by Ellie White
"Did you want to go back in or go home?" I ask, a little breathless.
"As much as it's been a really long week without you and I'm quite desperate to get you home, I think we should go and celebrate with James and Helen. But, before we do, let’s stay out here a little longer. I'm not ready to share you just yet."
And that's exactly what we do, we talk and we kiss until more people spill from the pub to the beer garden. Then, we join our friends again to celebrate the news that I'll be getting a niece or nephew this year.
As I stand at the bar with Jake, waiting for our drinks, I look back to our table. I smile fondly as I watch my friends laughing together. Helen and Laura are talking animatedly about something that makes Harry cringe. James and Simon are playing at the pool table where Simon wins for the first time ever and celebrates by running around the table with his shirt pulled over his head.
Jake turns to me and kisses me on the forehead.
We all know that life isn't easy. Sometimes, it's really hard and it seems like there is no way out but I know that, when times get tough again, all I have to do is look at the people around me to remind me of all I have to live for. The people I love, who love me and care about me enough to stand by my side through absolutely everything.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Epilogue - Jake
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with Maggie Jones. The memory is as clear as if it happened just yesterday.
Our dads had always been best friends and business partners so I had known her my whole life but things changed for me when she was sixteen years old and I had come back to visit at Christmas, halfway through my first year at Leeds University. I wasn't far off nineteen and the little girl I left behind six months earlier wasn't such a little girl anymore. She was hardly recognisable. She'd had highlights which made her dirty blonde hair shine bright in the winter sunshine, she wore make-up and her braces had been removed, showing her perfect smile with no obstructions.
She wore her signature white sand shoes and a short, denim skirt that pulled in at her waist and flared out around her mid-thigh. Her olive skin and blonde hair styled in waves made her look like she belonged on a tropical beach somewhere not here in rainy Kingston.
She hadn't even looked at me yet and I knew I was in trouble. I was looking at her in a way I hadn't before and, if she had known exactly what teenage me was thinking, she'd probably think I was some kind of pervert.
Growing up, there were 5 of us: me, Maggie, James (Maggie’s older brother) and the twins, Philip and Laura. We were inseparable, really. James and I even moved into the same student halls in Leeds while we studied. We hung out together all the time despite James and I being older.
The moment James and I walked through the door, her face lit up like a Christmas tree and completely shattered me inside. It was like I was seeing her for the first time. This new woman in front of me had stolen my heart and would never give it back. I didn't want it back, I just wanted her.
She ran over to us the second she saw her brother and threw her arms around him. I was jealous, I wanted her to have that reaction to me, for her to miss me that much, too. I was relieved when she turned to me and gave me her widest smile, wrapping her arms around my waist, leaning her head against my chest and holding me tightly. I had missed her and only then had I realised just how much.
There was a problem, though. Of course there was, nothing was ever straight forward when it came to my love life. Maggie and Philip had been going out for so long that no-one could even remember when they’d transitioned from friends to more. They were in love and it was so natural for them. There was no room for me in her life as anything more than her friend and the realisation was sobering.
She was only sixteen, though. Would her high school romance last? I would just have to wait and hope that, one day, I'd have my chance.
Philip was always so observant. He clocked the change in me the same time as I did.
"Are you in love with my girlfriend?" he asked me later in the night as we sipped on cheap Vodka in Maggie's parents' garden shed / bar.
"It doesn't make any difference, mate," I'd said sincerely. "She loves you and there's no way I'm getting in the way of that."
The rest of the Christmas break, I helped in our dads ad agency, sorting the post and making coffees. Basic things like that. Things to keep me busy and away from Maggie. To keep me out of trouble.
When we went back to Leeds and I tried to get her out of my head, I had a new girl every week, yet not one of them came close to filling the hole left in my chest by her absence.
I stopped all contact with Maggie, too. I stopped texting and emailing but thank god for My Space. I could still torture myself by looking at her pictures, seeing what she was doing and who with.
At first, she was mad at me for my unexplained radio silence. She would text and leave messages and demand I tell her what my problem was. No matter how upset she was, I couldn't tell her.
So, instead, I became a complete arsehole and she eventually got the hint and stopped trying all together. I think I preferred it when she hated me out loud.
Two years later, I got a phone call the week before I came home from uni for Christmas. It was Philip, telling me his plans to propose at her parents’ New Year’s Eve party. He wanted to give me a heads up. He knew I still loved her. Why else would I cut them all out completely?
I'm glad James was still my friend but I don't think he ever found out the extent of how badly I had treated his little sister.
At the party, I avoided Maggie and she avoided me. Then I watched from the shadows as the girl I had been in love with for two years got engaged to the nicest person I knew. It hurt like hell so I got drunk on Jägerbombs that Philip had made and I threw up in her mum's favourite vase. That was the low point for me and the moment I realised I was waiting around for nothing.
I didn't go to any more parties after that.
I didn't go to the wedding 3 years later. Instead, I tried to repair my ego by spending the night with Helen’s friend Cylvie. Something I came to regret immediately.
