gets all flustered and tongue-tied. It’s never a problem for him to slide himself in to whatever situation he finds himself. Look at him and my brother. How different could they be? Yet they are still friends. They will probably be friends longer than he and I will be.

  After half an hour, I stand up and grab my cigarette packet, announcing that I am going out for air. Ben watches me but before he can say that he will come too, some other guy jumps to his feet and announces that he also fancies a smoke.

  I can feel Ben’s eyes on me all the way to the door.

  I spend an uncomfortable five minutes outside attempting to make small talk, which is not a
forte of mine, unless I happen to be at the checkout of Asda with some guy called Richard, before dashing back in again. I don’t know why I am dashing anywhere, Ben and I are just ‘friends,’ which is what we agreed. It should not be a problem if I have a smoke with another guy. But I know I am talking bollocks to myself. It is going to be a long time, or perhaps never, until I am comfortable with hanging around having smoke breaks with anyone other than Ben.

  He watches me sit back down through hooded eyes. I just ignore the butterflies in my stomach. Slowly, we all settle back into conversation. It is all mild stuff just joking at the lecturers, and everyone is getting a little tipsy.

  Ben and I gradually gravitate towards each other. It is impossible for it not to happen. By the time another hour has passed we are sitting in deep conversation, knees touching, and hands sliding towards each other. It makes me think of our first visit to this bar and it makes me a little sad.

  Once again, he has eclipsed everyone in the room. There is only him, and the blues.

  When I go to the bar to get some more drinks, Trev gives me a knowing wink.

  “Oh bugger off,” I tell him as I grab the drinks and head back over to our growing gathering, but to the only seat that I want to sit in. The seat next to Ben.

  On the way back to the dorm, we walk along in silence, our fingers tips just occasionally brushing which we both pull away from.

  “Goodnight, Lilah,” he says outside my door.

  “Goodnight, Ben,” I whisper.

  11.05 p.m.

  Something does not feel right. Ben is playing the Gibson and I am lying on my bed listening to it. But something is definitely not right.

  11.08 p.m.

  Got it.

  11.18 p.m.

  I have moved my bed so that it is alongside the same wall as his. Now there is just a thin partition keeping us apart. Well, a thin partition wall and a sea of problems that will never be solved.

  21st February

  I think I might become a vegetarian. That way I won’t keep craving Ben’s crispy bacon sandwiches anymore.

  Obviously, this is a very big decision.