I didn’t go to Philip's funeral 6 months after that either.
After uni, I moved back to London and took a job working at my dad's ad agency as a graphic designer and she was interning as a planning assistant while she studied at uni here in London. She would stop by my desk on her way to work every day to say good morning and ask me to come hang out with her, Philip and Laura again but I always said ‘no’.
In the end, I started turning up to work 5 minutes after I knew she did just to avoid her.
Maggie and Philip had been married a little over six months when he died on New Year’s Eve. He was 22. I didn't hear about the car accident until New Year's Day. I woke up hungover, maybe even still drunk, in some random girl's bed in Clapham - with little memory of how I got there - to my phone screeching at me. I had hundreds of missed calls from everyone. I had voice messages and texts but I hadn't seen them so, when I answered James' phone call, I was unprepared for the news.
"Maggie and Philip have been in an accident," he'd said. He was crying so I knew something bad had happened. "Philip didn't make it. Maggie..." he says, breaking off in a sob. My breathing was ragged, my temper frayed. I needed him to speed up. I needed to know she was alive, that she was fine. It didn't feel real. It's the closest thing I've had to feeling like an out of body experience and I could almost see myself taking the call, see the pain on my face.
"Tell me she's okay. I can't lose her, James. Tell me she's okay," I beg through my own tears as I jump out of this stranger’s bed (who doesn't even stir) to find my clothes.
“We don’t know, she’s been placed in an induced coma. They keep saying big words and I don’t know what they mean. She has a head injury and broken bones. Some of her ribs broke and her right lung has collapsed. They say she’s critical, Jake."
"I'm on my way," I'd said, not bothering to wake the girl I’d spent the night with and slamming the d
oor behind me. Luckily, I wasn't far from the closest underground station so I ran the entire way.
I was a mess when I arrived at the hospital and I didn't care that people on the tube were looking at me with pity as I fought to control my tears. Could they tell my life was falling apart? Mum and Dad were there, waiting for me in the car park. I'd never seen my dad cry until that moment but, as he consoled my grief-stricken mother, he didn't even try to hide his own tears. I know Mum and Dad loved them both like they were their own children.
"We're waiting for the organ donation people to come and talk to Philip's parents. Would you like to say goodbye?" Mum asks. I just nod.
As I stand in the doorway to his room, Philip's mum meets my eyes. The pain of losing her child was evident and his dad sat with his head buried in his sons’ side as he wept. Laura was sat alone in the corner; her eyes were red but she wasn’t crying anymore. I go to her first and kneel in front of her. I take her hands in mine and rest my head on her knees.
We don't speak. Words aren't needed.
"Come on, Mum, Dad. Let's get a drink and let Jake say goodbye," she says, patting my head before they all left the room.
Philip was lying in bed and, looking at him, you would think he was just asleep. It's not until I sat on the bed next to my friend that I noticed the scratches on his arms and neck, presumably from the glass windshield shattering.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for pushing you all away. I'm sorry for being a shitty friend. I'm sorry for everything. I promise I'll look after Maggie; we'll make sure she's okay," I said as fresh tears fell.
I sat in silence, gripping Philip's hand, willing him to open his eyes as I waited for Laura and her parents to get back. I say my final goodbye.
I kissed his mum on the cheek, hugged his dad and squeezed Laura's shoulder. She surprised me by pulling me in close. I know I've hurt her, too, with my unexplained absence so it catches me off guard. I held her for a moment until she pulled away.
"Can you tell Maggie's mum and dad that Philip is about to be taken into surgery and they should come down now," she asked me and I nodded.
I took one last look at my friend before I exited the room.
As I got to Maggie's room, my heart beat harder in my chest than ever before. It was aching to see her, to see her alive and well. I wanted to see her face light up, the way it always does when she walks into a room, to see her beautiful grin and the sparkle in her hazel eyes.
As I’d reached for the door handle, I knew that's not what I'd see but I never expected to see her like this.
She was covered in bandages, tubes and sticky pads, her left arm already in a cast and an oxygen mask covering her pretty face. She was bruised and battered with dry blood matted in her golden hair. She was still beautiful.
I shared more hugs with her parents before I sent them down the corridor to say goodbye to Philip. James was sat on the floor at the foot of her bed.
"Mind if I stay? I've already said goodbye," James had asked me. I just nodded.
When I didn't think any more tears could possibly come, I looked at her tiny, damaged body. Each machine’s beeping got louder and louder until I couldn't hear anything else and I completely broke down, sobbing into the blanket wrapped around her feet.
I felt James' hand on my back, trying to console me through his own pain while I incoherently begged her not to die.
After a while, I managed to get a hold of myself and sat with him on the floor, leaning my head against the foot of her bed.
We sat in silence for a little while, both of us thinking.
"How long have you been in love with my sister?" he’d asked as we sat side by side, legs stretched out in front of us.
"Five years, pretty much to the day," I said honestly.
"Explains a lot."
"I bet it does," I said, knowing that I've answered years of his questions that I'd managed to avoid until that moment.
"Does she know?"
I just shook my head. "Philip did, though."
Maggie was in a coma for 2 weeks while her body repaired itself.
With 6 months of intense rehabilitation, she was back at work again and back to her normal self. At least, she was particularly good at pretending to be herself. I could tell, though. The sparkle that I loved most about her had gone.
Things between us were the worst they'd ever been. I'd spent years ignoring her, pushing away because I couldn't bear to see her so happy. Now, it was her turn to do it to me and she pushed me away every chance she got.
She couldn't even look at me anymore; it was like I didn't exist. The only time she would see me was when she was annoyed at me so I started annoying her on purpose. I'd flirt with her assistant and find any excuse to walk by her desk or hang my arm around her shoulder just so I could bait her into talking to me. Sometimes, she would bite; sometimes, she'd let her guard down and would lean into me sightly but, most times, she would just turn and walk away.
Eventually, Maggie found a way to at least tolerate me being around which was more than likely because she had to for us to work together as Heads of Departments.
I never told her how I felt about her, no matter how much James begged me to, but I continued to love her from a distance.
"You could make her happy, you know. She would make you happy, too, if she knew," he'd say but I had no intention of telling her how I felt; there was really no point when she hated me so much.
She still mourned the loss of her husband and a part of me felt like loving her openly would betray the memory of my friend. So, we carried on like that for years until, one day, our dads decided to retire and - lo and behold - they asked us to take over the company... Together.
Maggie wasn't happy about having to work alongside me any more than she was already doing and I didn't blame her but, with a little persuasion, she agreed to go along with it and I decided then that I wouldn't hide anything from her anymore. It was my mission to prove to her that I wasn't the horrible person I made myself out to be.
That was the start of our love story. I eventually figured out that I got the best response from her when I wasn't trying too hard to flirt with her or get her to bite. From there, it took six weeks of my charming personality and multiple dates with other men for her to realise that she, in fact, loved me, too.
One night, I'd rescued her from a terrible blind date that Laura set up at a rundown pub in the East End. I had an idea of what Laura had done when she sent me a text with the name of a pub and the time I should arrive.
By this point, the only person who didn't know how I felt about Maggie was Maggie herself and I had planned on telling her that night.
So, that's how our first real date began, when she burst through a fire door and into my arms. Maggie didn't even realise it was a date. That's on me since, for most of my adult life, I've been telling her I don't date, that I only pick-up random girls from bars... I'm fairly sure I asked her on the date, though, but I could be wrong. I'm often wrong but I try not to let Maggie realise that.
What I vividly remember is the trip we took to A&E after Maggie had an unfortunate karaoke accident, resulting in a broken foot and her getting so high on painkillers that she outright told the doctor how she felt about me, not realising I could hear every word. I took her home so I could care for her and she begged me to kiss her. Okay, she didn't beg but, in my head, it makes the fact I didn't kiss her even more of an achievement, especially since it's all I'd thought about doing for most of my life.
Although I'm a tough guy on the outside, I'm a bit of a romantic when it comes to Maggie. I wanted our first kiss to be special and I needed to know it was what she wanted when she was sober.
Instead, she slept in my arms and it was the best night’s sleep I'd ever had.
I didn't have to wait long as we shared our first kiss the next night, surrounded by stars and fairy lights in the wooden summer house at the bottom of her mum and dad’s garden.
I've had a lot of first kisses in my time, more than I'm
proud to admit, but nothing compares to that night with Maggie. Like I say, I'd wanted to kiss her since I was 18 and had often pictured her face when I was hooking up with some other girl. Yeah, I'm not proud of that either but it's true, none the less. That night, as we hid from the rest of the party, I confessed that I was in love with her. I didn't tell her the full extent of how in love with her I was (I didn't want to completely freak her out) but I told her enough to show her I was being sincere which resulted in spending the rest of the weekend wrapped up in each other.
I knew it would be tough and I should have expected the mild freak out she had and her hiding away for a few days so she could address everything she was going through. In the end, we managed to work through it together.
It's the first time I've been completely happy in my life, where I'm not constantly pining for something else. Since the moment we got together, everything has gone right for us.
Loving her openly felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders and I could finally be honest with both of us. The years of angst and pain have finally paid off and she’s mine and I'm hers. She's my best friend, my partner and my girlfriend, all in one beautiful and hilarious, tiny package.
Since that night, we've had an incredible year together. We've found our way as business owners; we even took some time off to visit her cousin in New York for a few days as we travelled down the East Coast. She moved into my flat just before Christmas, bringing her many cushions and candles which I didn't understand at first but, now, find quite comforting.
And that brings us to tonight, our first anniversary. Where better to bring her than back to our first date spot.
The steps of Potters Field Park, overlooking the Thames provide a beautifully romantic backdrop. Tower Bridge is illuminated, lights twinkle from the skyscrapers in the city and the Tower of London (which, granted, is less romantic what with all the beheadings and things) always looks good in the dark.
"I could look at this view every day for the rest of my life and not get bored," I say as we tuck into our vast array of food from the pop-up food market that sets up here throughout the year.
